"Chaff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... think I have got matters pretty straight. The question is, whether the Baron will accept my last message as chaff, or resent it. Let me see, how does it read—"It is suggested, for the President's consideration, that rumours uncorrected or unexplained acquire almost the force of admitted truth." Quite so—so they do. Let me see—"That any want of confidence between the governed and the Government ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... by accident and fell near the spur. In stooping to pick it up, the spur also found its way into his hand beneath the hat. He was truly a quick-witted gentleman, and I forgave him from my heart all his chaff in the matter of teaching me manners. It took him not a great while to comprehend, and taking note of the situation of my window, he sauntered off. Thence forward only three men passed by the house, at ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... fords of the Platte. The surgeon said he must remain in bed at least a week, so meantime the troop packed up, sent its wagons ahead over the range, bade God speed to "F" as it passed through en route to the front, exchanged a volley of chaff and chewing tobacco over the parting game of "freeze out" fought to a finish on many an outspread saddle blanket, then, jogged on toward Gate City, making wide detour at the suggestion of the field officer in command at Frayne, that they might scout the Laramie plains and see that all ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... fixed upon her dress, still sown with wheat husks. "There's husks and dust on you. Perhaps you don't know it?" he said, in tones of extreme delicacy. "And it's very bad to let rain come upon clothes when there's chaff on them. It washes in and spoils them. Let me help ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... virtue of being a free contracting party, former purchaser, tenant, farmer or grantee of landed estate.—By this division it fancies that it has respected lawful ownership by overthrowing illegitimate property, and that in the feudal scheme of obligations, it has separated the wheat from the chaff.[2221] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... I do to get a graff Of this unspotted tree? —For all the rest are plain but chaff, Which seem good corn ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... a hopper, below which a series of four or five fans, G, is arranged one below the other. By passing down through these fans the cane is separated from the lighter leaves, much as grain is separated from chaff. The leaves are blown away, and finally taken from the building by an exhaust fan. This separation of the leaves and other refuse is essential to the success of the sugar making, for in them the largest part of the coloring and other deleterious ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... or garden, packing it till it is as hard as the unplowed or unspaded soil. Leave one of them in this condition; from two of them remove an inch or two of soil and replace it in the case of one with clean, dry, coarse sand, and in the case of the other with chaff or straw cut into half-inch lengths. Stir the soil in the fourth one to a depth of one inch, leaving it light and crumbly. Now weigh the jars and set them aside. Weigh each day for several days. The four jars illustrated in Fig. ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... ordinary type, appear fifty per cent, more manly than they really were—the young old Hosack with his groomlike face and immaculate clothes, the burly Howard Cannon, who retained a walrus mustache in the face of persistent chaff, and Noel d'Oyly, who when seen with his Junoesque wife made the gravest naturalists laugh at the thought of the love manners of the male ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... at the club may chaff me all you choose. I'm going to marry her and that's all there is to it. I'm my own master, do you understand? I have no family—no inquisitive, meddlesome relatives, thank God! If this marriage is going to cost me what friends I have—all right—let them keep away! Such friends are not worth ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... the Delaware with Washington; had he not left bloody footprints on the snowy road to Trenton; had he not charged down King Street, swept by the northeast gale and British lead, and driven the brutal Hessians as chaff is swept before the wind? He was, to the village folk, the returned conqueror, and much they made of him, the Allisons with the others. He no longer envied Rodney mounted on Nat riding over the country with all the importance of a special messenger, and it is to be hoped that ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... anything against saying prayers, but I wouldn't before the others if I was you—they'll chaff dreadful, ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... all this chaff the one grain of truth was that Counsellor, released by Unziar on the authority of a telegram from Rallywood, had arrived by the first train in the morning and had at once proceeded to the British Legation. There he found Rallywood waiting for him. 'You have seen the Chancellor?' asked ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... operation on the grown plants is that of topping; this is the planter's hay harvest; the tops serve for chaff, for dry food instead of hay, for fodder. They are cut off above the ears, collected by a cart going along the intervals or roads, and stacked for winter use. Mr. Cobbett's harvest of tops was not so successful as it might have been: ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... help me! I needs must chaff, And people will tickle me till I die— And I've missed of ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... rupees. Nor may it be inappropriate to mention that Rasul Khan was a brother of that same ressaldar Fatteh Khan, who only the month before with a handful of the Guides' cavalry had scattered as chaff before the wind the flower of Diwan Mulraj's horsemen, and chased them into ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... piles of correspondence, asking and promising everything, feels with pride and delight the sense of powerful and responsible existence. Endymion had glanced at all the leading articles, had sorted in the correspondence the grain from the chaff, and had settled in his mind those who must be answered and those who must be seen. The strange incident of last night was of course not forgotten, but removed, as it were, from his consciousness in the bustle and pressure of active life, when his servant brought him ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... fall of Constantinople: and one can well believe that a day of judgment is at hand, in which for every nation and institution, the wheat will be sifted out and gathered into God's garner, for the use of future generations, and the chaff burnt up with that fire unquenchable which will try every man's work, without being of opinion that after a few more years are over, the great majority of the human race will be ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... them in larger baskets shaped like the big earthen jars in which the Romans commonly tored wheat, olives, oil, wine and other similar supplies. On the next day the wheat from the first day's selection of ears was separated from the straw, beards and chaff, was roasted and coarsely ground. The resultant groats were then put away in great earthen jars in the outer storeroom of the temple. On the third day they again selected wheat ears, on the fourth they again prepared ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... because they had pudding-heads themselves, chose to say that I did better without all his reading and Italian, and music, and stuff; and I was foolish enough to let them go on, though I knew all the time it was nothing but chaff. I shall let them all know what fools they were for their pains, as soon as I go back. Why, Queenie, you, who only know Fred at home, you have not the slightest notion what a fellow he is. I'll just tell ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... missions, and your grandchildren dream of training the next generation, and so on, as the sixty generations past have done, from the time of the Saviour down. But the fire of God's Spirit shall burn up this chaff. The world shall not be cheated out of its millenium. The judgment trumpet shall not sound before the arrival of ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... Dacres who had anticipated that pleasure, for while responding with the best grace he could command to the chaff and banter which began to be darted at him, he was consigning Miss Fisher, and more especially the effusive Doady, to every depth between this world ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... mild chaff, to be greeted in Rommany by the suspected policeman, and to accept a glass of the ale, which had rained as it were from heaven into this happy family. These basketmakers were not real Gipsies, but churdi or half-bloods, though they spoke with scorn of the ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... counsel, and whose word should keep The threshold of assent. Here is the source, Whence cause of merit in you is deriv'd, E'en as the affections good or ill she takes, Or severs, winnow'd as the chaff. Those men Who reas'ning went to depth profoundest, mark'd That innate freedom, and were thence induc'd To leave their moral teaching to the world. Grant then, that from necessity arise All love that glows within you; to dismiss Or harbour ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... us to look into; Courts needing to be encouraged to stand for the Kaiser's rights, against those English, French and intrusive Foreigners of the Seville Treaty. We may hope at least to ease our own heavy mind, and have the chaff somewhat blown out of it, by this rushing through the open atmosphere.—Such, so far as I can gather, were Friedrich Wilhelm's objects in this Journey; which turned out to be a more celebrated one than he expected. The authentic records of it are slight, the rumors about it have been many. ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... had taken their chaff in good part; always before, she had joined them in making merry at her expense. But now she did not laugh. She rose slowly and stood looking at them, her breast heaving, her ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... it he ploughed a piece of barren upland. Having ploughed he had no seed paddy to sow; he went to try and borrow some paddy from the neighbours, but they would lend him nothing. Then he went and begged some paddy chaff, and a neighbour readily gave him some. The man took the chaff and sowed it as if it had been seed. Wonderful to relate from this chaff grew up the finest crop of paddy that ever was seen. Day by day the man went and watched with joy ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... held back, long stored up, latent for centuries, came pouring down the empty Wadi bed prepared for its reception. Through stones and sand and boulders it came in an impetuous hurricane of power. The liberation of its life appalled him. All that was free, untied, responded instantly like chaff; loose objects fled towards it; there was a yielding in the hills and precipices; and even in the mass of Desert which provided their foundation. The hinges of the Sand went creaking in the night. It shaped ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... note, ranging back to their recent loss from Texas fever, took the cheer out of Stilwell's face. A brooding cloud came over it; his merry chaff ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... rigid in etiquette, learned in precedence, an oracle in court traditions, a terror to the young maids-of-honor, and always quarrelling with her own sisters, younger, fairer, poorer than herself. Her mind and will were as active as in her girlhood, but they ground chaff instead of wheat. Whether her sisters should dine at the Queen's table, when she never had; who should be her trainbearer at the royal marriage; whether the royal Spanish father-in-law, on the same occasion, should or should not salute the Queen-mother; who, on any given ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... keep his hand in that he adopted a tone of serious chaff to Mr. Norbury, such as some people think a well-chosen one towards children, to their great embarrassment. He replied to that most responsible of butlers with some pomposity of manner. "The question before the house," said he—and paused to enjoy ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... administration newspaper at Washington. By extending the laws of Georgia over the country and people of the Cherokees, the constitution, laws, and treaties, of the United States, were quoad hoc set aside. They were chaff before the wind. In pursuance of these laws of Georgia, a Cherokee Indian is prosecuted for the murder of another Indian, before a state court of Georgia, tried by a jury of white men, and sentenced to death. He applies to a chief justice of ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... mildest little men I ever knew, but chaff or abuse of his Spirit roused the devil in him, and I feared we were going to have a scene. Fortunately, I was able to get his mind back to the consideration of "Hesturnemysfear" before anything worse happened than a few muttered ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... against cheiromancy here, Lady Windermere; it is the only subject that Arthur does not like people to chaff about. I assure you he is quite serious ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... Dalmatia, Istria, and Albania. Rumania and Greece had joined with Servia and bound the Balkans into a temporary brotherhood. Together with Russia and Italy at Haskoi they had scattered the crazy Turkish army like chaff and swarmed on to the Bosphorus. The allied fleet drove a withering wedge of steel and fire ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... with fair intelligence, and quite disposed to work; and at the other end one sees depart a corresponding set of young gentlemen who know nothing, and can do nothing, and are profoundly cynical about all intellectual things. And this is the result of the meal of chaff we serve out to them week after week; we collect it, we chop it up, we tie it up in packets; we spend hours administering it in teaspoons, and this is the end. I am myself the victim of this kind of education; I began Latin at seven and Greek ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... administration, since the Queen thought fit to change her servants, there hath one step been made toward weakening the Hanover title, or giving the least countenance to any other whatsoever; then, and not until then, go dry your chaff and stubble, give fire to the zeal of your faction, and reproach ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... position as the Harrisons advanced to break in the door. A threatening shout from the ambuscaded partisans caused them to hurriedly fall back towards the rear of the barn. There was a pause, and then began the usual Homeric chaff,—with this Western difference that it was cunningly intended to ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... my having to act on that perception. I felt after I had spoken in this sense that my assurance was complete; nothing had been wanting to it but the sight of my effect on him. He disguised indeed the effect in a cloud of chaff, a diversion that gained him time and covered his retreat. He challenged my sincerity, my sanity, almost my humanity, and that of course widened our breach and confirmed our rupture. He did everything in short but convince me either that ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... our day; while the Latin is the fat. The Saxon puts small and convenient handles to things, handles that are easy to grasp; while your ponderous Johnsonian phraseology distends and exaggerates, and never peels the chaff from the wheat. Johnson's periods act like a lever of the third kind,—the power applied always exceeds the weight raised; while the terse, laconic style of later writers is eminently a lever on ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... fellow in civilian attire had captured two of the balls one afternoon and was flying at his most vigorous speed for another. Primrose had paused for a moment while her brother stopped to chaff a companion. The ball rolled swiftly along, and from some slight inequality in the ice deflected. The arm was outstretched to catch it, and she could not quite remember afterward whether she had stooped, but he came against her with sufficient force to knock her over. He caught the ball and held ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... foam, and far as the eye could pierce through the gloom, not another prahu was in sight. The tempest had scattered far and wide the barks of the fierce warriors as the summer breeze would the light chaff. The working of the vessel, as she was tossed up and down by the waves, caused her to leak most alarmingly, and all hands were set to work to bale her out. In this we of course very willingly joined, for our lives depended on her being kept afloat; and it besides ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... certain reasons, prefer to employ the little they make use of in its original state. Horses are rarely kept for luxury or for labour; and the few animals employed in agriculture, which are mostly asses, mules, or buffalos, subsist in the winter season on chaff and straw; and their chief support in the summer is derived from the strong grasses that grow in the ditches and the common reed, with which, in this part of the country, large tracts of swampy ground ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... a couple o' cuts that you might lay your finger in. We an' the Haimigans had another set to on Thursday last, but be my sowl, we thrashed them into chaff—as we're well able to do. Will I have the pleasure of drinking your health, gintlemen? I think I see ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the first principles of philosophy are violated; and many well meaning persons are, by this inverted state of public opinion, insensibly drawn away from the more valuable food provided for them as responsible and immortal beings, to feed on the mere chaff and garbage of temporal and sensual enjoyments; or the more valuable, but still temporary crumbs of the intellectual table. That this practical abuse of acknowledged truths should be found among the ignorant and the depraved, might perhaps be expected; but that it should be witnessed, and yet winked ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... been seen about with her a great deal; knew that he had had to stand a lot of harmless chaff in consequence; he himself had joked about Ashton's "latest" as they had all called her: it seemed a memory to be ashamed of, when he thought of the way he had heard her sobbing in the street that night, of the distress in her eyes, of the hopeless ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... battle was nearly over; he who had not let his talent or myriad talents lie dormant was to rest, his work of life was nearly done. Not that the good is ever ended; verily, through thousands of generations, through eternity, it endures; while the bad—perhaps not useless—is the chaff which is dispersed, and which has no result unless to hurry on the divine will. Our life is double. Shelley's atoms were to return to their primal elements. The unknown atoms or attributes of them were undoubtedly to carry on their ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... confident tone was overdone. Macgregor, after all, was not quite sure about Christina. She laughed at so many things. He was to meet her at seven, and of late he had lost sleep wondering how she would receive his first appearance in the kilt. He dreaded her chaff more than any horrors of war that lay ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... were left galloping, Joris and I, Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh; 'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; Till over by Delhem a dome spire sprung white, And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix ...
— O May I Join the Choir Invisible! - and Other Favorite Poems • George Eliot
... the fence, Leslie!" cried Fred. He was in high good humour now, for Rod McRae would never tell on a fellow, or chaff him ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... shaking hands all round 'mid an avalanche of chaff. "Nice cheerful colour for a cold day; ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... hollin souples, that were sae snell, His back they loundert, mell for mell, Mell for mell, and baff for baff, Till his hide flew round his lugs like chaff.' ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... rallied for coming up behind of a night in that slow amphibious way of his. Drummle upon this, informed our host that he much preferred our room to our company, and that as to skill he was more than our master, and that as to strength he could scatter us like chaff. By some invisible agency, my guardian wound him up to a pitch little short of ferocity about this trifle; and he fell to baring and spanning his arm to show how muscular it was, and we all fell to baring and spanning our arms ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... slightest intention of yielding; her mind and her feet were braced against any divergence from the straight road now; but the man Janet Payne had called Gregory Jessup said something that scattered her resolutions like so much chaff. ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... out the gloom sails the silv'ry moon, O'er forests dark and still, Now far, now near, ever sad and clear, Comes the plaint of the whip-poor-will; With song and laugh, and with kindly chaff, We startle the birds above, Then rest tired heads on our cedar beds, To dream of the ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... the sliding-scale, which he understood to mean the wooden pavement. Things went much more smoothly wherever it was established. He contended for the abolition of nose-bags, which he designated as an intolerable nuisance; urged the prohibition of chaff with oats, as unfit for the use of able-bodied horses; and indeed evinced the truth of his professions, that he 'yielded to no horse in an anxious desire to promote the true interests of the horse-community.' An OLD ENGLISH HUNTER ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... the mighty Teutonic offensive, before which the Italian troops, seasoned veterans that they were, were like chaff before ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... amusing part is that you've really a grain of business in your bushel of chaff." Sewell wheeled about in his swivel-chair, and sat facing his guest, deeply sunken in the low easy seat he always took. "When did this famous idea occur to you?" he pursued, swinging his ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... of wisdom that fell from the lips of the few far-seeing statesmen of the South, were as chaff before the storm of Disunion raised by the turbulent Fire-eaters, and were blown far from the South, where they might have done some good for the Union cause, away up to the North, where they contributed to aid the success of the contemplated ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... instinct for other people's corns and prejudices. Everybody agreed that his remarks were able; there were no dissenting voices. He concluded with an apt and solemnly impressive reference to the wheat and the chaff, the garnering and the casting into furnace, leaving the application concerning the deceased wholly to his audience. That completed his success. When he sat down there was a heaving sigh ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... scenic effects, destroys all that constitutes the character of Hamlet and of the legend. During the whole of the drama, Hamlet is doing, not what he would really wish to do, but what is necessary for the author's plan. One moment he is awe-struck at his father's ghost, another moment he begins to chaff it, calling it "old mole"; one moment he loves Ophelia, another moment he teases her, and so forth. There is no possibility of finding any explanation whatever of Hamlet's actions or words, and therefore no possibility of attributing ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... agree on the idea of the divine; but no, that is not the question—the chaff must be separated from the good grain. The supernatural is miracle, and miracle is an objective phenomenon independent of all preceding casuality. Now, miracle thus understood cannot be proved experimentally; and besides, the ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... arrives. There are thousands who are just as anxious to see the king on the throne again as you are, Edward—and you now know that I am one of them; but the time is not yet come, and we must bide our time. Depend upon it, that General Cromwell will scatter that army like chaff. He is on his march now. After what has passed between us this day, Edward, I shall talk unreservedly to you on what is ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... where they think to do us most hurt. We shall then destroy their bastilles, so that they will have no place of shelter to fly back to; and then we shall fall upon them hip and thigh on the south side, and drive them before us as chaff before the wind. They must needs then disperse themselves altogether, having no more cover to hide themselves in; so will the enemies of the Lord be dispersed, and the siege ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... natural spaces of rock, or open places covered with large flat stones, so that the grain could be readily separated from the husk without waste, and the chaff easily blown away. ...
— A Farmer's Wife - The Story of Ruth • J. H. Willard
... straw, mountain grass, or green and dried rushes. Among the nine thousand people there were but two feather-beds, and but eight beds stuffed with chaff. There were but two stables and six cow-houses in the whole district. None of the women owned more than one shift, nor was there a single bonnet among them all, nor a looking-glass ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... of sense can for a moment doubt that all this much-ado-about-nothing will end in a month. The Northern people are invincible. The rebels are a band of ragamuffins who will fly like chaff before the wind ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... before the pike will fly Dace and roach and such small fry; As the leaf before the gale, As the chaff beneath the flail; As before the wolf the flocks, As before the hounds the fox; As before the cat the mouse, As the rat from falling house; As the fiend before the spell Of holy water, book, and bell; As the ghost from dawning day,— ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... destruction that flow out of the liquor traffic? I have done all I could to induce him to abstain, and he has abstained several months at a time and then suddenly like a flash of lightning the temptation returns and all his resolutions are scattered like chaff before the wind. I have been blamed for living with him, but Miss Belle were you to see him in his moments of remorse, and hear his bitter self reproach, and his earnest resolutions to reform, you would as soon leave a drowning ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... the grain after it has been carried into the nest. All during the harvesting I observed workers bringing chaff from the nest and carrying it some distance away. It is said by Texan observers that the harvesters of that state bring the grain to the surface and dry it, if, perchance, it becomes wet. I have never observed this myself, but accept it ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... the time of Cassandra and Jeremiah up, there have been prophets. Prophets for good and prophets for ill—of which some few have been God-appointed, and the sayings of such alone have been preserved. The rest vanish away into oblivion like chaff before the wind—never mind what their achievement, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... not mean to pain, but only to chaff, your brave daughter. I think that Monsieur Scott is most fortunate in having a friend, a beautiful friend, so loyal to him, and so jealous of his fair fame. But to pass to other matters. Have you had visits from any emissaries of the Canadian ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... he went with a friend to call on an older acquaintance, named Smoot, who was almost as dry a joker as himself, but Smoot had more of this world's goods than the young legislator-elect. Lincoln began at once to chaff his friend. ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... climbing swift and lithe, Chiff-chaff whetting his airy scythe, Woodpecker whirrs his rattling rap, Ringdove flies ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... face with the curate in The Mother is again reminiscent of Harte's technique. Like Dickens and like Bret Harte, Duncan was a frank moralist. His chief concern was in winnowing the souls of men and women bare of the chaff of petty circumstances which covered them. His stories all contain at least a minor chord of sentiment, but are usually free from the sentimentality which mars some of Harte's sketches. He is not ashamed to employ pathos, but his tragic situations are rarely overstrained ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... optician the only effectual means of attaining that purpose," than would the fact, say, of the winnowing of corn having suggested the fanning-machine prove that air currents were designed for the purpose of eliminating chaff from grain. In short, the real substance of the argument from Design must eventually merge into that which Paley, in the above-quoted passage, expressly passes over—viz., "the origin of the laws themselves;" for so long as there is any reason to suppose that any apparent "adaptation" ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... letters of the alphabet of obedience he will learn. Politics was the very shaking of the government sieve, where, if there were any solid result, it was accompanied with a very great flying about of chaff indeed. Society was nothing but whip syllabub, a mere conglomeration of bubbles, as hollow and as unsatisfying. And in lower departments of human life, as far as he knew, he saw evils yet more deplorable. The Church played at shuttlecock with men's credulousness; ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... chaff and joke a little about these things," I continued; "but when it comes to practice, that is what always happens. We have mentioned to our wives that we are going. Naturally, they are grieved; they would prefer to come with us; failing that, they would have us remain ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... see that to accept blindly what you are told is not half so great as to sift it all, and to separate the chaff from the wheat, and to find the kernel of truth in the shell of tradition?" Elisabeth had not talked to Alan Tremaine for over a year without learning his tricks of thought and even of expression. "Don't you think ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... should think not,' Charley said. 'We should never hear the end of it; they would chaff us out of ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... of a Frenchman, Philippe, of a Frenchman hiding his anguish under a little light chaff. A glorious laughter, which forms the pride of ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... Sage counsell'd, and Salaman heard, And drew the Wisdom down into his Heart; And, sitting in the Shadow of the Perfect, His Soul found Quiet under; sweet it seem'd, Sweeping the Chaff and Litter from his own, To be the very Dust of Wisdom's Door, Slave of the Firman of the Lord of Life, Then The Sage marvell'd at his Towardness, And wrought in Miracle in his behalf. He pour'd the Wine of Wisdom in his Cup, He laid ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Paterfamilias, sitting in the family pew, is not so enamoured of that idea of accomplishing those threescore years and ten which the young parson, fresh from Cambridge, is describing as such a lucky number in life's lottery. The attempt to paint it so is well-meaning, no doubt, 'the vacant chaff well meant for grain;' and it is touching to see how men generally (knowing that they themselves have to go through with it) are wont to portray ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... children, coming home from school, Look in at the open door; They love to see the flaming forge, And hear the bellows roar, And catch the burning sparks that fly Like chaff from a threshing-floor. ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... Fe the various individuals had gone their respective ways, to reassemble at the ranch in the near future, and for several days they had been drifting south in groups of twos and threes and, like chaff upon a stream, had eddied into Alkaline, where Mr. Peters had found them arduously engaged in postponing the final journey. After he had gladdened their hearts and soothed their throats by making several pithy remarks to the bartender, with whom he established their credit, ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... Autumn breeze's bugle sound, Various and vague the dry leaves dance their round; Or, from the garner-door, on ether borne, The chaff flies devious from the winnow'd corn; So vague, so devious, at the breath of heaven, From their fix'd aim ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... particularly disliked them; he did not want to leave Fort Blizzard for any other spot on the habitable globe, and least of all did he want to go to the island possessions. But he said no word of complaint, took, with perfect good humor, the condolences and chaff of his brother officers at the mess dinner that night, and plunged into his preparations ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... merry-merry who are now some of our leading actresses to appear at the benefit, but they all threw a fit at the mere mention of the fact that they had once carried a spear. For my part I see nothing degrading in the work, even if we are held up to the gibes and chaff of some ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... and had taken off their armor. As the English with shouts and battle cries attacked the unguarded Scots, Bruce leaped to his horse and with his great two-handed sword drove his enemies before him like chaff. But while the English recoiled before the blows of his powerful arm, they succeeded in routing his followers. A large number of Bruce's friends and retainers were captured, and he himself only escaped by killing with his own hand ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." For what purpose is this fiery baptism with the Holy Ghost? Most certainly that it may consume the inbred sin of our nature, as fire consumes the chaff, or destroys the alloy that the gold may ...
— The Theology of Holiness • Dougan Clark
... foes! May war and storm scatter them as the chaff! My liege, my royal master," continued the earl, in a deep, low, faltering voice, "why knew I not thy holy and princely heart before? Why stood so many between Warwick's devotion and a king so worthy to command it? How poor, beside thy great-hearted ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mountain stream. I was still an uncouth boy, with face smudged with the dust of the fields and hands blackened in play. Yet she did not see the wide gulf which separated us, and, forgetting the hat, the frock, the chaff that clung to my matted hair and the grime of my shirt, she ran to me, threw her arms about my neck and cried: ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... him, his legs securely bound together, and a rough but effective gag in his mouth. Suspicious at first only of a practical joke on the part of some of their number, they liberated him to the running accompaniment of jest and chaff. As soon as he was free, he struggled to his feet and, ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... devil did convey off his poisoned spawn and venom nature into the hearts of Adam's sons and daughters, by which they are at this day so strongly and so violently carried away, that they fly as fast to Hell, and the devil, by reason of sin, as chaff ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that we should banish chaff and jest from our common life, or pretend to be old while still we are young! God forbid that we should be prim and Puritan when the sun shines and life calls! There are no sillier things in life than the mere affectations of intellectuality. Mere solemnity is both an ugly and ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... sin, and "no man layeth it to heart," as is spoken in Isaiah 57, 1. But when God, in this way, has shaken out the wheat and gathered the grain in its place, what, think you, shall be the future of the chaff? Nothing else but to be burned with inextinguishable fire, Mt 13, 42. This shall be ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... of us will get fat on our pay," said I, with a grin, in response to his chaff. "But, what's 'gammy duff'—I never heard tell ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... sincerely. If he did not always act upon it, the weakness is not peculiar to Pope. Time, indeed, has partly done the work for us. In Pope, more than in almost any other writer, the grain has sifted itself from the chaff. The jewels have remained after the flimsy embroidery in which they were fixed has fallen into decay. Such a result was natural from his mode of composition. He caught at some inspiration of the moment; he cast it roughly into form; brooded over it; retouched it again and again; ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... horrible heave of the flank, 35 As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. So we were left galloping, Joris and I, Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; 40 Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... to which chaff did not commend itself. He snatched his hand from beneath the Doctor's fingers, and picked up some letters ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... in my doubt concerning the usefulness of his persistence in re-writing, by my regret that he destroyed so many of his romances, as not worthy of him. "King's chaff is better than other folk's corn" says our proverb. In his day, I bored him by pressing him to write more, and more rapidly; he never could have been commonplace, he never could have been less than excellent. But his conscience was adamant: no man was less of an improviser, as, fortunately, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... am so glad!' Harold exclaimed, and his handsome face lighted up with childish joy, as he put the telegram in his pocket and started For Tracy Park, wondering if he should encounter Tom, and thinking that if he did, and Tom gave him any chaff, he should lick ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... humbug me with these new things. Never catch me in gull-traps. I've seen the rise and fall of too many wonders in my time—am too old a bird to be caught with this kind of chaff." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... me reproachfully. I was about to say that "Blackman's Warbler" was the local name for the Chiff-chaff in our part of Flint, when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various |
