"Chaff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mrs. Wilcox a brother—or was it an uncle? Anyhow, he popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said 'No.' Just imagine, if she'd said 'Yes,' she would have been Charles's aunt. (Oh, I say,—that's rather good! 'Charlie's Aunt'! I must chaff him about that this evening.) And the man went out and was killed. Yes, I'm certain I've got it right now. Tom Howard—he was the last ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... pleaded that before God. But he would not, he could not, for his conscience was under convictions, the awakenings of God were upon him; wherefore his privileges melt away like grease, and fly from him like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, which the wind taketh up and scattereth as the dust; he therefore lets all privileges fall, and pleads only that he us ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... to live in a house which had a door opening to the cloisters. The boys retorted. The worst they gave Mr. Ketch was "chaff;" but his temper could bear anything better than that, especially if it was administered by ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... slaves into the United States Territories. And now there was some inconsistency in saying that the decision was right, and saying, too, that the people of the Territory could lawfully drive slavery out again. When all the trash, the words, the collateral matter, was cleared away from it, all the chaff was fanned out of it, it was a bare absurdity,—no less than that a thing may be lawfully driven away from where it has a lawful right to be. Clear it of all the verbiage, and that is the naked truth of his proposition,—that a thing may be lawfully driven from the place ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... loose women. She had striven with all her might that such a one should not be allowed to take her daughter from her, and had striven in vain. He had succeeded;—but his character was not changed by his success. Did she not know him to be chaff that must be separated by the wind from the corn and then consumed in the fire? His character was not altered because that human being whom she loved the best in all the world had fallen into his power. He was not the less chaff,—the less ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... near. To his actual deeds were added many legends, and stories imported from English books, till the man's name was wrapped around by amazing web of history. I may, some day, sift the grain from the chaff, and make a book. There is certainly fact enough there, from which to ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... which he could only escape by charging through the ranks of his enemies. He did it nobly. With a roar that rebounded from the face of the high cliff and echoed through the valley like a peal of thunder, he sprang out and rushed at the savages in front, who scattered like chaff right and left. But at the same instant fifty blow-pipes sent their poisoned shafts into his body, and, after a few convulsive bounds, the splendid monarch of the American forests fell dead on the ground. The black jaguar is a somewhat rare animal, and is very ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... came out behind him, and showed him tripping lightly over a bullock's broad back. Then he was up on the manger-edge, had paused to make sure, and was down in the manger, picking up crumbs and dust of linseed-cake and chaff. Three mice were doing the same thing, but fled at his approach; but he did not trouble about that, for the cattle had not left even him and his wife a full meal, having blown what was left of the chaff away, and ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... Sir Richard often used to chaff her about her faulty English and spelling. Several correspondents have mentioned this. She used to retort good-humouredly by flinging in his face some ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... that is planted by the rivers of water,' which spreads its foliage and bears its fruit, and year after year flings a wider shadow upon the grass, and lifts a sturdier bole to the heavens. Separated from Him they are like the chaff, which has neither root nor ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Badawi not only always tells the truth, a perfect contrast with the townsfolk; he is blunt in speech addressing his Sultan "O Sa'd!" and he has a hard rough humour which we may fairly describe as "wut." When you chaff him ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... were astonished. Then some began to bully and try and stop him; others stood up for him. But the battle was won. The better minded boys saw what cowards they had been to give up what they knew was right for fear of chaff—one by one they gradually followed his example, and before that lad left school it was the rule and not the exception for the ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous
... the forest up, And like a chief in battle fall,—not yet. The lightnings pour not down, from ragged holes In heaven, the torment of their forked tongues, And, like fell serpents, dart and sting,—not yet. The winds awake not, with their awful wings To winnow, even as chaff, from out their track, All that withstandeth, and bring down the pride Of all things strong ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... dashed between them, cutting down the gunners as they stood. We saw them riding through the guns, as I have said; to our delight we saw them returning, after breaking through a column of Russian infantry, and scattering them like chaff, when the flank fire of the battery on the hill swept them down. Wounded men and dismounted troopers flying towards us told the sad tale—demi-gods could not have done what they had failed to do. At the very moment when they were about to retreat a regiment ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... General Gatacre, a man who bore a high reputation for fearlessness and tireless energy, though he had been criticised, notably during the Soudan campaign, for having called upon his men for undue and unnecessary exertion. 'General Back-acher' they called him, with rough soldierly chaff. A glance at his long thin figure, his gaunt Don Quixote face, and his aggressive jaw would show his personal energy, but might not satisfy the observer that he possessed those intellectual gifts which qualify for high command. At the action of the Atbara ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Russia have already frequently attempted to sow discord in these good and sincere relations, but such efforts are vain. The Russian truth-loving national soul, sensitive of any display of mendacity or insincerity, was able to sift the chaff from the wheat, and faith in our friends is unshaken. There is not a single cloud on the clear horizon of our lasting allied harmony. Heartfelt greetings to you, true friends, rulers of the waves and our companions in arms. May victory ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... knowing anything about her, merely pick up their idea of her character from the rabble. We once entertained the same rabble idea of her; but having read her works—for we really have read them—we now regard her with great respect. However, there is a great abundance of chaff and straw to her grain; but the grain is good, and as we do not eat either the chaff or straw if we can avoid it, nor even the raw grain, but thrash it and winnow it, and grind it and bake it, we find it, after undergoing this process, not only ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... you to this gentleman, Lord Blackadder. Perhaps some of you know him. At any rate you've heard of him. We had a difference of opinion, and I was compelled to administer chastisement." A lot of impudent chaff followed. ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... 