"Puff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... correctly respecting the rifle-shot which announced the arrival of a messenger; a few minutes after the puff of white smoke on the crest of the rise had drifted away, a mounted man rode up to Grant at a gallop. His horse was white with dust and spume, but his ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... hun'd tousand million dollars!" shouted Cyd, as the first puff of the welcome wind swelled the sails of ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... not he?' said the squire, stroking the little Roger's curly head. 'And he can puff four puffs at grandpapa's pipe without being sick, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... not possible to disentangle the different emotions, the pride, humility, pity and passion, which are excited by a look of happy love or an unexpected caress. To make one's self beautiful, to dress the hair, to excel in talk, to do anything and all things that puff out the character and attributes and make them imposing in the eyes of others, is not only to magnify one's self, but to offer the most delicate homage at the same time. And it is in this latter intention that they are done by lovers; for the essence of love is kindness; ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her eyes to squint at an idea that could not well be looked in the face. When she spoke it was to say slyly: "God forbid! But they do go off sometimes in a puff. He looks as if he'd live fer long enough, thank Heaven. But yuh ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... and then a blast of wind shook the wooden edifice from garret to foundation, causing a puff of smoke to come down the chimney, and the white ashes to scatter in little whirlwinds over the hearth. On the opposite side from the shuttered window was the door, heavily barred. A long, oaken table occupied ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... the churchyard to see the lord lead his bride out of the church. "A puir feckless thing, tottering along like-not half the makings of a man. A stout lass like she could a'most blow him away wi' a puff of her mouth." That was the verdict which an old farmer's wife passed upon him, and that verdict was made good by the ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... sakes to find out what they are, and what they are doing, what is their nature and what their place in the great scheme, or do you peek and pry at them through the keyhole of a contemptible curiosity in order to discover what you think they can do for you, to set you on high, to puff you out into a personage and cause you to be noticed of the foolish ones of this world? Which are you, sir, a young man of parts whose hand I can grasp fraternally, or an insulter of planets, sir, ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... him puff and blow and sweat until he was as hungry as a badger, but he finally succeeded in hooking it up in the belfry ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... they stood, sending up dense clouds of enveloping steam. A broad tongue of blue flame curled out of the port hawse-hole, licked along the half-protruding anchor, rose above the rail, and then burst into a puff of red fire which floated away in the wind. A cargo port door warped in the heat, buckled outward, tearing plates and rivets with a rasping screech, and dropped hissing into the black waters; and the wind, blowing from astern, was sucked into the ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... were for the mail—we had a hundred town subscribers and three hundred and fifty country ones; the town subscribers paid in groceries and the country ones in cabbages and cord-wood—when they paid at all, which was merely sometimes, and then we always stated the fact in the paper, and gave them a puff; and if we forgot it they stopped the paper. Every man on the town list helped edit the thing—that is, he gave orders as to how it was to be edited; dictated its opinions, marked out its course for it, and every time the boss failed to connect he stopped his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... assured him to that effect. But Raish was still uncertain just how to proceed. He continued to puff ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... whole amusement was his pipe; and, as there is a certain indefinable link between smoking and philosophy, my father, by dint of smoking, had become a perfect philosopher. It is no less strange than true, that we can puff away our cares with tobacco, when, without it, they remain a burden to existence. There is no composing draught like the draught through the tube of a pipe. The savage warriors of North America enjoyed the blessing before ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... which gave it the appearance of a stage "property;" the walls, paneled with gilt-framed mirrors, reflected every domestic detail or private relaxation with shameless publicity. A damp waterproof, shawl, and open newspaper were lying across the once brilliant sofa; a powder-puff, a plate of fruit, and a play-book were on the centre table, and on the marble-topped sideboard was Mr. Hooker's second-best hat, with a soiled collar, evidently but lately exchanged for the one he had on, ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... no such soliloquies in nature, it is true, but unless they were received as a conventional medium of communication betwixt the poet and the audience, we should reduce dramatic authors to the recipe of Master Puff, who makes Lord Burleigh intimate