"Buff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... also to study the ways of the white ant, the great timber-destroying pest of this country, which abounds on this hill. He is a large ant of a pale buff color. Up the trunk of a tree he builds a tunnel of sand, held together by a viscid secretion, and under this he works, cutting a deep groove in the wood, and always extending the tunnel upward. I broke away two inches of such ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... nevertheless robbed the marble of its chastity, by giving it an artificial warmth of hue. Thus it became a sin and shame to look at his nude goddesses. They had revealed themselves to his imagination, no doubt, with all their deity about them; but, bedaubed with buff color, they stood forth to the eyes of the profane in the guise of naked women. But, whatever criticism may be ventured on his style, it was good to meet a man so modest and yet imbued with such thorough and simple conviction of his own right principles and practice, and so quietly satisfied that ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... brilliant company gathered within the old chateau of Vincennes for the royal hunt which was to take place on the morrow. In the great hall all was mirth and fun, as around the room raced king and courtiers in a royal game of "clignemusette"—"Hoodman Blind," or "Blindman's Buff," as we now know it. Suddenly the blindfolded king felt his arm seized, and the young Count of Guiche, who had just entered, whispered: "Sire, here is word from Fouquet that the parliament have moved to reconsider the ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... I had received my freedom suit of clothes—blue coat, bright buttons, black trousers, and buff vest. They were made by Daniel Cross, of Fitchburg, and, when in 1884, I visited that town, and found him still engaged in the business, I ordered a dress suit ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... the rooms tenanted by the learned Blackstone, who, at that time engaged in penning the fourth volume of his "Commentaries," was often grievously annoyed by the dancing- and drinking-parties, the games of blind-man's-buff, and the noisy singing of "poor Noll" and his boon companions. Goldsmith took up residence in the Temple in the spring of the year 1764, in a very shabby set of rooms, which he shared with Jeffs, the butler ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... Anthony saw that his elbows were bound behind his back, and his hands in front; the reins were drawn over his horse's head and a pursuivant held them on either side. The man was dressed as a layman, in a plumed hat and a buff jerkin, such as soldiers or plain country-gentlemen might use; and in the hat was a great paper with an inscription. Anthony ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... the Almighty Maker, who had given it those qualities;—and that Conrad, a junior member of the same, now goes forth from it in the way we see. "Why should a young fellow that has capabilities," thought Conrad, "stay at home in hungry idleness, with no estate but his javelin and buff jerkin, and no employment but his hawks, when there is a wide opulent world waiting only to be conquered?" This was Conrad's thought; and it proved to be ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... [1] Buff finds the quantity of electricity associated with one milligramme of hydrogen in water to be equal to 45,480 charges of a Leyden jar, with a height of 480 millimetres, and a diameter of 160 millimetres. Weber and Kohlrausch have calculated that, if the quantity ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... I became acquainted with the pretty figure of Moore,[3] or even ere the figure had been produced, the idea of flowers that had taken to flying. The wild honey bees, too, in their several species, had peculiar charms for me. There were the buff-coloured carders, that erected over their honey-jars domes of moss; the lapidary red-tipped bees, that built amid the recesses of ancient cairns, and in old dry stone walls, and were so invincibly brave in defending their homesteads, that ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... upon Newcastle at that time.' Much in the same way, and during the same night, a party of Royalist gentlemen and their servants, repaired to the inn on Rufford Abbey Green; and a real cart was driven to the door containing 'horse-arms,' fifty-six pair of pistols, two buff coats, two suits of arms, &c., and was then driven away, and the party broke up. So far the Protector's words are verified by the very full information that Thurloe collected regarding the Rufford Abbey incident; but if to the conspirators ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... I shall atone for it! I have already arranged with him that we shall have it out between ourselves alone, in the jungle, stripped to the buff, with our fists—Queensberry rules! I haven't fought since I stood up against Spinks Major—you remember old Spinks, now of the Bombay Offensibles?—at Eton." And the old boy pluckily bared his ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... natural formation of most people's noses allows them to see straight down beneath an ordinary bandage. I doubt if one child out of a hundred who plays 'Blind Man's Buff' is really unable to ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... visit the stately range of stables, where fifty gallant steeds stood in rows, on each side of the ample hall. At the side of each stall hung the weapons of offence and defence of a man-at-arms, as bright as constant attention could make them, together with the buff-coat which formed the trooper's under garment. The baron, followed by one or two of the domestics, who had assembled full of astonishment at the unusual alarm, hastened up betwixt the rows of steeds. As he approached the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various
... a pale pinkish-gray-buff, which may be called old ivory. It is not garish, as a dead white would be, especially in the strong California sunlight, but soft and restful to the eye. It harmonizes with the other colors selected, and, most important of all, it avoids a certain "new" effect which pure white would give, and which ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... equal use of every avenue for the attainment of wealth, and who intended to provide for the safeguarding of wealth after it was secured, could be such dolts as to allow themselves to be robbed of all their accumulated wealth by a device as simple as that by which children play at blindman's buff. The process was no more complex than that employed by the robber of old, who took the pebbles from the beach, marked them money, and with the money bought the labour of his fellows, and by the manipulation of that labour and by turning pebbles into money he took away from the labourer ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... Municipals obey: but the Soldiers of the Lafayette Army? The Soldiers of the Lafayette Army have, as all Soldiers have, a kind of dim feeling that they themselves are Sansculottes in buff belts; that the victory of the Tenth of August is also a victory for them. They will not rise and follow Lafayette to Paris; they will rise and send him thither! On the 18th, which is but next Saturday, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... of what the powdered footman may become when he unbends in the bosom of the family. When, in the privacy of his own apartments, the powder is washed off, the canary-seed pads removed from his aristocratic calves, and his scarlet and buff magnificence exchanged for a simple neglige, I should think he might be guilty of almost any indiscretion or violence. I for one would never consent to be the wife and children of a powdered footman, and receive him in his moments ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... are daily playing at in our nurseries, or some of them, have been also played at for centuries by Japanese boys and girls. Such are blindman's buff (eye-hiding), puss-in-the-corner, catching, racing, scrambling, a variety of "here we go round the mulberry bush." The game of knuckle-bones is played with five little stuffed bags instead of sheep bones, which the children cannot get, ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... indeed somewhat late, bailie," said he, "and I am greatly obligated to your buff-coat, and to the time you took to put it on. If the secular arm had arrived some quarter of an hour sooner, I had been out of the reach of spiritual grace; but as it is, I wish you good even, and a safe riddance out of your garment ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... said Andrew, with a half laugh. "Just think of how handsome the gentlemen of the Stuart time looked in their doublets, buff boots, long natural hair, and lace. This fashion is disgusting. Here's old Granthill coming now," he continued, as the trampling of horses made him glance back. "Don't turn ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... tells ther truth, fer I hes seen him handle ther ribbons, and he does it prime too; he are the Pony Rider who they calls Buff'ler Billy," said ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... great ghost I know could make that 'larum ring. It's the captain that we knew In the ancient buff and blue, It's our Englishman, George Washington, who fought the ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... trying to imitate the motions of walking, but looking much more like kneeling, his head dropped forward on his chest, his shoulders elevated by the grip of his conductors under his pinioned arms, and his eyes bandaged as never a blind-man's-buff could bind them. ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... not nine o'clock when the "Comet," polished and oiled and looking as neat in his dark blue and buff uniform as a soldier on parade, stood ready for departure. The hamper of luncheon was strapped on behind, and underneath the middle seats in a pan of ice were bottles of root beer and ginger ale. Presently he started down the steep road ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... Bower, who had once been tried for his life and acquitted by virtue of the "unwritten law" in connection with an affaire passionelle in which he was the aggrieved party. For more than forty years past, whenever I have seen a bluff looking elderly gentleman sporting a buff-waistcoat and a white-spotted blue necktie, I have instinctively thought of Bower, who wore such a waistcoat and such a necktie, with the glossiest of silk hats and most shapely of patent-leather boots, throughout the ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... morning Raskolnikoff awoke late, after disturbed and unrefreshing slumbers. He felt very cross and glanced angrily round his room. It was a tiny place, not more than six feet in length, and its dirty buff paper hung in shreds, giving it a most miserable aspect; besides which, the ceiling was so low that a tall man would have felt in danger of bumping his head. The furniture was quite in harmony with the room, consisting of three old rickety chairs, a painted table in one ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... they had been walking along hand in hand. Sara noticed that they had left the Verge behind, and were following a very pleasant sort of ridge, from which they could see down into a sort of hollow for smiles and smiles, and, beyond the hollow, the buff-colored hills and mountains that formed the walls of the amphitheatre. There were not so many Gugollaph-trees as there were in the Garden and along the road to the Dimplesmithy, owing to the different topography of the country; instead, there were ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... played games in the straw, hiding away from one another, and squealing and grunting when they were found. They raced around the pen, playing a game much like our game of tag, and if they could have had someone to tie a hand-kerchief over their eyes, they might have played blind-man's buff. But of course they did not ...
— Squinty the Comical Pig - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... that he had done—Kate folding her arms around him and kissing him—down they all jumped, and, a merry throng, scampered off to the drawing-room, (followed by Kate,) where blind-man's buff, husbands and wives, and divers other little games, kept them in constant enjoyment. After tea, they were to have dancing—Kate mistress of the ceremonies—and it was quite laughable to see how perpetually she was foiled in her efforts to form the little sets. The girls were orderly enough—but ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... serious employment of reading each morning was concluded, we danced, we sung, we played at blind-man's-buff, battledore and shuttlecock, and many other games equally diverting and innocent; and when tired of them, drew our seats round the fire, while each one in turn told some merry story ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... are farmers also, tilling and cultivating the heath-lands which lie beyond the village. The fisher cottages are quite pretty, with thatched or red-tiled roofs, white or buff rough-cast walls, green painted doors and windows, with black painted foundations which protect them from the sand. Bright flowering plants in the windows and the neat and clean appearance of the ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... ancient street where the old Slaughters' Coffee-house was once situated—George Osborne came into the coffee-room, looking very haggard and pale; although dressed rather smartly in a blue coat and brass buttons, and a neat buff waistcoat of the fashion of those days. Here was his friend Captain Dobbin, in blue and brass too, having abandoned the military frock and French-grey trousers, which were the usual coverings of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... handkerchief from his pocket, proposed a game of Blindman's-Buff, and the girls, delighted, counter Eener-Meener-Meiner-Mo to find the Blindman. And Joyce was He. So Martin tied the ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... be said that the question of what was thought by the predecessors of Mr. Darwin is, after all, personal, and of no interest to the general public, comparable to that of the main issue—whether we are to accept evolution or not. Granted that Buff on, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck bore the burden and heat of the day before Mr. Charles Darwin was born, they did not bring people round to their opinion, whereas Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace did, and the public cannot be expected ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... grapes, melons, peaches, and filberts on Mr. Morton's table, but that also a very merry party of children were assembled there, who danced on the lawn till the dusk of evening approached, and then played at blindman's buff in the great hall. ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick
... in a game exactly similar to our blind man's buff. Another set were walking on stilts, which raised the children three feet from the ground. They were very expert at this amusement, and seldom tumbled. In another place I observed a group of girls standing together, and apparently enjoying themselves very much; so I went up ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... appeared to be a cast-off spring overcoat, out of season and color on this blustering winter day, a rich buff waistcoat of an embossed pattern, such as few persons would care to assume, save, perhaps, a gambler, negro buyer, or fine "buck" barber. The assumption of a large and flashy pin stood in his frilled shirt-bosom. He wore watch-seals ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... from the southern bank. It contained three men, two of whom were rowing, while the third sat upright in a military fashion. All his body beneath his shoulders was hidden by the boat's sides, but his coat was of the Continental buff and blue, while a border cap of raccoon skin crowned his round head. Such incongruous attire detracted nothing from the man's dignity and presence. Henry saw that his face was open, his gaze direct, and ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... stood before a dirty four story building in a side street quite near the Bowery, whose one-time coat of buff had been changed by soot and rain. He mingled with a crowd of men—a crowd which had been, and ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... net, was bound in heavy braids about her head, while a pearl comb held it in its place, and a half-opened rose was fastened just behind her ear. She had hesitated some time in her choice of a dress, vacillating between a pale buff, which Frank had always admired, and a delicate blue muslin, in which Judge Markham had once said she looked so pretty. The blue had won the day, for Ethelyn felt that she owed some concession to the man whose kind note she had treated so cavalierly that morning, and so she wore the ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... with his spread width and folded height, in one of the brown-leather chairs of his library, dressed in a tweed coat, putty-coloured riding breeches, a buff waistcoat, and a grey-blue tie. The handsome, florid face was lifted in a noble pose above the stiff white collar; you could see the full, slightly drooping lower lip under the shaggy black moustache. There was solemnity in the thick, ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... appears to be the most ancient prehistoric Egyptian pottery known. Later in date are a red ware and a black ware with rude geometrical incised designs, imitating basketwork, and with the incised lines filled in with white. Later again is a buff ware, either plain or decorated with wavy lines, concentric circles, and elaborate drawings of boats sailing on the Nile, ostriches, fish, men ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... one of them flew upstairs, to tell Anty and give her her tonic. Barry had made himself quite a dandy to do honour to the occasion of paying probably a parting visit to his sister, whom he had driven out of her own house to die at the inn. He had on his new blue frock-coat, and a buff waistcoat with gilt buttons, over which his watch-chain was gracefully arranged. His pantaloons were strapped clown very tightly over his polished boots; a shining new silk hat was on one side of his head; and in ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... courtyards of the Fonda at Jeres. Gerald was standing on the steps of the inn. He had altered the fashion of his hair, had fastened on large bushy eyebrows which he had obtained from a skilful perruquier in Cadiz, and a moustache of imposing size turned up at the tips; he wore high buff leather boots, and there was an air of military swagger about him, and he was altogether so changed that at the first glance the muleteer failed to recognize him. As soon as the mules were unburdened, Gerald found an opportunity of speaking ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... Buff! The Irish soldier's fist caught Mock squarely on the jaw, sending him squarely to earth, though not knocking him out. After a moment Mock was on his feet again, quivering with rage. He flew at Riley, who was a smaller man, hammering him hard. Other soldier-prisoners ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... see what the Germans were shooting at, with suspense at one point and at another the joy of the observer who sees the one who is "it" in blind man's buff missing his quarry. Some shrapnel searching a road in front and a scream overhead indicated a parcel of high explosives for a village at the rear. In Morval where houses were still standing, their white walls visible through the glasses, there was a kind ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... impressionistic, of the growth of rivers and the floods. The floods are a grand sight; more than a sight—a grand performance, a drama; sometimes, God knows, a tragedy. Last night, under a warm, hazy sky, through whose buff-tinted clouds the big moon crept in and out, the mountain stream was vaguely visible—a dark riband in its wide shingly bed, when the moon was hidden; a narrow, shallow, broken stream, sheets of brilliant metallic sheen, and showers of sparkling facets, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... and powdered wigs who signed the Declaration of Independence and framed the Constitution—the soldiers in blue-and-buff, top-boots and epaulets who led the armies of the Revolution—were what we are wont to describe as gentlemen. They were English gentlemen. They were not all, nor even generally, scions of the British aristocracy; but they came, for the most part, ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... of his life, his thoughts, his time, to be associated or shackled in any way by the pursuits of others, he preferred the society of ladies, as less apt to force him into subsequent relations. He willingly spent whole evenings in playing blind man's buff with the young people, telling them little stories to make them break into the silvery laughs of youth, sweeter than the song of the nightingale. He was fond of a life in the country, or the life of the chateau. He was ingenious in varying its amusements, in ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... hyacinth, and quite as beautiful, spiked to a point, exhibiting a cone or pyramid of flowers, widely separate on all sides, and all expanded together, principally white, finely tinted with various colours, as red, pink, yellow, and buff, the stamina forming a most elegant fringe amid the modest tints of the large and copious petals. These feathery blossoms, lovely in colours and stately in shape, stood upright on every branch all over the tree, like flowery minarets on innumerable verdant ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... some pictures at one Hiseman's, [Huysman.] a picture-drawer, a Dutchman, which is said to exceed Lilly, and indeed there is both of the Queenes and Maids or honour (particularly Mrs. Stewart's in a buff doublet like a soldier) [Still to be seen at Kensington Palace.] as good pictures I think as ever I saw. The Queene is drawn in one like a shepherdess, in the other like St. Katharin, most like and most admirably. I was mightily pleased ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... want to know is, why a lady should have to strip to the buff just to play with a pigeon?" breathed John Flint, and ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... 1 Buff'd it, or peeled in prime twig—Stripped to the skin in good order. The expressions are well known, and frequently in use, among the sporting characters ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... that when the first dizziness Of flap-hats and buff-coats and jack-boots subsided, The Duke put this question, "The Duke's part provided, Had not the Duchess some share in the business?" For out of the mouth of two or three witnesses Did he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses: ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... style, a blue cloth capote (hooded frock coat) with brass buttons; red and black flannel shirt, which served for waistcoat; black belt around the waist; trousers of brown and white striped home-made stuff, buff leather moccasins on his feet. I had never come across a wearer of moccasins before, and it amused me to see this grand and massive man pacing the hotel corridors with noiseless footfall, while excitable little men in shiny boots creaked and stamped about like so many busy steam engines." ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... thoughtless prince, "I propose that we play the most innocent and rollicking of games—blindman's buff." [Footnote: ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... these haps the day was worn to midmorning. But after they had gone a mile, they sat them down on a knoll under the shadow of a big thorn-tree, within sight of the mountains. Then said Walter: "Now will I cut thee the brogues from the skirt of my buff-coat, which shall be well meet for such work; and meanwhile shalt ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... lane by a waggon track—a gipsy track through a copse—there were large bunches of pale-red berries hanging from the wayfaring trees, or wild viburnum, and green and red berries of bryony wreathed among the branches. The bryony leaves had turned, some were pale buff already. Among the many berries of autumn those of the wayfaring tree may be known by their flattened shape, as if the sides had been pressed in like a flask. The bushes were not high enough for shadow, and the harvest ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... taste. As a rule their head dress was the customary Indian one of feathers. Their arms were the regulation carbine and revolver of the cavalry to which they added on their own accord, hatchet, knife, spear, etc., and when fighting was to be done they would strip down to the buff ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... single servant, a middle-aged, slovenly man, in a loose frock, and buff kerseymere nondescripts, opened the gate, and informed me that his master was at home. With a few earnest admonitions to my admittor—who was, like the domestics of many richer men, both groom and valet—respecting ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a house, since they show without, should be uniform in color, and no attempt be made to suit the individual decoration of a room to them. The material should be plain Holland, white or buff when there are outside blinds, otherwise green or blue. In recent years shutters, or outside blinds, have come somewhat into disuse. This is, on the whole, perhaps an improvement, for they are rarely manipulated with judgment, being ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... amphibians possess the power of changing their hue in accordance with their environment in a very high degree; and among certain tree-toads and frogs it is difficult to say what is the normal colouring, as they vary indefinitely from buff and dove-colour to chocolate-brown, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... noted almost at once that two or three butterflies ("red admirals" they were) floated and circled about her in the sunlight. A child of commoner make, and perhaps a year older, dressed in a buff print frock and pink sunbonnet, looked up at her from the foot of the steps. The faces of both were averted, and I stood there for at least a minute on the verge of the laurels, unobserved, considering the picture they made, and the ruinous Jacobean house ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... is described (in a biographical sketch published in the "Gardener's Chronicle", 1864) as having been one of the first physicians in London who gave up the customary black coat, knee-breeches and silk stockings, and adopted the ordinary dress of the period, a blue coat with brass buttons, and a buff waiscoat, a costume which he continued to wear to the last. After giving up practice, which he did early in life, he spent much of his time in acts of unpretending philanthropy.) Your helping me into the Athenaeum has not been ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... with one of the hotels, and the third was a tall man, past middle age, with a clean shaven, hawk face, a piercing, haughty, black eye, and iron gray hair. He was carefully and flawlessly dressed in a gray furred "plug" hat, tailed blue coat with brass buttons, a buff waistcoat, trousers of the same shade, and a frilled shirt front. Immaculate down to within six inches or so of the ground, his nether garments and boots were coated thickly with the inevitable red dust. He strode slowly down the street, looking ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... in the adjacent islands they are more brilliant." Again:[63] "In Amboyna and Ceram the female of the large and handsome Ornithoptera Helena has the large patch on the hind wings constantly of a pale dull ochre or buff colour; while in the scarcely distinguishable varieties from the adjacent islands, of Bouru and New Guinea, it is of a golden yellow, hardly inferior in brilliancy to its colour in the male sex. The female of Ornithoptera ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... corp was examined the leid draps hadna played buff upon the warlock's body; sorrow a leid drap was to be fund; but there was grandfaither's siller tester in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as tough a crowd As Boston anywhere allowed; It was a club of wicked men— The oldest, twelve, the youngest, ten; They drank their soda colored green, They talked of "Art," and "Philistine," They wore buff "wescoats," and their hair It used to make the waiters stare! They were so shockingly behaved And Boston thought them so depraved, Policemen, stationed at the door, Would raid them every hour or more! They used ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... his go-ashore traps for the Spanish main, where the tie of a sailor's neckerchief might make some difference; but as for a parcel of unbreeched heathen, he wouldn't go to the bottom of his chest for any of them, and was half disposed to appear among them in buff himself. The men laughed at what they thought was one of his strange conceits, and ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... three sisters sat down at nine-o'clock, in mob caps, and the two younger in white dresses, all had been up at least two hours. Aurelia led forward little Eugene in a tailed red coat, long-breasted buff waistcoat, buff tights and knitted stockings, with a deep frilled collar under the flowing locks on his shoulders, in curls which emulated a wig. She had been helping him to prepare "his tasks" from the well-thumbed but ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... BUFF STICKS.—Fig. 25.—These are usually from one to three feet in length, and about three inches wide—some think two and a half sufficient. The underside, which is convex, is covered with a strip of finely prepared buckskin, or velvet, ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... basket-carriage, harnessed to two buff-coloured ponies. Laura sat with her back to them. Godmother flapped the reins and said: "Get up!" but she was still fretted about the box, which was being held on behind by the boy. An inch larger, she asserted, and it would have had to be left behind. Laura eyed its battered ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... their way. Into the midst of this Henry Galleon came—a little, round, fat man with a face like a map, the body of Napoleon and a trot round the room like a very amiable pony, eyes that saw everything, understood everything, and forgave everything, a brown buff waistcoat with gilt buttons, white spats and a voice that rolled and roared ... he was the tenderest, most alarming person in any kind of a world. He was so gentle that any sparrow would trust him implicitly and so terrific that an army would most certainly fly from ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... alone in a bare little room, which communicated by a glazed door with a surgery. Hideous coloured diagrams of the ravages of hideous diseases decorated the barren buff-coloured walls. A book-case filled with dingy medical works, and ornamented at the top with a skull, in place of the customary bust; a large deal table copiously splashed with ink; wooden chairs of the sort that are seen in kitchens and cottages; a threadbare drugget in the middle ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... said the earl, "and the first of my family that could so write himself—my grey beard falls on a cambric ruff and a silken doublet—my father's descended upon a buff coat and a breast-plate. I would not that those days of battle returned; but I should love well to make the oaks of my old forest of Dalgarno ring once more with halloo, and horn, and hound, and to have the old stone- arched hall return the hearty shout of my vassals ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... discernment of the public would be keen enough to discover the falsehood; but, so that there be just so much approach to truth of color as may come up to the common idea of it in men's minds, that is to say, if the trees be all bright green, and flesh unbroken buff, and ground unbroken brown, though all the real and refined truths of color be wholly omitted, or rather defied and contradicted, there is yet quite enough for all purposes of imitation. The only facts then, which we are usually and certainly cognizant of, ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... where, in one corner, sitting bolt upright, with his eyes half closed, there was a fine young owl, just fully fledged and fit to fly, while nothing could be more beautiful than his snow-white, flossy breast, and the buff colour of his back, all dotted over ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... khaki suit, which set forth rather bumpily his solid figure. A serviceable pith helmet barely overhung the protrusive goggles. His hands were encased in white cotton gloves, a size or two too large. Dismal buff spots on the palms impaired their otherwise virgin purity. As the wearer carried his hands stiffly splayed, the blemishes were obtrusive. Altogether, one might have said that, if he were going in for farce, he was appropriately made up ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Master Confucius, answering Duke Ling of Wei, said: "I have never studied matters connected with armies and battalions." [62] Replying to K'ung Wen-tzu, he said: I have not been instructed about buff-coats and weapons." But if we turn to the meeting at Chia-ku, we find that he used armed force against the men of Lai, so that the marquis of Ch'i was overawed. Again, when the inhabitants of Pi revolted, the ordered his officers to attack them, ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... frizzled peruke powdered; frills, wrist-frills and other; shoe-buckles, flapped waistcoat, court-coat of antique cut and much trimming: all this shall be conceived by the reader. Tight young Gentleman in Prussian military uniform, blue coat, buff breeches, boots; with alert flashing eyes, and careless elegant bearing, salutes courteously, raising his plumed hat. Podewils in common dress, who has entered escorting the other Two, sits rather to rearward, taking refuge beside the writing apparatus.—First passages of the Dialogue I omit: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... considerable caution. After being thoroughly rinsed, it should be repeatedly passed through cold spring water, to which a tablespoonful or two of solution of tin has been added. If much faded, it should be dipped in a scarlet dye-bath. Buff cloth is generally cleansed by covering it with a paste made with pipe-clay and water, which, when dry,-is rubbed and ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... mellow flute, but like the trumpet stop of some powerful party organ. The cornea was perhaps a shade sallow or so, even verging on the Widow's favourite Yellow—(for the Widow, like some modern decorative artists, was sweet upon all tawny tints, from the most delicate buff to the most flamboyant Orange)—but as to any touch, tint, or tone of her chromatic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... make them all the more exciting! Blindman's buff! Hide and go seek! What fun you must have with your friends ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... wrought facades of Caen stone and the foliage in the centre, is most grateful to the eye. Even the grand quadrangle of the Tuileries seems dismal after it, grand as are its ogre-roofed 'pavilions' and triumphal arch, for it lacks the refreshing verdure. The eye wearies of the everlasting buff color. ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... the entire company, as usual, repaired to the meadow, where they played blind man's buff. Katiousha went with them. After some exchanges came Nekhludoff's turn to run with Katiousha. Nekhludoff always liked to see Katiousha, but it had never occurred to him that their relations could ever be any ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... her glass, arranging her hair, which was worn more becomingly than on the previous night, softening the somewhat too intellectual expression of her face, and making her seem more womanly and modest. Once she thought to wear the light buff gown in which she looked so well, but the thought was repudiated as soon as formed, and donning the same dark calico she would have worn if Mark had not been there, she finished her simple toilet and went downstairs, just as Mark came ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... feeling towards Henry IV., for having thought his paternal mansion worth battering down. He had many stories to tell of the prowess of his ancestors, and several skull-caps, helmets, and cross-bows to show; and divers huge boots and buff jerkins, that had been worn by the Leaguers. Above all, there was a two-handled sword, which he could hardly wield; but which he displayed as a proof that there had been giants in ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... Jessie, and Aikenside, and wondering he had never before observed how very becoming a white wrapper was to sick girls like Maddy Clyde. Had he been asked the question, he could not have told whether his other patients were habited in buff, or brown, or tan color; but he knew all about Maddy's garb, and thought the dainty frill around her slender throat the prettiest "puckered piece" that he had ever seen. How, then, was Dr. Holbrook losing his heart to that little girl of fourteen and a half? He did not ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... 1,000 words, a sheet of paper. My writing is very small. It was tucked into a half-penny open envelope—a magazine office envelope, marked 'Proof, urgent.' There were the proofs of a short story in the buff envelope." ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... a sprightly and handsome bird, about eight inches long, of a black color with purple and greenish reflections, and spotted with buff. It may be taught to repeat a few words, ...
— The Nursery, October 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... short stem, and wide decurrent gills, they are so plentiful in season that quantity soon compensates for the small size. Except that it is occasionally eaten in France, it does not enjoy much reputation abroad. A larger species, varying from buff to orange, Hygrophorus pratensis, Fr.,[c] is scarcely less common in open pastures. This is very gregarious in habit, often growing in tufts, or portions of rings. The pileus is fleshy in the centre, and the gills thick and decurrent. In France, Germany, Bohemia, and Denmark, it is included ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... was present at the country dance in all his glory. He was attired in his master's old claw-hammer coat, a very buff vest, a high standing collar the corners of which stood out six inches from his face, striped pantaloons that fitted as tightly as a kid glove, and he wore number fourteen shoes. He looked as though he were born to call the figures of the dance. The fiddler was a young man with ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... friends came to see us, there was much rejoicing from brother Barnes, who was full of life and spirits, and always ready to play, and from Arminda and myself; but brother Horace, not at all allured by blind-man's-buff or a dance, would retire to a corner with a pine knot (for in those days candles were few), preferring the companionship of his book to our merry games. Coaxing was all in vain: the only means of inducing him to join us was to snatch away his book and hide it; but even then he preferred to gather ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... playin' tag. Some was playin' blindman's-buff, while all was amusin' themselves, at ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... reader wants kisses, let him look for them in the "Pastor Fido"; there is one entire chorus where nothing but kisses is mentioned; and the piece is founded solely on a kiss that Mirtillo gave one day to Amarilli, in a game of blind man's buff, un ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... Love, the great peacemaker, interposed, and reconciling the rivals, proposed to change the game to Colin Maillard-Anglice, "Blind Man's Buff." Rosalie clapped her hands, and offered herself to be blindfolded. The tables and chairs were cleared away; and Madame Beaver pushed the Pole into Rosalie's arms, who, having felt him about the face for some moments, guessed him to be the tall Frenchman. During this time Monsieur and Madame ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... jug with the quaint gilt dragon for a handle, these smaller jugs, boxes, and dishes, all of the same pattern, all with dark-blue dragons (no cold "Canton" blue, but a rich, splendid ultramarine), large and small, prancing and sprawling on a pale buff ground,—what were these things doing in the paltry bedroom of a common farm-house? Hilda felt a new touch of indignation at "these people" for presuming to have such things ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... and even what each was going to say next, and compounding with telepathic instinct the argument or appeal best suited to the vanity, weakness, or self-interest of his immediate auditor, was to realize that the poor President would be playing blind man's buff in that party. Never could a man have stepped into the parlor a more perfect and predestined victim to the finished accomplishments of the Prime Minister. The Old World was tough in wickedness anyhow; the Old World's heart of stone might blunt the sharpest blade of the bravest knight-errant. But ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... the other hand, has not improved. The girders are still dark and stained as oak (or is it chestnut?) should be stained by age and weather. But a yard or two away there are beams as massive and as well-seasoned which flout the lapse of centuries with a flaring and be-varnished buff. ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... more than French. His thoughtfulness was continually sending pleasant little gifts and souvenirs to his Warsaw friends. This tenderness and consideration displayed itself too in his love of children. He would spend whole evenings in playing blind-man's-buff or telling them charming fairy-stories from the folk-lore in which Poland is ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... met her at the ambassador's, I had paid her the most unceasing attentions. I soon discovered that she had a curious sort of liaison with one of the attaches—a short, ill-made gentleman, with high shoulders, and a pale face, who wore a blue coat and buff waistcoat, wrote bad verses, and thought himself handsome. All Paris said she was excessively enamoured of this youth. As for me, I had not known her four days before I discovered that she could not be excessively enamoured of any thing but an oyster pete and Lord Byron's Corsair. Her mind was ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that," said Tommy, "without the buff'loes have got 'em." So they camped for the day under a huge banyan-fig tree and awaited developments. About evening, away on the horizon, there arose an answering cloud of smoke, connecting earth and sky, ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... child, the pleasure of his amusements was smothered by officialism. My old Lord Aurbach, though gouty and stiff of joint, was eager to "run" his balls or his arrows, and old Sir Giles Butch could be caught so easily at tag or blind man's buff that there was no sport for Max in doing it. Everything the boy did was done by the heir of Styria, except on rare occasions when he and I stole away from the castle. Then we were boys together, and then it was I earned his love and confidence. At such times ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... Long before I could properly discern it, the look-out behaved as though he knew all about it. But it was never the sign we wanted. We had changed our course so often that I was beginning to believe that nobody aboard could make a nearer guess at our position than the giddy victim in blindman's-buff. A sextant was never used. Apparently these fishermen found their way about on a little mental arithmetic compounded of speed, time, and the course. That leaves a large margin for error. So if they felt doubtful they got a plummet, greased ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson |