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 ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... I'm sure you never looked half so respectable in all your life before. Now, good-bye, Toad, and good luck. Go straight down the way you came up; and if any one says anything to you, as they probably will, being but men, you can chaff back a bit, of course, but remember you're a widow woman, quite alone in the world, ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... three mirrors, imparts to them a wonderful brightness and beauty. The eye-piece is Jesus Christ, and He, looking from outside through Himself into the kaleidoscope, finds perfect all our works. But, should we leave that ineffable abode of Love, He would see but the rags and chaff ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... pew-holders of fashion, who live sumptuously, ride sumptuously to church of a Sunday, and meekly enjoy a sumptuous sermon for appearance sake, will, so long as you pass unheeded the haunts of vice, fall as chaff before the wind. You must make "early education" more than the mere motto of future happiness; you must go undaunted into the avenues of want and misery, seek out the fallen child, forbear with her, and kindly teach her how much good there is ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... was long after noon-time before Barton actually rallied his aching bones, his dizzy head, his refractory inclinations, to meet the fluctuant sympathy and chaff that awaited him down-stairs in every nook and corner ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... you went aft an' turned in, an' that's what's the matter," he repeated, giving me a nudge in the ribs, while he added more earnestly: "And, if I was you, my boy, I wouldn't mention a word of it to another soul, or the hands 'll chaff the life out of you, an' you'll wish ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... whom I knew well in my childhood's days and, after a few minutes' stay, got up to depart, I grabbed his hand and said, "Oh, won't you stay and have a talk?" He, very nicely, stayed on, and we did have a delightful talk; but Victor Ormonde, who happened to be present, has never ceased to chaff me about it. When we dine with them and get up to go he says in thrilling accents, with an absurdly sentimental air, "Oh! won't you ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... rest upon his voluminous works. With his peculiar method of approaching problems there was bound to be an inordinate amount of chaff mixed with the grain, and he used no winnowing machine. His simplicity and transparent honesty induced him to include everything, in fact he seemed to glory in the number of false trails he laboriously followed. He ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... a great prize in Meshach Browning's account of himself, and have been disappointed. Not that some very fair grains of wheat may not be had for the winnowing, but the proportion of chaff is disheartening. Meshach has been edited, and has not come out of that fiery furnace unscathed. Mr. Stabler has not let him come before us in his deerskin hunting-shirt, but has made him presentable by getting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... literature: 'Of course, you who have so many books are going in for being a doctor,' says Socrates, and then he adds, 'there are so many books on medicine, you know.' As Dyer remarks, whatever the quality of these books may have been, their number must have been great to give point to this chaff."—Aequanimitas, WILLIAM OSLER, M.D., F.R.S., ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... is recognized as the product of a long line of erroneous theory and zigzag development, but the wheat has largely been sifted and the chaff thrown to the winds of antiquity. Its therapeutic and psychological value is ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... there rose so wild a yell Within that dark and narrow dell, As all the fiends, from heaven that fell, Had pealed the banner-cry of hell! 430 Forth from the pass in tumult driven, Like chaff before the wind of heaven, The archery appear; For life! for life! their flight they ply— And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry, 435 And plaids and bonnets waving high, And broadswords flashing to the sky, Are maddening in the rear. Onward they drive, in dreadful race, Pursuers and pursued; 440 ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... them in to these, and so not only shutting them out from others, but mounting guard at the fence, walking round and round outside it, to see they didn't escape, and admiring them, talking to them, through the rails, in mere terms of chaff, terms of chucked cakes and apples—as if they had been antelopes or zebras, or even some superior sort of performing, of dancing, bear. It had been reserved for Basil French to strike her as willing to let go, so to speak, a pound or two ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... She was coming home one summer evening, and a gang of corner-loafers stopped her and demanded money to buy beer, as is their custom. Before she had time to be frightened, Mr. Smith appeared,—whence, she knew not,—scattered the gang like chaff, and collaring two of the human hyenas, kicked them, with deliberate, ponderous, alternate kicks, until they writhed in ineffable agony. When he let them crawl away, she turned to him and thanked him warmly, looking very ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... with me! Take your chaff to the goslings. I tells you I can't do without that 'ere lad. Every ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is drawn without a find, you are always sure of having your spirits raised by the cheerful sunrise: by the time you get home, tired and spattered, the ladies are down stairs ready to make pretty exclamations over the brush or to chaff you pleasantly for your want of success; and then there is just time to get your hair brushed and your clothes changed before the mingled aromas of fried sausage and old Java put the keen edge on your already ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... middle of the forests, like wild beasts, I smote. Their carcasses filled the Tigris, and the tops of the mountains. At this time the troops of the Akhe,[4] who came to the deliverance and assistance of Comukha, together with the troops of Comukha, like chaff I scattered. The carcasses of their fighting men I piled up like heaps on the tops of the mountains. The bodies of their warriors, the roaring[5] waters carried down to the Tigris. Kili Teru son of Kali Teru, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... 'twon't disappoint you! There's a good deal of rubbish here, but a scattering of grain among the chaff. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... answered him, spurring their horses and flying down on us. The arrow shafts rattled on the bow staves as Olaf's vikings made ready, and I cried to my spearmen to stand steady, for it seemed as if that thundering charge must sweep the crouching lines like chaff before it. And as it came we were silent, and no spear wavered in all the long hedge to right and ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... by the English schoolmaster, who knows as little of Sanscrit as of Erse Scottis or gaelic; calls England an island! and wishes to teach everyone "The ode to a Skylark," "Silas Marner,"[19] and "Tom Browne's Schooldays." (My own dear countrymen you will not be taken in by this chaff for ever, will you?) Why not study Campbells tales in gaelic, or Sir David Lindsay, or the Psalms ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... the justice to say that her absence, while it increases my domestic peace and happiness, increases my cares also. What with the children, the housekeeping, the thought for mother's little comforts and the concern for father's, I am like a bit of chaff driven before the wind, and always in a hurry. There are so many stitches to be taken, so many things to pass through one's brain ! Mother says no mortal woman ought to undertake so much, but what can I do? While Ernest ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... flowers grouped closely together to form one or more spikelets. The spikelets themselves may be either solitary or clustered. The individual flowers are covered by glumes and are arranged spirally on the axis. As the fruit matures, the glumes of the flowers become the "chaff" of ...
— Philippine Mats - Philippine Craftsman Reprint Series No. 1 • Hugo H. Miller
... give it up; for they're too poor, and the times is hard, and the agent's harder than the times: there's two of them, the under and the upper; and they grind the substance of one between them, and then blow one away like chaff; but we'll not be talking of that, to spoil your honour's night's rest. The room's ready, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... DEAR WILL,—I received your letter yesterday evening, just as I was starting out of town to attend a wedding, and so my mind was privately busy, all the evening, in the midst of the maelstrom of chat and chaff and laughter, with the sort of reflections which create themselves, examine themselves, and continue themselves, unaffected by surroundings —unaffected, that is understood, by the surroundings, but not uninfluenced by them. Here ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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 Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, And 'Gallop,' gasped Joris, ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... characters. Husbands of mine, in short, whose influence over me has, I am proud to say, set death and burial at defiance. Between them they have made my mind the mind of a man. I judge for myself. The opinions of others (when they don't happen to agree with mine) I regard as chaff to be scattered to the winds. No, Catherine, I am not wandering. I am pointing out to a young person, who has her way to make in the world, the vast importance, on certain occasions, of possessing an independent mind. If I had been ashamed to listen behind ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... Don't cry, gran'pa. She'd chaff you worser 'n us! We're only poor little innocent boys. We don't know ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... that the logic-chaff is all laid long since, the question is substantial, not formal. If the Teutsch Ritterdom was actually at this time DEAD, actually stumbling about as a mere galvanized Lie beginning to be putrid,—then, sure enough, it behooved that somebody should bury it, to avoid pestilential effects ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... Cyrebion, or 'Light-as-Chaff', was the nickname of Epicrates, Aeschines' brother-in-law (not the Epicrates of Sec. 277). as a reveller, no doubt in some Dionysiac revel, in which it was not considered decent to take part without a mask. (The original purpose of masks, however, was ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... beast before it is sent to market, costing from 10 to 12 pounds. When sold, the bullocks average 24 or 25 pounds. Thus the cake and the meal equal the whole difference between the buying and selling price, so that all the roots, chaff, and attendance go entirely to the account of manure. These three items, together with the value of pasturage for the months the cattle may lie in the fields, from October to May inclusive, could hardly amount to less than 5 pounds per beast, which, for 170, would be 850 pounds. ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... says: And here's the reason why I tell thus much I, now mature man, you anticipate, May blame my Father justifiably For letting me dream out my nonage thus, And only by such slow and sure degrees Permitting me to sift the grain from chaff, Get truth and falsehood known and named as such. Why did he ever let me dream at all, Not bid me taste the story in its strength? Suppose my childhood was scarce qualified To rightly understand mythology, Silence at least was in his power to keep: I might have—somehow—correspondingly— Well, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... been chiefly introduced for the purpose of guarding our readers against some political sophisms, or to correct some hasty error. But happily, in the writings to which we have devoted our time and attention, the chaff and dross lie so open to view, and are so easily separated from purer matter, that a hint is sufficient to protect the most incautious from harm. Accordingly, in our notes and prefaces we have confined ourselves to simple and succinct histories of the respective works under consideration, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... distil it from the folly of a fool. I can teach you with a quip, if I've a mind; I can trick you into learning with a laugh; Oh, winnow all my folly, and you'll find A grain or two of truth among the chaff! ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Lincoln was called upon by the opponents of this repeal to reply, and he did so with a power which he never surpassed and had never before equalled. All other issues which had divided the people were as chaff, and were scattered to the winds by the intense agitation which arose on the question of extending slavery, not merely into free territory, but into territory which had been declared free by solemn compact. Lincoln's speech occupied more than three hours in delivery, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... entering a Carthusian monastery) ebbing out of the educational and academical town of Cracow spread itself over several provinces. It spread itself shallow but far-reaching. It stirred up a mass of remonstrance, indignation, pitying wonder, bitter irony, and downright chaff. I could hardly breathe under its weight, and certainly had no words for an answer. People wondered what Mr. T. B. would do now with his worrying nephew and, I dare say, hoped kindly that he would make short work of ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person—having neither to weigh thought nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... for life, Archbishop. Just you tell me where you want a church built and I'll see that it's done. Of course I don't mind your chaff—I'm dead in earnest and ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... States will be treated with similar completeness by writers of these countries. The perusal of the present volume will enable us to form an opinion of the merits or demerits of the Socialistic theories and practical plans, and make it possible for us to separate the grain from the chaff, the wisdom from the folly, in the teachings of the Socialists. Thus we shall be able to see which of their complaints and proposals are justified and practical, and which are ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... with. Hence, from the very nature of things and men, the situation is one to develop pathos, humor, comedy, and tragedy, as the great "human sifting machine" works away at separating the wheat from the chaff. The tragedy comes in the case of the excluded, since the blow falls sometimes between parents and children, husband and wife, lover and sweetheart, and the decree of exclusion ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... "you see the powers above are on our side; the arrows of Horam are as chaff on the plain, and as the dust which penetrates not the garments of the traveller. Halt not, therefore, but join your arms to the defender and supporter of ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... think of it—we might both of us have had lots of allocations. These are not the times to conceal hereditary distinctions. But now comes the serious work. We must have one or two men of known wealth upon the list. The chaff is nothing without a decoy-bird. Now, can't you help ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... achievement that way is that at quarter sessions I once convicted a boy of stealing a parcel of cocks and hens."] He must have possessed the gift of going at once to the very root of the matter, and of sifting the corn from the chaff to a most unusual degree; for his Draft gives the substance of the criminal law of England, down to its minute working details, in a compass which, by comparison with the original, may be regarded as almost ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... the wheat is cut, and the new grains are threshed out from the husks which are called chaff. The tall stems make straw. The grains are ground into flour by the miller. We use flour for making bread, cakes, ...
— Chambers's Elementary Science Readers - Book I • Various
... slight breeze, Chaeremon floated through the clear air, far lighter than chaff, and probably would have gone spinning off through ether, but that he caught his feet in a spider's web, and dangled there on his back; there he hung five nights and days, and on the sixth came down by a strand ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... all my harvest-hope I have Nought reaped but a weedie crop of care, Which when I thought have thresht in swelling sheave, Cockle for corn, and chaff for barley bare." ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... published and approved in the Telegraph, the 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 the Court ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... belonged, returning from liberty on shore, was heard saying to another with drunken impressiveness, "Remember, our motto is, 'Patriotism and laziness.'" Of course, this went round the ship, greatly delighting on both counts our marine officers, and became embodied in the chaff that passed to and fro between the two corps; of which one saying, "The two most useless things in a ship were the captain of marines and the mizzen-royal," deserves for its drollery to be committed to writing, now that mizzen-royals have ceased to be. ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... much of each other in the big city. Their meetings were rare, and, so far as I can make out, for the most part accidental. But, as I said before, my oldest inhabitant is somewhat hazy, and excruciatingly prolix; his chaff is in the proportion of some fifty to one of his wheat. I've given a good deal of time to this case already, you see, Mr. Hawkehurst; and you'll find your work very smooth sailing compared to what ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... the sea? O God! thy justice makes the world turn pale, When on the armed fleet, that royally Bears down the surges, carrying war, to smite Some city, or invade some thoughtless realm, Descends the fierce tornado. The vast hulks Are whirled like chaff upon the waves; the sails Fly, rent like webs of gossamer; the masts Are snapped asunder; downward from the decks, Downward are slung, into the fathomless gulf, Their cruel engines; and their hosts, arrayed In trappings ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... Harriet Twistleton? An uncommon fine girl, you know. But I wasn't going to be caught like that. I'm very fond of Harriet,—in my way, you know; but they don't catch an old bird like me with chaff." ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... not ask superfluous questions. You might as fitly paint Dame Venus freckled, As fancy Punch will stoop to being "heckled." I have no "Programmes," I. My wit's too wide To a wire-puller's "platform" to be tied. I know what's right, I mean to see it done, And for the rest good-tempered chaff and fun Are my pet "principles"—till fools grow rash From toleration, then they feel the lash. I am a sage, and not a prig or pump, Therefore I never canvas, spout or stump, I'm Liberal—as the sunlight—of all Good, Which to Conserve I strive—that's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... carnations instead of violets for Belle Proctor's dinner Tuesday," said Bess, with covetousness in her eyes as she watched Matthew begin to unload his wheat. I wonder what Matthew's man, Hickson, at one twenty-five a month, thought of his master's coat when he began to brush the chaff ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... curate, and Henry Everard, M.D., going by rail to Malbourne. Everard asleep; manly, cheerful, intellectual, healthy in body and mind. Cyril awake; consumed by unspeakable sorrow. Everard wakes; Cyril suddenly becomes gay in response to his friend's high spirits. They chaff each other. Cyril preaches to Everard, when Henry scolds him for fasting, and his laxity of faith and practice. They pass Belminster, when Cyril betrays unconscious ambition at Everard's jesting prophecy that he would preach as bishop in the cathedral. Asceticism ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to herself Miss Hastings put off from day to day this final expedition until Blair began to chaff ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... have not troubled each other for a long time. I suppose I am fortunate in being left alone." She was silent a few minutes, and then she told him kindly: "Hal says they always chaff you about marrying an heiress, for the sake of being rich without any need to work; but take my advice, and don't force the hand of Fate before she has had time to give you good things in ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... miles Worson went on very well, at an easy gait, without apparent fatigue, for he had really great powers of endurance and was not sufficiently intoxicated to enfeeble them. The three men in the wagon kept a short distance in the rear, giving him occasional friendly "chaff" or encouragement, as the spirit moved them. Suddenly—in the very middle of the roadway, not a dozen yards from them, and with their eyes full upon him—the man seemed to stumble, pitched headlong forward, uttered a terrible cry and vanished! He did not fall ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... of Revolution spent themselves and Metternich drove the rebels before him, as the hurricane blows chaff. Order was re-established in Vienna and in ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... times. Moreover, among the emblems of Dionysus was the winnowing-fan, that is the large open shovel-shaped basket, which down to modern times has been used by farmers to separate the grain from the chaff by tossing the corn in the air. This simple agricultural instrument figured in the mystic rites of Dionysus; indeed the god is traditionally said to have been placed at birth in a winnowing-fan as in a cradle: in art he is represented as an infant so cradled; and from these traditions and representations ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... butler and he had the sensation of chaff scattering before a strong wind. In truth Mrs. Oglethorpe was an impressive figure and quite two inches taller than himself. He could only stare at her in helpless awe, the more so as he had recognized ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... I'm too old a bird to be caught with chaff. It's a dirty shame, of course, about this man Henderson, but I'm not running the criminal jurisprudence ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... be possible to 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, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... knew the real trouble with Niggertown