a long train of political reasoning to the audience, by one comprehensive shake of his noddle. In narrative, no doubt, the writer has the alternative of telling that his personages ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Nutmeg, Sugar, some Corinths, (if you please) a few Carroways, Rose, or Orange-flower Water (as you best like) to make it grateful. Mingle all with a little boiled Cream; and set the Dish or Pan in the Oven, with a Garnish of Puff-Paste. It will require but very moderate Baking. Thus have you ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... locket, frosted over with seed pearls, Oblong and slim, for wearing at the neck, Or hidden in the bosom; their joined curls Should lie in it. And further to bedeck His love, Heinrich had picked a whiff, a fleck, The merest puff of a thin, linked chain To hang it ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... of Morals," impossible of insertion as it stands. A mere puff, with all the difficult facts of the question blinked, and many statements utterly at variance with what I am known to have written. It is exactly because the great bulk of offences in a great number of places are committed by professed thieves, that it will not do to have pet prisoning advocated ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... of the pick. Suddenly they came to some glittering particles of yellow, which, with heartfelt delight they hailed as gold. It WAS MICA. Many are at first deceived by it, but it is soon distinguished by its weight, as the mica will blow away with the slightest puff. After a little useless digging among the clay, they reached the solid rock, and thus having fairly "bottomed," the holes to ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... wind was a trifle light for sailing, so the gentlemen pulled, but very lazily and not at all in good "form," as the object of each oarsman seemed to be to do as little work as possible. However, we got on somehow, a light puff helping us now and then, but our progress was hardly perceptible. I had been for a long time gazing down into the clear blue depth of water, every now and then seeing a flash of the white sand shining at the bottom, when I was half startled by our host standing suddenly ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... heavily runs, Silent and sullen, the floating fort; Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, And leaps the terrible death, With fiery ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... how romantic and foolish it was, how like a puff of wind it ought to be on your conscience. We shall be happy ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... wished that Angel could see me, being made the confidant of Harry! I helped myself to my third jam puff with an air of ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... she was to wear the first night—a dress flounced and furbelowed and of a creamy white (she still wore mourning—delicate purples shading to white—the exact tone for a husband six months dead). And the filmy dressing-gowns, and, more wonderful than all, the puff of smoke she was to sleep in, held together by a band of violet ribbon; to say nothing of the dainty slippers bound about with swan's-down, and the marvellous hats, endless silk stockings of mauve, white, and black, and long and short gloves. ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... so hot here!" he began encouragingly; "you ought to be down in Blackwater. Say, the wind off that Sink would make your hair curl. I scared a lizard out of the shade and he hadn't run ten feet till he disappeared in a puff of smoke. His pardner turned over and started to ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... He was a thick, short man, with a clean-shaven face and a certain air of breeding about the lines of his countenance; the word millionaire sounded well to his ears. He thought—he thought a great deal; he almost heard the puff of the fearfully costly automobile that was coming up ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the last word he ever uttered; his parting breath scarcely carried it from his lips ere he ceased to live. I heard the fierce word, and almost simultaneously the crack of a rifle, fired close to my ear. I saw the dust puff out from the embroidered spencer of the Mexican, and directly over his heart; I saw his hand pass rapidly to the spot, and the next moment I saw him fall ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... thus outstrippped and the boys started to paddle with all their might. For a little while they actually seemed to gain on Randy, but a lively puff of wind came down the creek, and the Water Sprite took a spurt that ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... they do silk stockings and violets. It's just "born in 'em," like their deep-rooted horror of mice and bills and burglars. From the time when the baby girl sniffs the sweetness of the powder puff as it fluffs about her soft, pretty neck until the white-haired lady lovingly fondles the lavender sachets that lie between the folds of her time-yellowed wedding gown, she loves ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... hours. Would she never come? There was a curve not far from the station, and the passenger could not be seen until it almost reached it. I listened. I could hear the low tremulous noise of the rails, a puff of black smoke went up from behind the curve—at last it was in view, engine No. 8. On seeing me the engineer came to a sudden stop. I hurriedly told him what to do. He was to back onto the siding and let me pass, then pull out and ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... always susceptible to oratory and now another shout of rage came from them. The taunts of Long Jim were too much, and a dozen dusky forms sprang from the undergrowth and rushed up the slope. There was a puff of smoke from the cleft in the cliff and the foremost warrior fell, shot squarely through the forehead. A second puff and a second warrior was gone to a land where the hunting is always good. Before such accurate shooting ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... by two other handwoven baskets of sweet-grass. One held the scout-biscuits just baked, while the other was piled high with light little puff-cakes. On either side of the centerpiece stood two large flat clay platters,—one held the Indian cucumber salad, and ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... feeling of fear, as if she were before an open tomb, or that a puff of damp air chilled her face, or that she was suddenly enveloped by the odor of a cellar. She shuddered and wished to plead with ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... camp at dusk they found a surprise. On the trail was a white thing, which on investigation proved to be a ghost, evidently made by Guy. The head was a large puff-ball carved like a skull, and the ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... suppose, by the Cavalleggieri; And we believe we discern some lines of men descending Down through the vineyard-slopes, and catch a bayonet gleaming. Every ten minutes, however,—in this there is no misconception,— Comes a great white puff from behind Michel Angelo's dome, and After a space the report of a real big gun,—not the Frenchman's?— That must be doing some work. And so ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... stood in pairs, with a walled yard between; and as Stephen and Nevill searched anxiously for some one to point out the home of Mouni, from over a wall which seemed to be running down the mountain-side, came a white puff of smoke and a strident bang, then more, one after the other. Again the wailing of the raita began, and there was no longer any need ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... sign of interest in these proceedings. If he was conscious of being watched by these curious exiles, he was not in the least annoyed. He did not change his position of indolence, nor did he puff any more fretfully at his cigarette. Instead, his eyes were bent lazily upon the white avenue, his thoughts apparently far away from the view ahead. He came out of his lassitude long enough to roll and light a fresh cigarette and to don his ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... who followed his glance and then nodded in assent. The others, too, soon looked at the same point, Jim Hart craning his long neck until it arched like a bow. Presently from a dense clump of bushes came a little puff of white smoke, and then the stillness was broken by the report of a rifle. A bullet buried itself in one of the trees on the hill, and Shif'less Sol turned over ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and do just what we like, as brute beasts which have no understanding. And our flesh is to be subdued to our spirit for a certain purpose; not because our flesh is bad, and our spirit good; not in order that we may puff ourselves up and admire ourselves, and say, as the philosophers among the heathen used, "What a strong-minded, sober, self-restraining man I am! How fine it is to be able to look down on my neighbours, who cannot help being fond of enjoying themselves, and cannot help caring ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... heads the damp sails fluttered noisily in the first faint puff of the breeze; then, as the airs freshened, the brig tended to the wind, and the silenced canvas lay quietly aback. The mate spoke with low distinctness from the shadows of ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... answer. He was crossing in his mind the four hundred and five metres to the first Boche listening-post. Next beyond the abris was the latrine from which a puff of wind brought now and then a nauseous stench. Then there was the tin roof, crumpled as if by a hand, that had been a cook shack. That was just behind the second line trenches that zig-zagged in and out of great abscesses of wet, upturned clay ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... so long that, when I had finished making my cigarette and lighted it, I asked, after a puff or two: 'Lossing, is there anything I can say or do that will help you? I see that you are troubled. If it's money only, bless me, your talents will stand you in money's stead. Brains have a money value in ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... be extremely gay, And Hook extremely dirty; And brick and mortar still will say "Try Warren, No. 30;" And "General Sauce" will have its puff, And so will General Jackson— And peasants will drink up heavy stuff, Which they pay a heavy tax on; And long and late, at many a fete, Gooseberry champagne will shine— And as old as it was in Twenty-eight, It will ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... the rock. Harry got upon his shoulders, so that with his pick he could reach the line of the fissure. Then with quick sharp blows he attacked it. Almost directly afterwards a slight sound was heard, like champagne escaping from a bottle—a sound commonly expressed by the word "puff." ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... House will pardon me if I have said a word that can offend any one. But I feel conscious of a personal humiliation when I consider the state of Ireland. I do not wish to puff nostrums of my own, though it may be thought I am opposed to much that exists in the present order of things; but whether it tended to advance democracy, or to uphold aristocracy, or any other system, ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... the trainer handed me the cigarette and a match, and the first puff I realized that they had filled the cigarette with snuff, and after blowing out the smoke I began to sneeze, and the audience fairly went wild. I sneezed about eight times, and at every sneeze the pin in my spine hurt like thunder, but I never lost my temper, till ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... Mr. Pickwick. Then he would take another half-dozen puffs with an air of profound meditation and look at them again. At last the stout man, putting up his legs on the seat, and leaning his back against the wall, began to puff at his pipe without leaving off at all, and to stare through the smoke at the new-comers, as if he had made up his mind to see the most ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... strange to him. It was doubtless there as far back as history goes and probably still farther back in time. For at that point, just where the winterbourne gushes out from the low hills, is the spot man would naturally select to make his home. And he would see no mansion or big building, no puff of white steam and sight of a long, black train creeping over the earth, nor any other strange thing. It would appear to him even as he knew it before he fell asleep—the same familiar scene, with furze and bramble and bracken on the slope, the wide expanse with sheep and cattle grazing in the ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... question would be asked, or a proposition advanced suddenly, demanding an immediate answer. Under the watchful eyes of the other party the questioned party tried not to show by his expression any indication of searching for an answer, for obvious reasons. So, instead, he would take a long puff at the cigar, then a slow attentive look at the ashes on its tip, and then another moment consumed in flicking the ash into the receptacle, and then came the answer, slowly, "Well, as to that—" or some other words of that kind, prefacing ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... as I hate him! He wan's to marry our Elsie, In' live here in the big house, 'n' have nothin' to do but jes' lay still 'n' watch Massa Venner 'n' see how long 't Ill take him to die, 'n' 'f he don' die fas' 'puff, help him some way t' die fasser!—Come close up t' me, Doctor! I wan' t' tell you somethin' I tol' th' minister t' other day. Th' minister, he come down 'n' prayed 'n' talked good,—he's a good man, that Doctor Honeywood, 'n' I tol' him all 'bout our Elsie, but he did n' tell nobody what ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... as may be needful. Short and clean chemises hide their dazzling white necks. The Thibetan woman throws on her round shoulders a red jacket, the flaps of which are covered by tight pantaloons of green or red cloth, made in such a manner as to puff up and so protect the legs against the cold. She wears embroidered red half boots, trimmed and lined with fur. A large cloth petticoat with numerous folds completes her home toilet. Her hair is arranged in thin braids, to which, by means of pins, a large piece ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... thought of turning back to the reef, before I might become too exhausted to reach it, when I noticed that the dinghy veered slightly round, and then drifted in a direction oblique to that she had already taken. This arose from a sudden puff of wind which blew from a new quarter. It brought the boat nearer me, and I resolved to make one more ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... saw the puff of smoke from a battery on the hill where the Germans are grouped. Then I knew they were firing in our direction. But of course I couldn't see the shell, and I didn't know where it would land. But I ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... they could see her hull from the deck of the Industry. They saw that she was a Spanish privateer; and she hoisted the Spanish flag and kept on. And, pretty soon, she was nearly abreast of the Industry; and she turned a little, and there was a little puff of smoke from her side, and the sound of the report came over the water a ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... but he made no answer. He only inhaled a long puff from his cigarette and looked across the water ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... has escaped there isn't so much inside and the pressure is reduced just as in the case of an automobile tire from which you let the air escape. What is the result? The membranes fly back again and close the opening of the pipe. What got out, then, was just a little puff of air. ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... don't /have/ to be changed with a popgun." He blew out a puff of smoke and watched its soft spirals curl upward. "I had a letter from him this week. He will send down two men ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... threshing through leaden-grey seas under hurrying, leaden-grey skies and bitter snow squalls, with a foul wind persistently pounding at her day after day, he had thought, as some more than ordinarily angry puff whitened the water to windward and broke him off his course, with the weather leech of his close-reefed topsail shivering, how pleasant it must be to be a landsman, to go where he pleased in spite of wind or weather. Ah! they were the happy ones, those lucky ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... glancing toward the mirror, 'faut que je m' fasse belle.' And the long hair came out of its close braids enveloping her in its glossy dark waves, while she carefully smoothed out the bits of red ribbon that served as fastenings. At this moment the door opened, and the surgeon, the wind, and a puff of snow came in together. Jeannette looked up, smiling and blushing; the falling hair gave a new softness to her face, and her eyes were as shy as the ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... the mate replied. "We'll have a puff of wind about daylight at the latest, and the current sets north and south here ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... passed without an alarm, and then, just as we were passing into another and a wider river, there came from the jungly edge of the left bank a puff of smoke, and ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... that we went to jabbering the best we could about the various outer sights to be seen in this famous town. Soon I proposed a social smoke; and, producing his pouch and tomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff. And then we sat exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his, and keeping it ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... cautiously from the keg of nails. It might be well to return to the boatshed, even at the risk of falling into the Inlet. But he had not proceeded very far before, suddenly, as he had hoped it would, the mist began to lift. Swiftly, before the puff of a warmer breeze, it eddied and thinned. Its soundless, impalpable pressure lessened. The wharf, the sea, the city began to steal back, sly, expressionless, pretending that they had been there all the time. Even Mr. Johnston could be clearly seen coming down from the boatshed ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... evidently in a brown study on what he had gone through. He was drawing in his breath gradually, his cheeks expanding all the while, until they reached the utmost point of distention, when he would all at once let it go with a kind of easy puff, ending in a groan, as he surveyed his naked feet, which were now quite square, and, like my own, out of all shape. I asked him how he liked the station; he gave me one of the old looks, shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing—it was, however, a shrug condemnatory. I then ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... little girls had not been obliged to live without a doll. Kind Aunt Maria had given them each one soon after their arrival. Out in the garden, then, with the dollies, Luce full of enthusiasm, and barking and rolling like an animated puff-ball, or else sitting up as straight as a judge, they were playing queen. Mabel had just fastened the wreath on Edith's head, when ...
— Five Happy Weeks • Margaret E. Sangster
... passes the wand to the blower who is standing ready to receive it. The blower drops the cylinder of glass into a mold, which is held open for its reception by yet another man; the mold snaps shut; the blower applies his mouth to the end of the blowpipe; a quick puff, accompanied by the drawing away of the wand, blows the glass to shape in the mold and leaves a thin bubble of glass protruding above. The mold is opened; the shaped bottle, still faintly glowing, ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... the same etymology, referring to Somner. Webster says, "allied, perhaps, to Gr. physao, to blow or puff." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... ceased firing, and at ten o'clock a signal to stop bombarding appeared on the flagship. It was obeyed with reluctance, and it was evident the crews of the various ships were anxious and eager to continue. As the fleet drew off there was a puff of smoke in one corner of Punta Gorda battery and a shell whizzed over the "Massachusetts." A second shot came from one of the earthworks, and still another from Punta Gorda; then the firing ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... next, and the next, and so on, till he had gobbled them all off the trees, one after another. But when Richard expected to see them go after the turkey, there was nothing there but a flock of huge mushrooms and puff-balls. ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald
... roused Belle all the more to prompt action. Seeing that all his explanations made things worse, Charlie abruptly left, mounted his broncho, and went "rockity rockity" as the pony's heels went "puff, puff" on the dusty trail around ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Craig briefly. It was all she could utter. Besides, she was occupied with a pink cream-puff. Austin and Boots watched her with a dreadful fascination; but she seemed ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... "disarrange is the word we ought to use instead of it."' In his Dictionary he gives neither derange nor disarrange. Dr. Franklin, who had been a printer and was likely to use the term correctly, writing in 1785, mentions 'the artifices made use of to puff up a paper of verses into a ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... He felt himself shoot forward as if Peters had thrust a foot into the small of his back and shoved. Tremont tried to grab at the edge of the air lock, but it was gone. A puff of air frosted ...
— Satellite System • Horace Brown Fyfe
... stack of rusty rails. To the left a clump of trees made a shady spot, where dark things seemed to stir feebly. I blinked, the path was steep. A horn tooted to the right, and I saw the black people run. A heavy and dull detonation shook the ground, a puff of smoke came out of the cliff, and that was all. No change appeared on the face of the rock. They were building a railway. The cliff was not in the way or anything; but this objectless blasting was all the work ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... long time with their duty, or with respectability, or with the opinion of the world; and, in the end—oh!—fall with tears; or—oh!—begin to brave it; or, which is still more frequent, the implacable fate cuts short her or his life at the most—oh!—necessary moment, when it only lacks a light puff of wind for the ripened fruit to fall. And yet all of his personages still thirst after this shameful love; weep radiantly and laugh joyously from it; and it shuts out all the world for them. But since boys think entirely differently ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... But, listen! That puff of the breeze was louder. It had a tone unlike the dreary and sullen one which has bemoaned itself, and afflicted all mankind with miserable sympathy, for five days past. The wind has veered about! ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... perjury can be maintained upon a voluntary affidavit. I wish that none of these voluntary affidavits were made; I wish that Magistrates would not lend their respectable names to the use, or rather to the abuse, which is made of these affidavits; for whether they are employed to puff a quack medicine or a suspected character, they are I believe, always used ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... he ran, and on. His slobbering lips could only cry, "Christine! My Dearest Love! My Wife! Where are you gone? What future is our past? What saturnine, Sardonic devil's jest has bid us live Two years together in a puff of smoke? It was no dream, I swear it! In some star, Or still imprisoned in Time's egg, you give Me love. I feel it. Dearest Dear, this stroke Shall never part us, I will ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... There was no one to be seen. He moved back the panel. There was a flash and a tiny puff of smoke. Locke coughed once, clutched at his throat, and lay ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... series of moving accidents went on. A smack hove up under the stern of the schooner, and our skipper said gravely, "That Brixham man's mad to try sailing that vessel. If one puff comes any harder than the last, he'll be hove down." Then the skipper turned to look forward, and Ferrier followed him. A low, strangled moan made them both start and look down the companion. Marion Dearsley, pointing ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... as often as we could get away. Charles intended crossing the river to get pawpaws. A pawpaw is an easily mashed fruit, three or four inches long, with a tough skin inclosing a very liquid pulp full of seeds, and about as solid as a cream puff, when it is dead ripe. It grows on a low, ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... call this living?" he asked contemptuously. Then the good-humoured tone returned to his voice, and he shrugged his bony shoulders as he crossed one leg over the other and took another puff. ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... when a puff of wind unfolded the cloak, and its brightness shed gleams across the water. The witch, who was just entering the forest, turned round at that moment and saw the golden rays. She forgot all about her daughter, and ran down ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... of fear, General Grant, crushed the Rebellion with a single sentence, "I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." That sentence made every man in his army a Grant in courage and confidence. Grant in his prime could puff his cigar while commanding all the armies of his country; but the cigar ultimately destroyed his life, and there was no physician to interpose to prevent one of the ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... mate," retorted Herring, with a puff of contempt, which at the same time emptied his ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... you," said Lady Jane, in her very gravest tone, "not to puff up Caroline's imagination with a parcel of romantic notions.—I never yet knew any good done by it. Depend on it you will be disappointed, if you expect a genius to descend from the clouds express for your daughters. Let them do as other people do, and they ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... You see, it is hard enough to knock a fellow down, though it does not very often do that; but it hurts him a bit, without doing him any harm, except that it may black his eyes or puff up his face for a day or two—and no boy minds that. It accustoms one to bear pain, and is a splendid thing for teaching a boy to keep his temper, and I believe it is one reason why the English make such good soldiers. It is a sort of ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... Frances; and if something is hurt and needs mending, I'm not a tinker, though my father and the priest—yes and you, too—sometimes think so. But sisters do mending, don't they?" and she laughed my earnestness off as one would puff out ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... how the job of casing a joint should be done. I did it the same way. I dug back and forth, collecting the layout from the back door of my building towards the nearest puff of dead area. This coign of safety billowed outward from the pattern towards the building like an arm of cumulus cloud and the top of it rose like a column to a height above my range. It sort of leaned forward but it did not lean far enough to be directly above the ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... considered easy. Mr. Newmark brought his gun to his shoulder and discharged it apparently with one motion, before the ball had more than begun its flight. A roar of the noisy black powder shook the air. The glass sphere seemed actually to puff out in fine smoke. Only the feathers it had contained floated ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... slices, and slid them into the round. Mrs. Holabird folded over the edges, gathered up the linen cloth in her hands, tied it tightly with a string, and Barbara disappeared with it behind the damask screen, where a puff of steam went up in a minute that told the pudding was in. Then Mrs. Holabird went into the pantry-closet and washed her hands, that never really came to need more than a finger-bowl could do for them, and Barbara carried after her the board and its etceteras, and the red cloth ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... ounce of onion is sufficient for a pound of potatoes); between each layer sprinkle a little pepper and salt; put in a little water, and cut about two ounces of fresh butter into little bits, and lay them on the top: cover it close with puff paste. It will take about an hour and a half ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... girls blown with fat who puff and pant; * The maid for me is young brunette embonpoint-scant. I'd rather ride a colt that's darn upon the day * Of race, and set my ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... potatoes and bran. That, despite the tribute of a log, was the real object of the brushwood fire. The two boarders, on their stools, in the best places, and we others sitting on our heels formed a semicircle around those big cauldrons, full to the brim and giving off little jets of steam, with puff-puff-puffing sounds. The bolder among us, when the master's eyes were engaged elsewhere, would dig a knife into a well cooked potato and add it to their bit of bread; for I must say that, if we did little work in my school, at least we did a deal ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... the nine-branched candlestick, and a mystical sadness filled her. Would she had nine scions of her house like Miriam's mother, a true mother in Israel; but, lo! she had only one candle—one little candle. A puff and it was gone, and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... equally to bring water from below, to hold sheaves of chopsticks where the traveller helped himself, and to receive the cash. Trade was busy. Muleteers are glad to rest here after the climb, if only to enjoy a puff of tobacco from the bamboo-pipe which is always carried by one member of the party for the ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... making no movement, save to puff vigorously at the short pipe he was smoking; and so the others of his party did likewise; for the forces of the newcomers were ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... them off with such speed that the first had not reached the mark ere the last was on the string. Each arrow passed high over the oak; and, of the three, two stuck fair into the stump; while the third, caught in some wandering puff of wind, was driven a foot or two ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... often given the form of an item of news, the reader is distressed by the constant fear of being hoodwinked. He begins to read an account of a street accident, and finds at the end of the paragraph a puff of a panacea for bruises. The best English and American journals have refused to lend themselves to this sort of trickery, and in no one of the best journals printed in the English language will there be found an advertisement which is not so plainly differentiated from news ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... bundle lay there; it blazed brightly under the great brewing copper, and it sighed deeply, and each sigh was like a little shot; and the children, who were at play there, ran up, seated themselves by the fire, looked into it, and cried "Puff! puff!" But at each explosion, which was a deep sigh, the Tree thought of a summer day in the woods, or of a winter night there, when the stars beamed; he thought of Christmas Eve and of Klumpey-Dumpey, the only story he ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... you are rich or poor, if you would be an actor begin at the beginning. This is the old conventional advice, and is as good now in its old age as it was in its youth. All actors will agree in this, and as Puff says, in the Critic, "When they do agree on the stage the unanimity is wonderful." Enroll yourself as a "super" in some first-class theatre, where there is a stock Company and likely to be a periodical change of programme, so that even in your low degree the practice will be varied. ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... finished long after midnight, so rested us that, being young and foolish, we went ashore with our host of the afternoon, merely for a farewell glimpse of Bongao, retiring at ever so little o'clock in the morning, and not very long before the engines began to puff and pant, preparatory ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... talking in undertones the crack of a shot sounded from the low ground by the pond, a puff of white smoke appeared, then another, and the sound of hundreds of seemingly merry French voices shouting together came up from the slope. For a moment Denisov and the esaul drew back. They were so near ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... when the sun had risen clear of the sea, he might look upon it for a minute or two—and no more. A puff of wind fanned his cheek; the sail filled and drew. The boat moved through the water and the one-eyed gentleman, arising and treading upon the out-lying tracts of the sleepers, stumbled to the rudder, which was tied with coconut-fibre to an upright stake. The breeze strengthened ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... pleased to see her as ever to see anybody. She regarded her as the merest of butterflies, with pretty flutter and no stay—a creature of wings and nonsense, carried hither and thither by slightest puff of inclination: it was the judgment of a caterpillar upon a humming bird. There was more stuff in Barbara, with all her seeming volatility, than in a wilderness of lady Anns. The friendship between such a twain could hardly consist ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... yet; the bees would lose themselves in this mist. Besides, everything is drenched with rain; the brambles and mosses are full of water; the least puff of wind would drown many of them. We must wait a little while. I know what is the matter: they feel dull, they want to work; they are tormented at the idea of devouring their honey instead of making it. But I cannot afford to lose them. Many of the hives ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... every disagreeable situation in life with remarkable accuracy," he murmured placidly, as he began to puff rings of pale smoke into the surrounding yellow haze, "but he was a bit of ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... rags and the faint damp smell of clothes drying in the house, came forth and filled the hall. The broken-paned window behind Germinie wafted to her nostrils the fetid stench of a leaden pipe in which the whole house emptied its refuse and its filth. Her stomach rose in revolt every moment at a puff of infection; she was obliged to take from her pocket a phial of melissa water that she always carried, and swallow a mouthful of it to avoid ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... such whoppers! As to Lucy Stewart, she quietly confessed to her origin and of her own accord spoke of her childhood and of the days when her father, the wheel greaser at the Northern Railway Terminus, used to treat her to an apple puff ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... day was standing at the parapet near muzzle of 3rd piece talking to Corporal Maxwell, who was gunner to that piece. A puff of smoke came from a Federal embrasure across the river and both squatted below the protecting bank. The shell struck the body of an oak tree standing just in front, and some twenty feet above the ground, tearing ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... with grave qualifications, especially as to the need of excluding doctrinal teaching. By suppressing these qualifications the Secretaries of the Religious Tract Society approve themselves denizens of the world of half-truths, along with puff-writers and ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... Puff Paste Common Paste Mince Pies Plum Pudding Lemon Pudding Orange Pudding Cocoa Nut Pudding Almond Pudding A Cheesecake Sweet Potato Pudding Pumpkin Pudding Gooseberry Pudding Baked Apple Pudding Fruit Pies Oyster Pie Beef Steak Pie Indian Pudding Batter ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... very heart of Old Edinburgh, the Grassmarket was a place of historic echoes. The yelp of a little dog there would scarce seem worthy of record. More in harmony with its stirring history was the report of the time-gun. At one o'clock every day, there was a puff of smoke high up in the blue or gray or squally sky, then a deafening crash and a back fire fusillade of echoes. The oldest frequenter of the market never got used to it. On Wednesday, as the shot broke across the babel of shrill ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... domestic picture for you! My cue's to vanish in a puff of smoke And reek of brimstone, like the witch I am. I'm coming, hoolet, my old cat with wings! It's time I was away: there never yet Was room for two grandmothers in one house. I'm through ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... impatiently awaits. His lines for measuring are a spider's threads. If in looking he makes a mistake of half the thickness of one of these threads, the observation is good for nothing; judge what his uneasiness must be; at the critical moment, a puff of wind occasioning a vibration in the artificial light adapted to his telescope, the threads become almost invisible; the star itself, whose rays reach the eye through atmospheric strata of various density, temperature, and refrangibility, will appear to oscillate so much as to render ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... white staff that stood in the midst of a plaza. Captain Booden returned the compliment by hoisting the Stars and Stripes at our mainmast head, but was sorely bothered with the mingled dyes of the flag on shore. A puff of air blew out its folds, and to our surprise disclosed the Mexican ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson |
