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Hardly a   /hˈɑrdli ə/   Listen
Hardly a

adjective
1.
Very few.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Hardly a" Quotes from Famous Books



... a round bay; at the entrance a barrier-reef breaks the swell, which glides in a soft undulation over the quiet water, splashing up on the sandy beach. All around is the forest, hanging in shadowy bowers over the water, and hardly a breeze is astir. The white whale-boat of the Anglican missionary floats motionless on the green mirror; sometimes a fish leaps up, or a pigeon calls from the woods. In the curve of the bay the shore rises in two terraces; on the lower lies the Anglican missionary's ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... Richardot to Ostend, into which the promised meeting of all the Spanish commissioners in that city had dwindled. Meantime there was an exchange of the most friendly amenities between the English and their mortal enemies. Hardly a day passed that La Motte, or Renty, or Aremberg, did not send Lord Derby, or Cobham, or Robert Cecil, a hare, or a pheasant, or a cast of hawks, and they in return sent barrel upon barrel of Ostend oysters, five or six ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... is very confusing and fatiguing; physically, because distances are so immense. People live everywhere, from the Ile St.-Louis to the gates of St.-Cloud. Hardly a part of Paris where some one you know does not live. The very act of leaving a few cards takes a ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... difference of rank between them. It was transparently the coarse work of a practical joker; but Henke in his conceit believed in the high-born heiress, and this dream quite turned his head. He ever afterwards posed as a fine gentleman, ogled all the elegant women of the town, and had hardly a glance left for his wife. She worked and pinched for him in order that he might be able to enjoy his aristocratic tastes, and thought herself happy because he bore with her. And he was always urging her to work and earn money, as he longed to become rich and ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... when our lights gave out.... and while we sat huddled together the subject of 'ghosts' came up.... 'Ghosts!' the 'prisoner' almost snarled; 'that reminds me of the Jewish propaganda against my Government.... There was hardly a Yiddish banker in the world who did not accuse ME personally of inspiring Sheglovitov to have the Jews executed for ritualistic murder; and I am sure their influence will be very strong with certain statesmen and opportunists to have my Empire ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe

... more of the country." The fellow was nearly the death of me, talking of ships and voyages, and of the boats he had steered, the last thing in the world I wished to hear. He had sailed out of New Bedford, so he said, for "that Joe Wing they call 'John.'" My friend and host found hardly a chance to edge in a word. Before we parted my host dined me with a cheer that would have gladdened the heart of a prince, but he was quite alone in his house. "My wife and children all rest there," ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... unblinking in stony expectancy. He came and stood before her, and she knew that at last he had guessed, and felt no fear, no resistance against the explanation that must come. He suddenly had lost all significance, was hardly a human organism, or if a human organism, one that had no relation to her. Neither spoke for some minutes. He was afraid, and she waited, knowing what he was going to say, wishing it was said, and the hampering persistence of his ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... A movement arose for beautifying the studies, which began with pseudo-Japanese lamp-shades, and moved upward through pretty curtains and tablecloths to framed "Medici" pictures. Before the end there was hardly a study that had not its big framed Medici, and often a selection of ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell

... first time. "It is hardly a point of fact," he said, "but if his lordship would like me to answer for my impression, of course I shall do so. There was something about the thing that was not exactly a woman and yet was not quite a man; somehow the curves were ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... and surely on by the deep, mighty rush of waters setting into the throat of the cataract. The heavy roar from far below sounded like the luckless lad's knell. He stood but a single chance—and that was hardly a chance—of his ice-raft lodging against a tilted-up "jam" of cakes and logs which had piled against a jagged ledge that rose in mid-stream, just above the ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... than was quite calculable. Axel was fairly certain that Klutz had set fire to the stables. Absolutely certain he could not be, but the first blaze had occurred so nearly at the moment when Klutz must have reached them on his way home, that he had hardly a doubt about it. It was his duty as Amtsvorsteher to institute inquiries. If these inquiries ended in the arrest of Klutz, the whole silly story about Anna would come out, for Klutz would be only too eager to explain the reasons that had driven him to the act; ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... walk half an hour, rest five minutes, with almost the regularity of clockwork. We timed the Indians secretly, and found they varied by hardly a minute from absolute fidelity to this schedule. We had at first, of course, to gain the higher level of the hills, but Tawabinisay had the day before picked out a route that mounted as easily as the country would allow, and through a hardwood forest free of underbrush. Briefly ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... grease-pencilled incontinence and perfidy; but the child he seduced, incidents of the seduction charged with the beauty of pity, thronged Lee's mind with sensations and ideas. However, it was the world surrounding the central motive, the action, that most engaged him; hardly a trait of generosity dignified it; and, exaggeratedly as a universal meanness and self-righteous cruelty was shown, it scarcely departed, he ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... giving you a cup,' said Mrs. Lahens, 'but I think you might have taken the trouble to change your clothes: that's hardly a costume to receive ladies in. Look at him, Lady Castlerich—that's what ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... Hardly a minute elapsed before the Jew was back again, carrying his precious steelyard with ostentatious care. It was of an ordinary kind. A spring balance, fitted with a hook, held the article to be weighed; a pointer, ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... the current were the first materials used, and for a time the water filtered through them with hardly a pause. Then the beavers began laying mud and stones and moss on this brush foundation, scooping them up with their hands, and holding them under their chins as they waddled or swam to the dam. The Beaver himself was not very good at this sort of ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert

... variable of all domesticated animals, and probably the goose is the next least variable; but even the goose varies more than almost any wild bird, so that it cannot be affiliated with perfect certainty to any natural species. Hardly a single plant can be named, which has long been cultivated and propagated by seed, that is not highly variable; common rye (Secale cereale) has afforded fewer and less marked varieties than almost ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand, because we were too far and could not remember, because we were traveling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign—and no memories. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... capitalist, was far preferable to our counting-house system. Thus these mercantile companies, with their hundred ramifications, largely influenced the economy of every Roman of note. There was, according to the testimony of Polybius, hardly a man of means in Rome who had not been concerned as an avowed or silent partner in leasing the public revenues; and much more must each have invested on an average a considerable portion of his capital in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... 'listen to me. A short time ago I was so weary of you, that, with hardly a reason I sought to rid myself of your presence. I then proposed a separation upon any terms that pleased you, not thinking it likely that I should ever marry again. I would have been generous then, had you yielded to my wishes. Since then the aspect ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... bed; and Saturday night followed quickly on Monday morning. It was scarcely credible that sixteen weeks had passed, thus, since her mother's death,—sixteen weeks whose retrospect showed no achievement of any kind, and hardly a desire. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... such a hot day yesterday, just like summer. The fatigue of such a day is felt all the more because there is hardly a resting-place for the sole of one's foot. To-day has been wet. The men have been finishing the house, and have fixed the stove in the kitchen. Repetto and Swain have managed the piping splendidly, and out of tins have made plates to place over the woodwork which the pipe passes through. ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow

... could not go on. The fire itself was hardly a quarter of a mile distant, directly across the lake, but to follow the long shore was an insuperable mile. Already his leg muscles were failing him, refusing to the respond to the impulse of his nerves. Yet it might be that if he could make himself heard his enemies would leave the girl for a moment, ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall

... on to say, "you know how powerful this glass is, and how it shows up the smallest of things when the sun is just right? It's doing that now. I can look down on the sand spit at the point; and for a lonely spot where hardly a man ever comes from November to June, it looks pretty ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy

... of my associations were made so many years ago, that I have reached the age when hardly a month goes by (sometimes I think hardly a week) that I am not called upon to send some message of consolation to a family with whom we have been connected, and who have met with some fresh bereavement. Only recently I counted up the names of the early ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller

... more Importance to see, than to hear what he said. His Face was as little a Blab as most Mens, yet though it could not be called a prattling Face, it would sometimes tell Tales to a good Observer. When he thought fit to be angry, he had a very peevish Memory; there was hardly a Blot that escaped him. At the same time that this shewed the Strength of his Dissimulation, it gave warning too; it fitted his present Purpose, but it made a Discovery that put Men more upon their Guard against him. Only ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... Rosetta, dropping into an armchair with a long sigh of weariness, "I guess you'll admit now, Charlotte Wheeler, that you are hardly a fit person to have charge of a baby, even if you had to go and steal it from me. I should think your conscience would reproach you—that is, if any woman who would marry Jacob Wheeler in such an underhanded fashion ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... but it was once. And it's quite flat. And there is a great dike, twenty feet wide, oozing through it just oozing, you know; and lots of little dikes, at right angles with the big one. And the fields are all square. And there are no hedges and hardly a tree to ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... beseeching a loan of you and my Cousin Milly. I see no reason your uncle can possibly have for refusing me; and, therefore, I count confidently on seeing you both at Elverston to-morrow, to stay for at least a week. I have hardly a creature to meet you. I have been disappointed in several visitors; but another time we shall have a gayer house. Tell Milly—with my love—that I will not forgive her if ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... showing the percentage of local names ending in 'ham' in various counties disproves his view completely. For the distribution of the suffix 'ham' and the frequency of Roman country-houses and farms do not coincide. In Norfolk, for instance, 'ham' is common, but there is hardly a trace of a Roman country-house or farm in the whole county (Victoria Hist. of Norfolk, i. 294-8). Somerset, on the other hand, is crowded with Roman country-houses, and has ...
— The Romanization of Roman Britain • F. Haverfield

... 'too lovely.' Reginald's penholder was the very thing she had been wanting for an age. Dear little Eva's pomatum-pot was perfection. The point-lace handkerchief Ida had worked in secret was exquisite. Blanche's crochet slippers were so lovely that their not being big enough was hardly a fault. They were much too pretty to be worn. Urania contributed a more costly gift, in the shape of a perfume cabinet, all ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... hardly a thing you can talk over calmly with a husband, even if he—We don't want any unpleasantness, and—er—(Taking her hands again) Besides, I want you, Kate. It may be weeks before he comes back. We can't go on like ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne

... German heart in this noble river! And right it is; for, of all the rivers of this beautiful earth, there is none so beautiful as this. There is hardly a league of its whole course, from its cradle in the snowy Alps to its grave in the sands of Holland, which boasts not its peculiar charms. By heavens! If I were a German I would be proud of it too; and of the clustering grapes, that hang about its temples, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... corn runs into a measure, and is weighed. By measures of forty bushels each, the tale is kept. There stands the apparatus, with the figures plainly marked, over against the porter's eye; and as the sum mounts nearly up to forty bushels he closes the door till the grains run thinly through, hardly a handful at a time, so that the balance is exactly struck. Then the teller standing by marks down his figure, and the record is made. The exact porter touches the string of another door, and the forty bushels of corn run ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... than trembled, in the still air; the deep, clear blue of the sky overhead told them to be in no hurry—they would have to wait till the afternoon for clouds. In the perfect silence (for the humming of the bees in the heather was hardly a sound at all) he could hear every soft modulation of her voice—though, to be sure, it was not lovers' talk that passed between them. "Mr. Moore, won't you have the rest of this soda-water?" or, "Yes, one of those brown biscuits, thank you," or, "Please, Mr. Moore, will you crush those bits ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... since then, and the swift Tonneraire is homeward bound with despatches. Many were killed and wounded, among others good old Simmons, the master, who fell at Jack's side on the deck of a French man-o'-war. He would never grumble again; his deep bass, honest voice would be heard no more. There was hardly a dry eye in the ship when the kindly old man's hammock was dropped overboard in ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables

... hit us, yet there is hardly a farmhouse in our country that will not, however unconsciously, be affected by these far-off events. We may not witness the trains of weary refugees trailing over the roads, but (if we could but see the picture) ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... up on your nervousness when you get this, for I shall almost certainly be in a safer zone. We've done more than our share and must be withdrawn soon. There's hardly a battery which does not deserve a dozen D.S.O.'s with a ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson

... turned off at once into a side street, and rode beside Frank for some distance, respecting in silence his young companion's grief, hardly a word passing till they reached the Guards' stables and left their horses, which looked, by the light of the men's lanthorns, as if they had passed through a river. Then the pair hurried across the Park, feeling half-stunned by their adventure, Frank so entirely, exhausted that he would ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... circled round my raft, lazily, with hardly a flip of the wing. And I could not help wondering, in spite of the distress I was in, where it had spent last night—how it, or any other living thing, had weathered such a smashing storm. It made me realize the great big difference between different creatures; and that ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... than it should go forth to the world that so high a functionary as an alderman of London had made a request to a theatrical manager, he thought it advisable to inform the public that Mr. Elliston had offered the use of his property for the procession of the 9th. This was hardly a fair way of stating the case, but at length the following paragraph, drawn up by Elliston, was agreed upon for publication in the newspapers:—"We understand that Mr. Elliston has lent to the Lord Mayor elect the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... preservation," or that it was "literally without a patch or blemish." The present writer was for twenty years a member of the cathedral foundation, and lived just opposite the west front. He made a special study of the history and fabric of the cathedral. Hardly a year passed without something falling down; sometimes a piece of a pinnacle, sometimes a crocket or other ornament, sometimes a shaft. Old engravings of the spires show the pinnacles broken. Many of ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting

... and their executive function has, in substance, grown very large, because the British government is carried on by the cabinet, which is practically a committee of the House of Commons. But of the judicial function, which was the principal function of the Great Council at the time of the Conquest, hardly a shred remains. It is the history of all countries that people are not jealous of the judicial power, while they are extremely anxious to seize the legislative and executive. With us, however, we are supposed to have all three functions co-ordinate and in good ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... never been effaced. Once dilated to the scale of the master's eye, the disciples' sight could not contract to any lesser prospect. The technique which Hegel used to prove his vision was the so-called dialectic method, but here his fortune has been quite contrary. Hardly a recent disciple has felt his particular applications of the method to be satisfactory. Many have let them drop entirely, treating them rather as a sort of provisional stop-gap, symbolic of what might some day prove possible of execution, but having no literal ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... his death. Appositely enough, it was an invocation to Health, meriting more than ordinary praise for eloquent fervor. Warton died May 21st, 1790. The laurel was vacant for a month, when Henry James Pye was gazetted. There was hardly a hungry placeman in London who had not as just pretensions to the honor. What poetical gifts he had displayed had been in school or college exercises. His real claims consisted in having spent a fortune in electioneering for ministers; and these claims ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... who had watched over him with hardly a moment's rest, left the room for a quarter of an hour, to listen to what the doctors had to say—there were four of them in the drawing-room below. When she and her husband entered the sick-room again, the old man had moved in his ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner

... 9:40 o'clock, April, 7., when Judge Helm entered the court-room. Immediately the hum of conversation which had been going on at a lively rate stopped, as, with hardly a pause after sitting down, the Judge ordered the Sheriff to open the court. Every seat in the spectators gallery by this time was taken. Judge Helm at once went to the business of the day, calling "Case 2,296, the Commonwealth vs. Scott Jackson," and directing the Sheriff ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown

... his word, and after that hardly a week of any kind of weather passed but he mounted the steps to the door of the ugly little house in which I lived, two miles away from him, and asked me to walk. These walks continued, I suppose, until Lowell went abroad for a winter in the early seventies. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... road, we for awhile lost sight of the valley. When we again came in view of it, it was rapidly filling with clouds, but at first their interposition was hardly a disadvantage; they gave a vague indefinite grandeur to the cliffs and mountains, which seemed to rise one knew not from what depth, and lose their summits in regions beyond our ken. The breaks, too, that occurred ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various

... for once in the history of Arctic currents, they found themselves being carried where they wanted to go, in a direct line for Point On-na-tak, and during the entire four days and a half there was hardly a point's deviation from the course. On the evening of the fourth day, Dave thought he sighted land, and the midnight watch reported definitely that there was land to the port bow; two points, one more easily discerned than the other. This news brought the whole ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell

... length to one of the dingiest, whose number was illegible, but whose door stood open, he walked in, and up to the second floor, where he knocked at the first door on the landing. The feeble sound of what was hardly a voice answered. He went in. There sat Arthur, muffled in an old rug, before a wretched fire, in the dirtiest, rustiest grate he had ever seen. He held out a pallid hand, and greeted him with a sunless smile, but ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... colonel went to the general, and the general almost put him under arrest. 'Why does Colonel Grigsby come to me to learn how to deal with mutineers? Shoot them where they stand.'—Kernstown, too. There's hardly a man of the Stonewall that doesn't think General Garnett justified in ordering that retreat, and yet look at Garnett! Under arrest, and the commanding general preferring charges against him! Says he did not wait for orders, lost the battle and so on. With Garnett it is a deadly serious ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... and the weary wanderings of the devoted band were resumed. Depressed, worn-out, hopeless, they trudged onward, hardly a man among them looking for aught but death in those forest wilds. Juan Ortiz, the most useful man in the band, died, and left the enterprise still more hopeless. But De Soto, worn, sick, emaciated, was indomitable still and the dream of a brilliant success lingered as ever in his brain. He tried ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... practical object, and it was an interesting and instructive amusement to watch for the moment at which he would ship the belt of his colloquial machinery on to the tight pulley. It was done so easily and naturally that there was hardly a sign of it. Master Gridley could usually detect the shifting action, but the young man's features and voice never ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... this errand that the two ladies, in company with Westy Gaines and Bowfort, had departed on the day which found Justine restlessly measuring the length of the library. She and Mrs. Ansell had the house to themselves; and it was hardly a surprise to her when, in the course of the afternoon, Mrs. Ansell, after a discreet pause on the threshold, advanced toward her down the ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... times, and left more or less of their impress on the surgery of the present day, for that matter, it was not until the second half of the Nineteenth Century that regional surgery (which is what specialism virtually amounts to) was systematically cultivated. Now there is hardly a portion of the body to which practitioners who make its ailments a specialty do not direct their searching methods of examination or on which they do not practise their ingenious devices in the way of treatment. Specialism has always been decried ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... to the divine command, and the beautiful little alpine harebell is cradled into life, and rejoices in the bright embroidery it wears. And so, wherever streams are turned aside to flow through new meads and sheltered woods, or over broken and swaly places where cowslips never grew before, hardly a year will pass before this "wan flower" will hang therein "its pensive head," while all along the line of the stream the black alder will make its appearance in the lowlands, no matter how far its current may be diverted from ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... I do not yet despair. It is hardly a year ago that the father-in-law of one of our comrades recovered from an almost identical attack; and I saw him when he was much worse than this; suppuration had ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... week there was hardly a day that he did not read some startling paragraph in the newspapers about "the celebrated Scandinavian pianist," whose appearance at S—— Hall was looked forward to as the principal event of the coming season. He inwardly rebelled against the well-meant exaggerations; ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... meantime, friends, relations, acquaintances had exhausted themselves in contrivances for pleasure parties. Scarcely a day passed but something new and unexpected was set on foot. There was hardly a pretty spot in the country round which had not been decked out and prepared for the reception of some merry party. And now our young visitor, before departing, wished to do his part as well, and invited the young couple, with a small family circle, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... homes, on the alms extracted by their woes, to setting about such labor as would place them in comfort. Then that large class—the shiftless— was now doubly large, and there were widows and orphans in abundance, and there was hardly a bed or ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... though more or less remote. It was customary for the sovereigns of Nineveh to give their daughters in marriage to important officials or lords of their court, and owing to the constant contraction of such alliances through several centuries, there was hardly a noble family but had some royal blood in its veins; and that of Sargon was probably no exception to the rule. His genealogy was traced by the chroniclers, through several hundred generations of princes, to the semi-mythical heroes who had founded the city of Assur; but as Assur-nazir-pal ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... cities and of nations, together with descriptions of the earth, which have become exhaustless sources for the writers of modern times, must have been but sterile themes at a period in which history was confined within the limits of a few centuries, and hardly a sixth part of the world now known had been discovered. Add to these considerations the difficulties of communication, by which the inhabitants of different countries, and often those of different sections of the same country, were kept apart, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... of real dry wood, you know, Elmer," he went on to say in his wheedling way, "so that there ain't going to be hardly a whiff of smoke that anybody could see with a field glass. And say, when you're all tuckered out with pushing a boat through the grass and lily-pads, nothing makes you feel so fine as a brimming cup of coffee. So please ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas

... consequence the blacks, who are equally worthy of support, are being rather neglected. Certainly it is the case that whereas one sees at most shows big classes of the former filled with a good level lot with hardly a bad specimen amongst them, the classes devoted to the latter, besides not being so well filled, are much more uneven, and always contain a large proportion of weeds and toys. A few years ago the black classes were immeasurably superior to the coloured, ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... critical. That the wild-eyed visitor was demented, there was hardly a doubt, but his madness was ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger

... ain't steam-engines, sir, and we might be where there was no place for landing. O' course we could always hitch on to the trees, but that makes poor mooring, and we should be better able to make our way. There's hardly a chance of getting into slack water in a river like this: it all ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... block on First Street. Here was seen one of the best examples of the worst class of dwellings, and one in which legislation had accomplished but little. Here was a building where the law had not been complied with regarding whitewashing, and the walls were dirty and stained with smoke. Hardly a house was seen, in the whole course of the journey, where this simple law in the interest of health and sanitary condition of living had been observed. In many cases, it appeared as though it had not only been neglected ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... which she knew well, guided her through obscure dialects of Italy and Sicily, but Castilian, Portuguese, and Catalan she puzzled out for herself with such natural insight that the experts to whom these translations have been submitted found hardly a word to change. 'After all,' as she herself wrote, 'ballads are simple things, and require, as a rule, but a limited vocabulary, though a peculiarly ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse

... gave the strange men hardly a thought. There were so many things to be done in preparation ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr

... (if I took any personal part in these things) I should not have an instant's hesitation in voting against any party interference with the manner in which the K—— in Council, as head of the Church, has directed his family to be prayed for, yet I have hardly a doubt, from what I hear, that the majority of this House of Commons will ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... hardly a sin or vice you didn't take upon yourself—things so hateful you'd have had to undergo strict penitence before demanding absolution. Now you're yourself again I can ask whether there are ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg

... as an anti-machine progressive, and if the machine conservatives threatened he might hope for support from the Nebraskan orator. From the first the real contest appeared to be between Wilson and Champ Clark, who although hardly a conservative, was backed for the moment by the machine leaders. The deciding power was in Bryan's hand, and as the strife between conservatives and radicals waxed hot, he turned to the support of Wilson. On the forty-sixth ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... a dozen oil-lamps standing at long intervals apart are lighted, but when it is even moderately starlight these aids to finding one's way about are prudently dispensed with. There is not a single handsome and hardly a decent building in the whole place. The streets, as I saw them after rain, are veritable sloughs of despond, but they are capable of being changed by dry weather into deserts of dust. It is true, I have only been as yet twice down ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... full confidence in the Meer Walli's integrity of purpose, we affected to lay aside all personal precaution and courted his society, of which, to say truth, he seemed disposed to give us plenty. We had several interviews with him,—indeed, hardly a day passed without his sending for and honouring us with his presence for ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... the end of his stick, a change of his hat from the horizontal to the less so; a sense of tediousness announced itself in a lowering of the person by spreading the knees to a lozenge-shaped aperture and contorting the arms. Chicanery, subterfuge, had hardly a place in the streets of this honest borough to all appearance; and it was said that the lawyers in the Court House hard by occasionally threw in strong arguments for the other side out of pure generosity (though apparently by mischance) when advancing ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... been an officer in the Royal Engineers during the Revolutionary War. His efforts to obtain reforms were met by the friends of the governor, Mr. Carleton, with the most violent opposition. He was denounced as an incendiary, and indeed there was hardly a limit to the fierceness with which he was attacked for attempting to bring about an improvement in the system of government. The old Family Compact and their friends were ever ready to tell the public how loyal they were, and to denounce as a traitor ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... blazing cheerily, and we three talking of the old times, with hardly a thought of ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society

... hoped and believed it would. Ford spent a thoughtful hour at his office in the Guaranty Building before Frisbie came down—the little man being trail-weary enough to sleep late in the comfortable room at the Brown Palace. The slight change of route was hardly a matter to be carried up to the executive committee, and Ford's decision turned upon quite another pivot—the addition of twelve miles of distance. As against this, safety and economy won the day; and when Frisbie came in the talk was merely of ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... circumstances more favourable to their finding it fair to the sight. Three dreary months had elapsed since we had left the glories of London behind us; for nearly the whole of that time we beheld no other architecture than what our ship and steam-boats had furnished, and excepting at New Orleans, had seen hardly a trace of human habitations. The sight of bricks and mortar was really refreshing, and a house of three stories looked splendid. Of this splendour we saw repeated specimens, and moreover a brick church, which, from its two little peaked spires, is ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... mind that garbage-disposal was hardly a subject one would expect to be discussing in interplanetary space. But the Platform wasn't the same thing as a spaceship. A ship could jettison refuse and leave it behind, or store it during a voyage and dump it at either end. But the Space Platform would never land. ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster

... studies, had from his youth been much addicted to judicial astrology, geomancy, and other secret arts, wherein he became exceedingly skilful. Not content with what he had learned from masters, he travelled; and there was hardly a person of note in any science whom he did not know, so great was his thirst ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... continued my journey towards Riberac, and reached the Dronne when the stormy day was ending without a cloud. There was hardly a breath of wind to shake the drops from the still dripping leaves, and the last groan of distant thunder having died away, there would have been deep silence but for the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... even in the first purely formulary ones, there is the sketch for a comedy, a novelette or a satire. There is hardly a sentence without its 'point', an expression without a vivid fancy. There are unrivalled niceties. The abbot of the Abbatis et eruditae colloquium is a Moliere character. It should be noticed how well Erasmus ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... inquired how many professors there were, and they replied not one, that there was not enough money to support one. We asked how many students there were. They said at first, thirty, and then came down to twenty; I afterwards understood there are probably not ten. They knew hardly a word of Latin, not one of them, so that my comrade could not converse with them. They took us to the library where there was nothing particular. We looked over it a little. They presented us with a glass of wine. This is all we ascertained ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts

... occupied with the universe. He is as supramundane in his way as Shelley in his. And no part of the universe was more real to him than heaven, the abode of God and angels and spirits, the original and ultimate home of his beloved music and light. It is noticeable that there is hardly a single poem of his—L'Allegro and Samson are the only important ones—in {100} which he does not at one point or other make his escape to heaven. In most of them, as all through this Ode and the Solemn Music, in the conclusions of Lycidas and ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... "It is hardly a case of royalist and rebel, sir, but the deliberate action of a man suppressing all knowledge of the existence of his own nephew, in order that he might himself obtain the property of ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty

... calmly tell you that "Algonquin Avenue in the sleighing season can discount this out of sight." Something is to be pardoned to the spirit of liberty; and the avenue is certainly a fine one. It is three miles long and has hardly a shabby house in it, while for a mile or two the houses upon one side, locally called "the Ridge," are unusually line, large, and costly. They are all surrounded with well-kept gardens and separated from the street by velvet lawns ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... for the spread of Unitarianism. Promising openings were found at Erie, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Marietta, Tremont, Jacksonville, Memphis, and Nashville, in which villages or cities churches were soon after formed. It was reported at this time that there was hardly a town in the West where there were not Unitarians, or in which it was not possible by the right kind of effort to establish a ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke

... of age, with excellent result. From 4 to 12 years of age I had convulsions (often), and all the illnesses of childhood. At the age of 121/2 years I took scarlet fever, followed by a weak heart, which grew stronger after a year, and Bright's disease, which lasted fifteen years with hardly a break. This illness had its wonted effect of producing melancholia and upsetting the whole nervous system. Bright's disease stopped suddenly but was followed by a succession of illnesses. Then I had neuritis very badly. I then removed to Bavaria, and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... that New York fared worse than any of her sister States. There is hardly a business man in any community in the United States who cannot cite many cases of similar discrimination. Hundreds of well authenticated cases have been reported from every part of the country. A few striking ones may be given ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... I have said, hardly a sound of the Seven Years' War, the "Old French War" as Parkman called it. Only on its border was there the slightest bloodshed. All it knew was that the fleur-de-lis flags no longer waved along its rivers and that after a few years men came with axes and ploughs through the passes in the mountains ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... position only on his deathbed. These incidents have nothing in common with the parable related in the Gospel except that a son is lost and found, an event which occurs in a hundred oriental tales. What is much more remarkable, though hardly a case of borrowing, is that in both versions the chief personage, that is Buddha or God, is likened to a father as he also is in the parable of ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... Hardly a word passed but "Smith James, two; Sennet Widow, one; Hacklebury Nicholas, three;" with a "yes" after each, till they came to ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... with his dinner-hour,' for his dinner could be eaten any time. Not that there were any hospitals, properly speaking, in Constantinople; for though there was a place in the Greek quarter to which sick people were sent, hardly a single doctor could be found to attend them, and the only real hospital in the capital was for the benefit ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... search of. He was faint with hunger and beginning to despair, when on the fourth morning he saw in the distance an island that, in the first rays of the sun, gleamed like fire. On coming closer to it he saw that it was clad with trees, so covered with bright red berries that hardly a leaf was to be seen. Soon the boat was almost within a stone's cast of the island, and it began to sail round and round until it was well under the bending branches. The scent of the berries was so sweet that it sharpened the prince's hunger, and he longed to pluck them; ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... the archery-ground. But she did not look the worse under the chandeliers in the ball-room, where the soft splendor of the scene and the pleasant odors from the conservatory could not but be soothing to the temper, when accompanied with the consciousness of being preeminently sought for. Hardly a dancing man but was anxious to have her for a partner, and each whom she accepted was in a state of melancholy remonstrance that she ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... moments snatched from the pursuit of theoretical and practical knowledge. It would seem as if there were scarcely a field of modern science but he either foresaw it in vision, or clearly anticipated it, scarcely a realm of fruitful speculation of which he was not a freeman; and as if there were hardly a form of human energy which he did not manifest. And all that he demanded of life was the chance to be useful! Surely, such a man brings us the gladdest of all tidings—the wonderful possibilities of the human family, of whose ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson

... doing real work. The effect is invaluable. On the other hand, if one wishes to find types of boys to be avoided with utter dislike, one will find them in another story by Kipling, called "Stalky & Co.," a story which ought never to have been written, for there is hardly a single form of meanness which it does not seem to extol, or of school mismanagement which it does not seem to applaud. Bullies do not make brave men; and boys or men of foul life cannot become good citizens, good Americans, until they change; and even after the ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... in their houses; they come from municipal towns, or spring from some low family in the city; they may have raised themselves by their talents, perhaps only by their money, but they have no guarantee of antiquity, their names are not in our annals. All we true conservative Romans (and a, Roman is hardly a Roman if not conservative) profoundly believe that a man whose family has once attained to high public honour and done good public service, will be a safer person to elect as a magistrate than one whose family is unknown and untried—a ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler

... sensibility as the ear, and no impression reaches the sympathy so profoundly as the pathos of living speech, but the eye has a far wider range than the ear and fathoms the heavens and sweeps the earth and sea, whilst the ear hears distinctly but within a very narrow limit, hardly a stone's throw. When the eye, then, loses its marvellous faculty and sees no longer the light of day and the countenances of friends, let the ear do what it can to make up for the loss by every cheering word of sympathy and hope. In God's Providence there is a principle of compensation that ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... Betty! how, is that possible?—but no matter, I will introduce you. She keeps a morning rout; hardly a rout, indeed; a little bit of a drum—only four or five tables. Come, take your capuchine; you positively shall go. Booth, you shall go with us too. Though you are with your wife, another woman ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... to make their homes with us and their labor productive of general prosperity, but come under contracts with headmen, who own them almost absolutely. In a worse form does this apply to Chinese women. Hardly a perceptible percentage of them perform any honorable labor, but they are brought for shameful purposes, to the disgrace of the communities where settled and to the great demoralization of the youth of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant

... it to Ricardo to put away, and stood for a moment or two thoughtful and absorbed. Ricardo in his turn examined the petticoat. But he could see nothing unusual. It was an attractive petticoat, dainty with frills and lace, but it was hardly a thing to grow thoughtful over. He looked up in perplexity and saw that Hanaud was watching his investigations with ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason

... conversation was very trying to Julien's nerves. Nevertheless, he endeavored to fulfil his duties as master of the house, throwing in a word now and then, so as to appear interested in their gossip, but he ate hardly a mouthful. His features had a pinched expression, and every now and then he caught himself trying to smother a yawn. His companions at the table could not understand a young man of twenty-eight years who drank nothing but water, scorned all enjoyment in eating, and only laughed forcedly under ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet

... with modification besides Mr. Darwin's. Not one person in ten thousand has any distinct idea of what Buffon, Dr. Darwin, and Lamarck propounded. Their names have been discredited by the very authors who have been most indebted to them; there is hardly a writer on evolution who does not think it incumbent upon him to warn Lamarck off the ground which he at any rate made his own, and to cast a stone at what he will call the "shallow speculations" or "crude theories" or the "well-known doctrine" of the foremost exponent of Buffon ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... very beautiful, and so it remained, with a calm sea and hardly a breath of wind, until nearly sunset of the second day. Then clouds began to bank up, dark and threatening, and the glass—so Webb, the first mate, reported to the ...
— Crusoes of the Frozen North • Gordon Stables

... Union cause they had still less for the Confederate, and the invaders were greeted with exceeding coldness. Their unfailing good fortune, too, seemed to forsake the Confederates, and the battle of Antietam, one of the fiercest of the war, although hardly a victory for the Federals, was equal to a defeat for the Confederates. For fourteen hours the carnage lasted, and when at length night put an end to the slaughter thousands lay dead on either side. Next day, having in a fortnight lost half his army, Lee withdrew ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... that bottle in only the day before yesterday," he shouted, "and there's hardly a ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... Society, one could see one's way. One can deal with Society, because there are rules. But People are quite another thing.... Well, my dear, you may say they are not, but look at Clotilda—there's a case in point! I assure you, hardly a minute of the day passes but I feel I ought to do something. But what? One may say it's her own fault, and so it no doubt is, in a sense. No one is under any sort of obligation to go into these horrible places, which the Authorities ought not to allow to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... forth about guano, Vixen and Rorie were on the terrace, in the stillness and moonlight. There was hardly a breath of wind. It might have been a summer evening. Vixen was shrouded from head to foot in a white cloak which Rorie had fetched from the room where the ladies had left their wraps. She looked all white and solemn in the ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon

... Meteyard's advocacy than to the weakness of Mr. Wedgwood's logic. The fact, however, that this "excellent, even over-anxious father" was shocked at a neglect which imposed a burden on the generosity of Southey, is hardly a just ground for cutting off one of the supplies by which that burden was partially relieved. As to the assignment of the pension to the family, it is impossible to question what has been positively affirmed by an actual member of that family, the Rev. Derwent ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... dirt; the only question is whether it shall belong to a certain man known as Sultan or to another having the title of Czar. Neither of the two has ever seen or ever will see the patch of ground in dispute, and hardly a single one of these animals engaged in killing one another has ever seen the animal for whom they are thus employed." Again the stranger expresses his horror, and declares he has half a mind to annihilate with a kick or two the whole batch of ridiculous ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller

... sit together on the veranda, watching the moon rise over the rim of that wonderful valley, listening to the tree-toads in noisy convention or hearkening to the "plunk" of a trout leaping in the river below. Hardly a breath of air stirred in the valley. All was peace. ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... to Archbishop Ruggieri, there is no proof whatever of his having had any share in the business—hardly a ground of suspicion; so that historians look upon him as an "ill-used gentleman." Dante, in all probability, must have learnt the real circumstances of the case, as he advanced in years; but if charity is bound to hope that he would have altered the passage accordingly, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... staff. The Persian element in the provinces must, in fact, have been extraordinarily small—so small that an Empire, which for more than two centuries comprehended nearly all western Asia, has left hardly a single provincial monument of itself, graven on rock or carved ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth

... Archer's day was a small and slippery pyramid, in which, as yet, hardly a fissure had been made or a foothold gained. At its base was a firm foundation of what Mrs. Archer called "plain people"; an honourable but obscure majority of respectable families who (as in the case of the Spicers ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... hammer the sense upon it, like a piece of hot iron upon an anvil, into what form he pleases. There is no art in the world so rich in terms as poetry; a whole dictionary is scarce able to contain them; for there is hardly a pond, a sheep-walk, or a gravel-pit in all Greece, but the ancient name of it is become a term of art in poetry. By this means, small poets have such a stock of able hard words lying by them, as dryades, hamadryades, aoenides, fauni, nymphae, sylvani, &c. ...
— English Satires • Various

... the Old World, the national church is held in strict subjection to the civil authority, as in Great Britain and Russia, and is the slave of the state; in the other states of Europe, as France, Austria, Spain, and Italy, she is treated with distrust by the civil government, and allowed hardly a shadow of freedom and independence. In France, which has the proud title of eldest daughter of the church, Catholics, as such, are not freer than they are in Turkey. All religious are said to be free, and all ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... "And hardly a wonderfully, but a rather noticeably, blunt conscience. Many men have, you'll say, I know. But most of the men ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... cattle are no inconsiderable causes of loss. At Newera Ellia hardly a week passes without some casualty among the stock of different proprietors. Here the leopards are particularly daring, and cases have frequently occurred where they have effected their entrance to a cattle-shed ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... escaped by sea, which was fortunate, as Charles Felix had the will to establish a White Terror, and was only prevented by the circumstance that nearly all the proposed victims were outside his kingdom. Capital sentences were sent after them by the folio: there was hardly a noble family which had not one of its members condemned to death. When his brother, Victor Emmanuel, recommended mercy, he told him that he was entirely ready to give him back the crown, but that, while he reigned, he should reign after his own ideas. ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... hardly a challenge to me. However, to satisfy you that you have practically no control, let us make a test on your ...
— The Alternate Plan • Gerry Maddren

... consequence of the novelty of the doctrine, and the defective state of our knowledge of animated nature. It has, however, been so fully proved in the aves, and traced so clearly in other parts of the animal kingdom, and as a general feature of that part of nature, that hardly a doubt can exist of its being universally applicable. Even in the lowly forms of the acrita, (polypes,) the suctorial type of the animal kingdom, representation has been discerned, and with some remarkable results as to the history of our world. The acrita were the first forms of ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers

... true, that hardly a human soul worshipped here, but when the "Te Deum" rose toward heaven, thousands of blue, pink, and white blossoms turned their eyes upward wet with dewy moisture, the hoary mosses waved their tresses, the larches shook their ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... was out after midnight. What was the use of all this precaution? In the smaller streets there was even greater silence. Where one might have expected to find whatever dissatisfaction existed in the city, there was only the greater peace. Hardly a light shone out from any of the dark buildings, no one lurked in shadowy corners, and although the soldiers had been ordered to be especially careful tonight, there seemed to be even less than usual to demand their attention. They believed that the Princess Maritza ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... the want of more help, and one of the settlers braved public opinion, and every one began to talk about how shocking it was for an English gentleman to purchase slaves. But before many months had passed there was hardly a settler without slave labour, the principal exception being ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... in the morning until eleven at night"—had its birth on July 6, 1885. It struck the popular fancy immediately and soon there was hardly a city of any importance that did not possess its "continuous" house. From the "continuous" vaudeville has developed the two-performances-a-day policy, for which vaudeville is now so ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... Dempster[1200], and myself, had joined in writing a pamphlet, entitled, Critical Strictures, against it[1201]. That the mildness of Dempster's disposition had, however, relented; and he had candidly said, 'We have hardly a right to abuse this tragedy: for bad as it is, how vain should either of us be to write one not near so good.' JOHNSON. 'Why no, Sir; this is not just reasoning. You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... is hardly a village, The stable's old and poor, But there the star in heaven stands still Above ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various

... the levies raised by its commander, the Department of the Gulf had so far received no access of strength from any quarter. From the North had come hardly a recruit. In the intense heat and among the poisonous swamps the effective strength melted away day by day. Thus the numbers present fell 3,795 during the month of July; in October, when the sickly season had done its worst, the wastage reached a total of 5,390. At the time of the battle of ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... Hardly a trace is now left of any one of them, so sudden and overwhelming has been the march of modern progress. Even the little Peter Cooper House, picked up bodily by that worthy philanthropist and set down here nearly a hundred years ago, is gone, and so are the row ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... hardly a political tract or pamphlet of Burke's in which he does not state, in terms more or less clear, the fundamental principle in his theory of government. "Circumstances," he says in one place, "give, in reality, to every political principle, its distinguishing color and discriminating ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... moment to overbalance, and righted himself only by a vigorous effort, but finally he reached the room, and Peggy ran to meet him, aglow with relief. The key turned in the lock as she approached, and she rushed forward to select her stores with hardly a glance in Hector's direction, though with many eager expressions ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... they have used with no modesty or forbearance. There is not a page of the national history even in its local subdivisions which they have not stained with the atrabilious hue of their wounded remembrances: hardly a town in England, which stood a siege for the king or the parliament, but has some printed memorial of its constancy and its sufferings; and in nine cases out of ten the editor is a clergyman of the established church, who has contrived to deepen 'the sorrow of the time' by the harshness of his ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... shot a glance in Rose's direction. Rose, her cheeks mantling, was observing the two with interest. Sally's brain clicked an impression, and she listened to a stammering from Gaga which aroused her contempt. "He's hardly a man at all," she thought. "He's soppy. Rose can have him. I wish her joy of him. She can have him—and twenty like him, if she wants.... I don't know so much about that. Why should she? She's stuck up. Why shouldn't I have some ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... died out, or, at best, veered about bafflingly, too faint to offer relief. The cooling rains had not set in as yet, and a great blanket of heat wrapped the city in its smothering folds. The air was still and tainted, like that of a sick-room. Through Mrs. Cortlandt's open windows came hardly a sound; even from the sea below rose only a faint hissing, as if the rocks at the water's edge were superheated. Earlier in the evening the temperature had been bearable, but now it had reached an intensity ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... There is hardly a soldier, marine, or bluejacket who has been long in battle but can tell some tale of an experience under fire when the pressure became almost unbearable, and then was suddenly relieved because somebody made a wisecrack or pulled something that was good for ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... the lifebuoys, they deftly heaved them overboard. They fell with hardly a splash, dropping close to the ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... a First Aid Post, and R.A.M.C. men were hard at work. I had known those trenches for a month past, and I had never thought that Cross Street could appear so homelike. Hardly a shell was falling and the immediate din of battle had subsided. The sun was becoming hot, but the trees threw refreshing shadows over the wide, shallow brick-floored trenches built by the French two years before. The R.A.M.C. orderlies were speaking ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing

... For a time the Indians visited them, in the bitterest weather, but in December even this source of a game supply was cut off, for they came no more. The dreaded scurvy broke out, and before long there were hardly a dozen of the whole company able to care for the sick. Besides the general misery they were tormented by the fear that if the savages knew how feeble they were the camp might be attacked and destroyed. ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... Huge masses of iron were hurled in every direction, cutting through beams and stanchions, crashing through floors and bulkheads, and tearing through the agonized bodies of the men who served the guns. Hardly a man who was stationed in the gun-room escaped unhurt in the storm of iron and splinters. Several huge blocks of iron crashed through the upper deck, injuring the people on the deck above, and causing the cry to be raised, that the magazine had blown up. This unhappy calamity not only rendered ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... were a few paces behind. They halted before the china, which Mrs. Winter examined; but Mrs. Winslow's weary eyes lingered hardly a moment before they found some other object on which to rest ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various

... vast region is traversed its entire length by five great transcontinental lines of railroad. There is hardly a county in it not organized, and it is safe to say that there is not a township that is without an occupant. Its plains teem with all the products grown east of the Missouri River. It has become the great corn and wheat producing ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... to stay only two or three minutes longer, but he lingered nevertheless. The Indian campfire gave forth hardly a glimmer. The figures save those of the sentinels became invisible. The wind blew gently and sang among the leaves, as if the forest were always a forest of peace, although from time immemorial, throughout the world, it had been stained by bloodshed. But the forest spell which came over him at times ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... profession which is so able to absorb and utilise talents of every description. This is manifest in regard to such talents as those mentioned by Luther—a good voice, a good memory, etc. But there is hardly a power or an attainment of any kind which a minister cannot use in his work. How philosophical power can serve him may be seen in the preaching of Dr. Chalmers, whose sermons were always cast in a philosophical mould. ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker

... support; that prints are unsaleable, and no new publications appear but newspapers; that the tradesmen neglect their persons, very seldom shaving, and having frequently a cigar in their mouths; that the breath of the ladies smells of garlick; that the gentlemen smoke cigars in bed; that there is hardly a single manufactory in the kingdom belonging to a native in a flourishing state; that, from recent political events, the flocks have been neglected, and the wool deteriorated; that cleanliness is neglected, and rats and mice unmolested; that the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various

... motherhood of the zenana and the origin of the sun. An audience of fluttering fans and wrinkled shirt collars—the evening was warm under the gas-lights—sensuous, indolent, already amused with itself. Not an old woman in it from end to end, hardly a man turned fifty, and those who were had the air and looked to have the habits of twenty-five—an audience that might have got up and stretched itself but for good manners, and walked out in childish boredom at having to wait for the rise of the curtain, but ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... part contained receptacles as in the characteristic English court-cupboard. The rage for collecting china in the middle of the 18th century was responsible for a new form—the high glazed back, fitted with shelves, for the display of fine pieces of crockery-ware. This, however, was hardly a true buffet, and was the very antithesis of the primary arrangement, in which the huge goblets and beakers and fantastic pieces of plate, of which so extremely few examples are left, were displayed upon the open "gradines." ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... each with a heavy bundle of grain on his head, hurrying to and fro like a stream of busy ants. The women, with clothes tucked up above the knee, plod and plash through the water. They go at a half run, a kind of fast trot, and hardly a word is spoken—garnering the rice crops is too important an operation to dawdle and gossip over. Each hurries off with his burden to the little family threshing-floor, dumps down his load, gives a weary grunt, straightens his back, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... well up the western coast of South America and steaming rapidly toward the city of the Golden Gate. Hardly a breath of air rippled the bright waters, and the sky overhead was brilliant with its myriads of stars, whose gleam was intensified ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... him the money, and as Dromio was returning he met Antipholus of Syracuse, who was still in amaze at the surprising adventures he met with, for, his brother being well known in Ephesus, there was hardly a man he met in the streets but saluted him as an old acquaintance. Some offered him money which they said was owing to him, some invited him to come and see them, and some gave him thanks for kindnesses they said he had done them, all mistaking him for his brother. A tailor showed ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... intimations, but are capable of better things than we know. The pressure of some great emergency would develop in us powers, beyond the worldly bias of our spirits; and Heaven so deals with us, from time to time, as to call forth those better things. There is hardly a family in the world so selfish, but that, if one in it were doomed to die—one, to be selected by the others,—it would be utterly impossible for its members, parents and children, to choose out that victim; but that each would say, "I will die; but I cannot choose." And ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... palace. By a similar court revolution Averroes, in his old age—he died A.D. 1193—was expelled from Spain; the religious party had triumphed over the philosophical. He was denounced as a traitor to religion. An opposition to philosophy had been organized all over the Mussulman world. There was hardly a philosopher who was not punished. Some were put to death, and the consequence was, that Islam was full ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper



Words linked to "Hardly a" :   few



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