was it had adopted the white village's estimate of it. The sentiment of the white village was overpowering among the imitative negroes. The black folk looked into the eyes of the whites and saw themselves reflected as chaff and skum and slime, and no human being ever suggested that they ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... fulsome prayers. And Hogginarmo promised speedily to pay his humble homage at his august master's throne, of which he begged leave to be counted the most loyal and constant defender. Such a WARY old BIRD as King Padella was not to be caught by Master Hogginarmo's CHAFF and we shall hear presently how the tyrant treated his upstart vassal. No, no; depend on't, two such rogues do not ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this till the landlord had almost forbidden him the place. Albina herself, too, advised him to come as seldom as possible. She considered that as long as she was a barmaid she must be friendly, and not too sensitive to the chaff of the guests; and if it pained him to see this, it was better that he should remain away. And with an ardent glance she added that when she was his wife he would have her all to himself. Heimert had constrained himself to ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... might have served as models for goddesses stood, pitch-fork in hand, removing the chaff. The breeze blowing through it would catch the wisps and send them dancing in the air, while the great generous streams of golden grain flowing from the machine seemed like ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... kind impulses in this direction. When the boys come into my yard for leave to gather horsechestnuts, I own I enter into Nature's game, and affect to grant the permission reluctantly, fearing that any moment they will find out the imposture of that showy chaff. But this tenderness is quite unnecessary; the enchantments are laid on very thick. Their young life is thatched with them. Bare and grim to tears is the lot of the children in the hovel I saw yesterday; yet not the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... credit as open and even- down truth; but as to whether Taffy's master's nick-nackets be true or false, every one is at liberty, in this free country, to think for himself. Old sparrows are not easily caught with chaff; and unless I saw a proper affidavit, I would not, for my own part, pin my faith to a single word of them. But every man his ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... always been woman's mission. But whenever he sees one of these new citizens, or hears fresh stories of their address and ability, Mr. Punch is proud and delighted. Perhaps in the past, even in the present, he may have been, or even still is, a little given to chaff Englishwomen for some of their foibles, and even their aspirations. But he never doubted how splendid they were at heart; he never for a moment supposed they would be anything but ready and keen when the hour of ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... dry rejoinder caused was interrupted by the waitress bringing out tea; and these Hillsborough worthies felt bound to chaff her; but she, being Yorkshire too, gave them as good as they brought, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... the shivers. My heart yearns toward that beautiful young creature, and I believe she is as innocent as my baby. It is a burning shame to send her here, unless there is no doubt of her guilt. Judge Dent is too shrewd an old fox to be baited with chaff, and I am satisfied from what he told you, that he believes her statement. There is nothing I would not do to comfort her, but I would rather have my ears boxed than witness her suffering. The day I carried to her a change of clothes, until her own could be washed, and ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... 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
... furnace many times the good and bad will hold; But what consumes the chaff will only cleanse the gold. R. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... into me deepest, however, was the look of nearly every one of the judges. Had they been dressed as longshoremen, one would still have known them for possessors of the judicial temperament—men born to hold the balances and fitted and trained to winnow out the wheat from the chaff. So many eagle-beaked noses, so many hawk-keen eyes, so many smooth-chopped, long-jowled faces, seen here together, made me think of what we are prone to regard as the highwater period of American statesmanship —the ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... into 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
... stretch his limbs. The bed was wretched, merely a wooden frame fastened to the wall, so that it could not be moved, which rendered it extremely difficult to bleed him, or to assist him in any way, as he could neither turn nor raise his head an inch from the pillow, or rather sack of chaff, upon which he was laid. This was so full of dust that it made him cough. I soon removed it, and got a cushion out of the carriage instead. We had a clean blanket from Brussels, and at first we put clean sheets on every day. But ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... on a trot round a centre, a woman holding the reins, and another, or a girl or two, with whips drive; the men supply and clear the floor; other parties are dressing, by throwing the corn into the air for the wind to blow away the chaff. Every soul is employed, and with such an air of cheerfulness, that the people seem as well pleased with their labor, as the farmer himself with his great heaps of wheat. The scene is uncommonly animated and ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... a woman who had three daughters, two of whom were so unlucky that nothing ever succeeded with them, all their projects went wrong, all their hopes were turned to chaff. But the youngest, who was named Nella, was born to good luck, and I verily believe that at her birth all things conspired to bestow on her the best and choicest gifts in their power. The Sky gave her the perfection of its light; Venus, matchless beauty of form; Love, the first dart of ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... cases very unsuitable, uncalled for, and insufficient. However, sir, I accept your remarks in the same friendly spirit as, I am sure, you have offered them. Permit me, at the same time, as one many years your senior, to say that, in considering your proposals, I shall separate the chaff—of which there is a good deal—from the wheat—of which there is some little; the latter I shall gather into my mind's garner, and I trust it will fall on good soil." I took the old gentleman's hand and ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... food daily consumed by an elephant in captivity is calculated at 200 lbs; besides thirty-six pails of water. It consists of turnips, rice, chaff, bran, hay, and sea biscuit. Straw is allowed for his bed, which is generally consumed before morning; besides which, when they are in menageries they receive no small quantity of dainties from visitors. I never could enter the Rotunda in the Paris menagerie, without being furnished with ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... then," said Harris, replying in his gruffest voice, "for I'm in a mortal bit of a hurry, and I'm in no humor to listen to no chaff, so get away." ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... him at dinner at Sir John McDonald's, then adjutant-general, a very kind and excellent friend of mine. Mrs. Norton and Lord C——, who were among the guests, both came late, and after we had gone into the dining-room, where they were received with a discreet quantity of mild chaff, Mrs. Norton being much too formidable an adversary to be challenged lightly. After dinner, however, when the men came up into the drawing-room, Theodore Hook was requested to extemporize, and having sung one song, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Chapeau, "how Cathelineau led a few of the townsmen against a whole regiment of soldiers, and scattered them through the town like chaff." ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... anxiety. We dared not speak of our feelings, for fear of frightening our young companion, who pressed close up to me. Amidst the universal destruction going on, it only needed a branch driven by the squall to dislodge our shelter, for us to be swept away like chaff before the wind. I had witnessed many a hurricane, but this ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... to feed the birds is almost an art in itself. A winter lunch counter spread with suet, nuts, hemp seed, meat, and crumbs will attract nuthatches, chickadees, downy and hairy woodpeckers, creepers, blue jays, etc. Canary seed, buckwheat, oats and hay-chaff scattered on the ground beneath will provide an irresistible banquet for other feathered boarders. A feeding place of this sort can be arranged for convenient observation from a window, and afford no end of diversion and instruction. But whether close to home or far afield, the great secret ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... his pride was failing him, and he was ready to plead for the chance of a little rest. Therefore he opened the door, and invited the landlady to enter in the most conciliating manner. But no such poor chaff would be of any avail with one of Mrs. Gruppins' experience, and looking straight before her, as if addressing no one in particular, she ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... "Thus this globe," he says, "when brought rather near drops of water causes them to swell and puff up. It likewise attracts air, smoke, etc."(9) Before the time of Guericke's demonstrations, Cabaeus had noted that chaff leaped back from an "electric," but he did not interpret the phenomenon as electrical repulsion. Von Guericke, however, recognized it as such, and refers to it as what he calls "expulsive virtue." "Even expulsive virtue is seen in this globe," he says, "for ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Oh! he was a very dirty, wretched man himself, but he must have had a kind heart. He took me by the hand and made me carry his broom and brushes. Nobody took much notice of us, the dawn was only just breaking, and the passages were very dark and deserted; only once some soldiers began to chaff him about me: 'C'est ma fille—quoi?' he said roughly. I very nearly laughed then, only I had the good sense to restrain myself, for I knew that my freedom, and perhaps my life, depended on my not betraying ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... cheek, And his starven hands grew plump and sleek. But for all sign of wealth he wore He swaggered neither less nor more. He talked the stuff he talked before, And bragged as he had bragged of yore, With his Yankee chaff and his Yankee slang, And his Yankee bounce and his Yankee twang. And, to tell the truth, we all held clear Of the impudent little adventurer; And any man with an eye might see That, though he bore it merrily, He recognised the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... 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 that it is better to believe a little ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... cheiromancy here, Lady Windermere; it is the only subject that Arthur does not like people to chaff about. I assure you he is ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... I know my time for skirmshander (chaff) is over, and I must steer a straighter course; but don't you fear, Jack ashore is a very different craft from what he is with blue water under his keel. I had a long talk with Uncle last night and got my orders; I won't forget 'em nor all I owe him. As for you, I'll name my first ship as I say, ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... and twisted by a terrible squall; here and there, between the distorted stalks, the muddy earth of the rice-swamp was visible; there were even little pools of water, produced by bits of the transparent lacquer on which tiny particles of gold seemed to float about like chaff in a thick liquid; two or three insects, which required a microscope to be well seen, were clinging in a terrified manner to the rushes, and the whole picture was no larger ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... burn, lads," said Trapper Jim, who certainly enjoyed hearing the boys chaff each other in this way. "And everybody keep away from that side of the house where the ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... motion, and, the animal being partially roused, he drives across the street to us. DAUBINET directs him, and on we go, lumbering and rattling through the town, meeting only one other voiture, whose driver appears infinitely amused at his friend having obtained a fare. Some chaff passes between them, which to me is unintelligible, and which DAUBINET professes not to catch, but I fancy, whatever it is, it is not highly complimentary to our cocher's fares. In one quarter through which we drive, they are setting ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... they did in the first instance at the sawdust. When they get tired of soot (which they will in time) you must procure some soft tissue paper and cut it fine, and use that in the same way as the sawdust and the soot. You can also use light chaff or hay ...
— Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher - After 25 Years' Experience • Ike Matthews
... 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 ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... promulgated fixing the composition of horse chaff. The approach of the pantomime season is thought to be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... atheistical principles of the French, among whom God was disregarded or forgotten; and, elevated by the importance of his subject, he described the Almighty as mustering his wrath to descend on that nation, and disperse it as chaff in a whirlwind. He called on them to look towards their home of England, and to see with what eager devotion the inhabitants worshiped the golden image of Commerce, and laid the tribute of all their thoughts on its altars; ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... but a Chapel of Ease. But some spiritual paralysis seemed to have befallen our pastor; for, though many faces turned toward him, full of the dumb hunger that often comes to men when suffering or danger brings then nearer to the heart of things, they were offered the chaff of divinity, and its wheat was left for less needy gleaners, who knew where to look. Even the fine old Bible stories, which may be made as lifelike as any history of our day, by a vivid fancy and pictorial diction, were robbed of all their charms by dry explanations ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... chaff, mister," retorted one of the street boys, irreverently. "When did you come from the ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the Thursday night after, I, my father, uncle, and several other friends, went there and made the match. She had sixty guineas, that her grandfather left her, thirteen head of cattle, two feather- and two chaff-beds, with sheeting, quilts, and blankets; three pieces of bleached linen, and a flock of geese of her own rearing—upon the whole, among ourselves, it wasn't aisy to ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... 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 ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... knew. Then there were rides in the country with Grant's staff. Lincoln in his tall hat and frock coat was a marked and curious figure on a horse. He had once, by the way, insisted on riding with Butler, catechising him with remorseless chaff on engineering matters and forbidding his chief engineer to prompt him, along six miles of cheering Northern troops within easy sight and shot of the Confederate soldiers to whom his hat and coat identified him. But, however odd a figure, he impressed Grant's officers as a good and bold horseman. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... soldiers were upon his back. When he regained consciousness he found himself securely bound, as was Werper also. The Belgian officer, success having crowned his efforts, was in good humor, and inclined to chaff his prisoners about the ease with which they had been captured; but from Tarzan of the Apes he elicited no response. Werper, however, was voluble in his protests. He explained that Tarzan was an English lord; but the officer only laughed at the assertion, ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the penitentiary, it's easy to say but hard to do. So much time, seemingly, has to be wasted in profitless study to find a few kernels amid much chaff. Napoleon said at one point that the trouble with books is that one must read so many bad ones to find something really good. True enough but, even so, there are perfectly practical ways to advance rapidly without undue waste ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... usually of plaited rattan strips with a rim of thicker rattan. It is held in both hands and by a series of shuffling motions, which are better seen than described, accompained[sic] by a peculiar movement of the thumb of the left hand, the chaff and the little broken fragments of rice are thrown off into another receptacle for the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... King went gathering Wessex men, As grain out of the chaff The few that were alive to die, Laughing, as littered skulls that lie After lost battles turn to ...
— The Ballad of the White Horse • G.K. Chesterton
... impatiently!—waited with all necessaries in hand to bake bread for their men. The respective husbands and sons squatted around on their heels, languidly smoking their pipes and urging their women to be quick. A deal of good-natured chaff seemed to take place during this daily operation, but the women were quite in earnest and took themselves and the process very seriously. They seemed much concerned if one piece got too much burnt or ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... is her merry laugh! So wondrous is her power That listening grief would stop and chaff With her ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... by the group on the veranda, not heeding their chaff and once outside the grounds, Jim said, "Are you sure you want to ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... staying in the house." "Va bene, va bene," Giorgio would mutter. He obeyed. The Signori Inglesi would require their midday meal presently. He had been one of the immortal and invincible band of liberators who had made the mercenaries of tyranny fly like chaff before a hurricane, "un uragano terribile." But that was before he was married and had children; and before tyranny had reared its head again amongst the traitors who had imprisoned ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... About the fourth day after her sister had left, I got my hands on her thigh. On Sunday when all were at church: to blind my mother I had gone out, but went home directly, and into the kitchen to resume my baudy chaff, I forgot all about her sister, got to kissing and trying to feel her. I was long in the kitchen with my prick out, sometimes hanging, sometimes standing stiff, trying to induce her to let me, but it was of no use. Her cap was off, her ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... and wanting wit to choose, Who house the chaff and burn the grain; Who hug the wealth ye cannot use, And lack the riches all may gain. ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... she known it, Kingozi was getting what he required. Information came to him a word now, a word then; promises came to him in single phrases lost in empty gossip. He collected what he wanted grain by grain from bushels of chaff. The whole sum of his new knowledge could have been expressed in a paragraph, took him a week to get, but was just what he wanted. If he had asked categorical questions, he would have received lies. If he had attempted to hurry ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... spite of his assertion, earlier on, that he "preferred his own company," he seemed thoroughly to enjoy the little home-like diner a trois. There was something about the cosy room and the gay, good-humoured chaff and laughter of brother and sister which conveyed a sense of welcome—partaking of that truest kind of hospitality which creates no special atmosphere of ceremony for a guest but encompasses him ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... know—or, rather, I do know what he would think, if he heard another man use, in the presence of a woman, the kind of language which he habitually employs. However, I said nothing. I had a motive for allowing the chaff ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... last the supposed coexistence of Mind and matter and the mingling of good and evil have re- sulted from the philosophy of the serpent. Jesus' demon- 269:6 strations sift the chaff from the wheat, and unfold the unity and the reality of good, the unreality, the nothing- ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... good, and a little evil, to see only the evil and the falsehood, to the utter exclusion of the truth and the good. All men whose minds are sufficiently laborious or acute to love the reading of metaphysical inquiries, will by the same labour and acuteness separate the chaff from the corn—the false from the true. It is the young, the light, the superficial, who are easily misled by error, and incapable of discerning its fallacy; but tell me, if it is the light, the young, the superficial, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... up at a stand he had never been on before: it was time to give Diamond his bag of chopped beans and oats. The men got about him, and began to chaff him. He took it all good-humouredly, until one of them, who was an ill-conditioned fellow, began to tease old Diamond by poking him roughly in the ribs, and making general game of him. That he could not bear, and the tears came in his ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... the faithful guardians, the active monitors of our duty, the true supporters of all liberal and manly morals. We have not been drawn and trussed, in order that we may be filled, like stuffed birds in a museum, with chaff and rags and paltry blurred shreds of paper about the rights of man. We preserve the whole of our feelings still native and entire, unsophisticated by pedantry and infidelity. We have real hearts of flesh and blood beating in our bosoms. We fear God; we look up with awe to kings; with ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... see, that by doing so, 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; ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... his staff of Mamre oak, A knotted shepherd-staff that's broke The skull of many a wolf and fox Come filching lambs from Jesse's flocks. Loud laughs Goliath, and that laugh Can scatter chariots like blown chaff To rout: but David, calm and brave, Holds his ground, for God will save. Steel crosses wood, a flash, and oh! Shame for Beauty's overthrow! (God's eyes are dim, His ears are shut.) One cruel backhand sabre cut— ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... hatred of slavery, to show the utter fallacy of basing national reconstruction upon the votes of returned rebels, and rejecting loyal black men; making (after all the blood poured out like water, and wealth scattered like chaff) a return to the old idea that a white rebel is better or of more account in the body politic than a loyal black man.... Moses, the meekest man on earth, led the children of Israel over the Red Sea, but was not permitted to see them settled in Canaan. Mr. Lincoln has led up through another Red Sea ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... potent chemicals fearlessly administered, leaving him dark as to their distinctive qualities applied remedially. What should he do? Run with the prescription to old Taylor in the next street, a chemist of forty years? Alas! at his tender age he had not omitted to chaff that reverend rival persistently and publicly. Humble his establishment before the King Street one? Sooner perish drugs, and come eternal cricket! And after all, why not? Drummer-boys, and powder-monkeys, and other ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... let the quantity usually allotted for a meal be mixed, consisting, for the first week, of three parts of milk and one part of hay-tea. The only nourishing infusion of hay is that which is made from the best and sweetest hay, cut by a chaff-cutter into pieces about two inches long, and put into an earthen vessel; over this, boiling water should be poured, and the whole allowed to stand for two hours, during which time it ought to be ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... Till that eventful day When all the labor of our hands Like chaff was swept away: We saw our home made desolate, Our pleasant cottage sold; Men called us poor, but we were rich In ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... To some women, as they advance in years, an inability of separating chaff from earnest becomes more pronounced, and the uppermost wish of her mind at present was to see a real attachment between Bertie and Cecil. Albert Du Meresq was only her half-brother; but he had become her charge in infancy under terrible circumstances, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... relative clause. He was a typical back-blocker, dry and wiry, nasally cocksure, insolently cool, a fearless hand with horse, man, or woman. He was a good friend to Hack when there was no third person of his own kidney to appreciate the overseer's conception of friendly chaff. They were by themselves now, yet the last speech drew from Radford ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... pretends to be a missionary for Israel, and who brings forward the apocryphal book of Enoch, has been among my people in my absence, and many have been led after him. How humbling is this to them and to me! Lord, what is man! This may be blessed, 1st, to discover chaff which we thought to be wheat; 2nd, to lead some to greater distrust of themselves, when their eyes are opened: 3rd, to teach me the need of solidly instructing those who seem to have grace ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... the strong man shot down with all his eager blood hot within him, by men as hot-blooded as himself. But once when the old doctor's eye caught the up-turned, straining gaze of the father Darley, seeking with all his soul to find a grain of holy comfort in the chaff of words, his conscience smote him. Had he nothing to say that should calm anger and revenge with spiritual power? no breath of the comforter to soothe repining into resignation? But again the discord between the laws of man and the laws of Christ stood before him; and he gave up the attempt ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Morfydd, not thy haunting kiss Or voice of bliss can save me From the spear of age whose chill Has quenched the thrill love gave me. My ripe grain of heart and brain The sod sadly streweth; Its empty chaff with mocking laugh The wind of death pursueth! Dig my grave! O, dig it deep To hide my sleeping body, So but Christ my spirit keep, ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... usually freed from chaff by the simple process of throwing it into the air when a brisk wind was blowing, but we saw several hand winnowing machines which were exceedingly ingenious and very effective. The wheat was ground between two circular stones ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... conjugial love?" But the angelic spirits replied, "Think more profoundly, weigh the matter well in your minds, and you will perceive, that your love of the sex is a love extra-conjugial, and quite different from conjugial love; the latter being as distinct from the former, as wheat is from chaff, or rather as the human principle is from the bestial. If you should ask the females in heaven, 'What is love extra-conjugial?' I take upon me to say, their reply will be, 'What do you mean? What do you say? How can you utter ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg |
