"Sift" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would have enough to make the first payment; and if they had employment, so that they could be sure of the future, it might really prove the best plan. It was, of course, not a thing even to be talked of lightly; it was a thing they would have to sift to the bottom. And yet, on the other hand, if they were going to make the venture, the sooner they did it the better, for were they not paying rent all the time, and living in a most horrible way ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... sandwich tins. Dissolve 1 oz. chocolate in pan, with 1 tablespoonful milk, over the fire. Beat butter and sugar to a cream. Beat up eggs very light, laying aside one white for icing, and add. Sift flour and baking powder, and mix in, then flavouring. Put a third in one tin, another in pan with chocolate, and put a few drops carmine in that left in bowl. Put these into the different tins and place at once in hot oven. They should be ready in 10 minutes. Put remaining chocolate ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... country gentlemen, there is no peasantry here, and (in New England, for all the corn comes from the far West) there are no yeomen nor farmers. The information that one receives in this country is apt to be rather conflicting, but I am determined to sift the mystery to the bottom. I have already noted down a multitude of facts bearing upon the points that interest me most—the operation of the school- boards, the co-education of the sexes, the elevation of the tone of the lower classes, the participation of the latter in political life. ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... guess for yourself, Flo? It is this. The school has got into trouble, and the governors and Miss Ravenscroft mean to sift the matter to the very bottom. It is pretty bad when all things are considered, for if the girls won't tell they will be expelled—expelled without any hope of returning. And I rather fancy Kathleen is the sort of girl whom no one ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... Chuck his orders to the dogs! Don't you worry; that affair will never come off. I'll go to your old man myself, and sift and strain this matter clear—there will be none of it left. I have come here only for the look of the thing. A very likely thing! Here's my son living in happiness and expecting happiness, and I'll go and match him with a slut! No fear, ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... Materials be very cautious that you exceed not the just Proportion, for which I shall give Directions to be a Standard in this case, viz. Having beat a Pound of Powder very fine, and sifted it through a Lawn Sieve that no whole Corns remain in it; do the like by two Ounces of Charcole; then sift them together, so that they may mix well, which done, fill a small Rocket with this Mixture, and if it break in Mounting before it come to the supposed height, or burns out too fierce, then is there ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... rice-dealers here had given me, that the difference between your rice and that of Piedmont proceeded from a difference in the machine for cleaning it. At Marseilles I hoped to know what the Piedmont machine was; but I could find nobody who knew anything of it. I determined, therefore, to sift the matter to the bottom, by crossing the Alps into the rice country. I found their machine exactly such a one as you had described to me in Congress in the year 1783. There was but one conclusion then to be drawn, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... seas, nor sift mankind, A poet or a friend to find: Behold, he watches at the door! Behold his shadow on ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... domestic life—simple, self-respectful, cordial, and affectionate—is seen in an admirable aspect. All New England is primitive and puritanical. All about and around it is a puddle of mixed human mud, with no such quality in it. Perhaps I may in time sift out some tolerably intelligible whole, but I certainly have not done so yet. It is a good sign, may be, that it all seems immensely more difficult to understand than it was ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... its title, this essay is intended to be an interpretation of the recent Negro migration in the United States. Its object is to sift out from the mass of writings the most salient facts pertaining to this movement and to present them in such a manner as to give a correct impression of it in its entirety. In this regard, however, it is not a mere narration of events, but, as ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... equally independent of him. His own ideas were dead against the change, and at each step in bringing it about the divine causality is everything, and he is nothing but its obedient servant. It is hopeless to sift out a naturalistic explanation from the narrative, which is either supernatural or nothing. Note the three points of this communication,— God's sending Saul, the command to anoint, and the motive ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... He proceeded to sift some fine, crisp snow in one of the imprints, then, producing an old letter from his pocket, he flattened out the type-written sheets of foolscap therein. Placing the blank side of the sheet face-downwards upon the imprint he pressed down smartly. The result was a very fair impression of ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... unbounded command of his own. The latter is, however, by far the most marked characteristic of his Translations. Dryden was not indeed deficient in Greek and Roman learning; but he paused not to weigh and sift those difficult and obscure passages, at which the most learned will doubt and hesitate for the correct meaning. The same rapidity, which marked his own poetry, seems to have attended his study of the classics. ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Some will sift quick Lime into foxed Drinks while they are working in the Tun or Vat, that its Fire and Salts may break the Cohesions of the Beer or Ale, and burn away the stench, that the Corruption would always cause; but then such Drink should by a Peg at the bottom of the Vat be drawn ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... was one of the most delightful surprises of my life. I think we have wronged the South, though we did not mean to do so. The reason was, in part, that we had irreparably wronged ourselves by putting no safeguards on the ballot box at the North that would sift out alien illiterates. They rule our cities today; the saloon is their palace, and the toddy stick their sceptre. It is not fair that they should vote, nor is it fair that a plantation Negro, who can neither read ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... why I have come to you," continued Agatha, very seriously. "I am employed by those whose identity I must not disclose to sift this mystery of Colonel Weatherby to the bottom, if possible, and then to fix the guilt where it belongs. By accident you have come into possession of certain facts that would be important in unravelling the ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... to have her with us in the North again this autumn. As you remember, I came to you, and told you the facts. I made you understand how repulsive it was to me to think that this girl might be my child, and begged you to sift the matter as far as was possible, and to find out if there were not a chance that I was mistaken in thinking it was Countess Romaninov who ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... sift things to the bottom; there are oaths and oaths. The oath which freely, solemnly, before the face of God and man, having received a note of confidence from 6,000,000 of citizens, one swears before the National Assembly, to the constitution of his country, to the law, to the people, and to France, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... beene justice of y'e peace, like y'e king's grandmother, I w'd have beene very jealous of accusations of witchcraft; and have taken infinite payns to sift out y'e causes of malice, jealousie, &c., which mighte have wroughte with y'e poore olde women's enemies. Holie Writ sayth, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live;" but, questionlesse, manie have suffered hurte that were noe witches; ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... despatched a servant to bring him in; sending a second in search of the overseer; while a third was ordered to assemble all the house-servants. "I will sift this matter to the bottom, and child or servant, the guilty one shall suffer for it," exclaimed the old gentleman, pacing angrily up and down the room. "Arthur," said he sternly, as the boy made his appearance, looking somewhat pale and alarmed, "how ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... never enjoyed herself more than she did as she sat by the amber waters in the fading light, watching the kind, clumsy Koopf (who was yet so skilful at his own work) place the pretty globe with so much pride and pleasure. She kept sniffing, meanwhile, at the tantalizing perfume that seemed to sift downward from the feathers of the Plynck, as she stirred, ever so softly, ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... 'tis your Duty, my Dear, to warn the Girl against her Ruin, and to instruct her how to make the most of her Beauty. I'll go to her this moment, and sift her. In the meantime, Wife, rip out the Coronets and Marks of these Dozen of Cambric Handkerchiefs, for I can dispose of them this Afternoon to a Chap in the ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... by two tremendous volleys of thunder, to the infinite consternation of the multitude, who received it as a supernatural manifestation. But a member of the King's Privy Council, a satirical skeptic and mistruster of everybody's word but his own, undertook to sift the matter,—and adopting the dress of the Mystics, managed to introduce himself into one of their secret assemblies, where with considerable astonishment, he saw them make use of a small wire, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... PRINCESS IDA, that the way to make jumbles is to rasp on some good sugar the rinds of two lemons; dry, reduce it to powder, and sift it with as much more as will make up a pound in weight; mix with it one pound of flour, four well-beaten eggs, and six ounces of warm butter; drop the mixture on buttered tins, and bake the jumbles in a very slow oven from twenty to thirty minutes. They should be pale, but perfectly ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... with the organizations to which they belong, since these latter originate in literary periods and claim divine authorship. Great religious communities naturally produce a large number of such books, and at some time it becomes necessary (from the growth of heresies or rivals) to sift the whole mass and decide which works are to be considered to have permanent divine authority; the process of sifting is performed in each case by its community under the guidance of leading men, and the result is a canon of sacred Scriptures. Such canons are found in Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... responsible for what is in the sacks? We find in them a quantity of small seed which we cannot sift out, and which we are obliged to send through the mill-stones; there are tares, fennel, vetches, hempseed, fox-tail, and a host of other weeds, not to mention pebbles, which abound in certain wheat, especially in Breton wheat. I am ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... playfully, and Jack declared his readiness to sift cinders, or scour knives, or do anything, if she would let him come. Just then Neil arrived, not altogether pleased to find Jack there before him, standing close to Bessie, who was looking very happy. The two young men went with her to the station, where they vied with each other in showing ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... though to give the invisible scene-shifter time to accomplish his work, followed by a shower of evening coolness, that seemed to sift through the trees like a soft and gentle rain. We ate again by the flicker of the fire, dabbing a trifle uncertainly at the food, wondering at the distant mountain on which the Day had made its final stand, shrinking a little before the stealthy dark that flowed down the ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... cupful of butter with one and one half cupfuls of sugar; add three eggs and beat five minutes; add one cupful of milk. Sift together one third cupful of cornstarch, and two cupfuls of flour, one and one half teaspoonfuls of ground mixed spices, and three teaspoonfuls of baking powder; then add to the mixture. Now add one cupful of ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... was to separate the coarse outer husk or covering of the kernel from the finer parts that make the meal. He had no sieve. His net was too coarse. It let both bran and meal go through. "I must make a net or cloth fine enough to sift or bolt my flour," said he. Such was now his skill in spinning and weaving that this was not hard to do. He had soon woven in his loom a piece of fine netting which allowed the meal to shake through, but held back ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... Wolf, Niebuhr, Ranke)—have for the most part worked on the assumptions of genetic history or at least followed in the footsteps of those who fully grasped the genetic point of view. But their aim has been to collect and sift evidence, and determine particular facts; comparatively few have given serious thought to the lines of research and the speculations which have been considered in this paper. They have been reasonably shy of compromising their work by applying theories which are still ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... ginger, one of mustard, one of pepper, three of coriander seed, the same quantity of turmeric, a quarter of an ounce of cayenne pepper, half an ounce of cardamums, and the same of cummin seed and cinnamon. Pound the whole fine, sift, and keep it in ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... and rared into any one under me, and that's the only kind of honesty that is honesty at all," she splendidly finished. "An' I'm very thankful to you for informin' me. I wish you had caught him an' skelped the hide off of him. It's what I'll do meself soon as I sift the matter." ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... bowl, perfectly clean, and arrange the star tube and pastry bag, if you are going to use one. If not, get out a baking dish. Sift six tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Separate six eggs. Put three of the yolks aside (as you will only use three), and beat the other three until creamy. Beat the whites until they are very stiff but not dry or broken. Now add three tablespoonfuls of the sifted powdered sugar. Beat for ...
— Many Ways for Cooking Eggs • Mrs. S.T. Rorer
... this it follows that anthropologists must sift and winnow their evidence, like men employed in every other branch of science. And who denies it? What anthropologist of mark accepts as ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... "Let's sift it out, Mr. Buehlor. Will you tell me who had the 'inside information' that I was taking ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... clear the eyes 1 ounce of dried batts bloode groude to powder & white hens bloode & dung sift & when they be well mixed & quite dry then blowe a little in the ill eye & yt ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... the depth of that gorge, so shut in from all sides; in spite of the shade of the chestnut trees, the rays, that the leaves sift, burn still. And this bare earth, of a reddish color, the extreme oldness of this nearby house, the antiquity of these trees, give to the surroundings, while the lovers talk, aspects somewhat harsh ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... business was to make me a sieve, to sift my meal and part it from the bran and husk. Having no fine thin canvas to search the meal through, I could not tell what to do. What linen I had was reduced to rags: I had goat's hair, enough, but neither tools to work it, nor did I know how to spin it: At length I remembered I had some ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... from mixture.] Simpleness. — N. simpleness &c. adj.; purity, homogeneity. elimination; sifting &c. v.; purification &c. (cleanness) 652. V. render simple &c. adj.; simplify. sift, winnow, bolt, eliminate; exclude, get rid of; clear; purify &c. (clean) 652; disentangle &c. (disjoin) 44. Adj. simple, uniform, of a piece[Fr], homogeneous, single, pure, sheer, neat. unmixed, unmingled[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... imagined that has not been seen; but imagination can assort, omit, sift, select, construct. Given a horse, an eagle, an elephant, and the "creative artist" can make an animal that is neither a horse, an eagle, nor an elephant, yet resembles each. This animal may have eight legs ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... but, on the contrary, pure loss, when habit becomes mechanical, and, instead of making it easier to call up the true motive, excludes that motive, and makes it easy to do the deed without it. I am afraid that if such thoughts were applied as a sieve to sift the abundant so-called Christian work of the present day, there would be an alarming and, to the workers, astonishing quantity of refuse that would ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... that though Christ has much to say concerning the duty and blessedness of prayer, and Himself spent much time in prayer, yet never, so far as we know, did He ask for the prayers of others. "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not." So did Jesus pray for His disciples; but we never read that they prayed for Him, or that He asked for Himself a place in their prayers. How significant the silence is we learn when we ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... With the earth-tint yet so freshly embrowned: Born, no doubt, like insects which breed on The very fruit they are meant to feed on. 360 For the earth—not a use to which they don't turn it, The ore that grows in the mountain's womb, Or the sand in the pits like a honeycomb, They sift and soften it, bake it and burn it— Whether they weld you, for instance, a snaffle 365 With side-bars never a brute can baffle; Or a lock that's a puzzle of wards within wards; Or, if your colt's forefoot inclines to curve inwards, Horseshoes they hammer which turn on a swivel And won't ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... sufficient power, to command his numerous armies; to govern twenty foreign nations, and forty millions of subjects; to enter solicitously into all the particulars of the administration of his states; to see every thing; to sift every thing to the bottom; to regulate every thing; in fine, to conceive, create, and realize those unexpected improvements, those bold innovations, those noble institutions, and those immortal codes, that raise the civil glory of France to a degree of superiority, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... more racing chatter to be heard at the great hairdressers' than almost anywhere else outside a race-course. Some of it is worth hearing, most of it is valueless. The difficulty, as elsewhere, is to sift the wheat ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... whatever overtakes me. I have sifted the sands of France: now I sift those of England. Here I am held in the greatest kindness and honour imaginable by all whom I meet. Though I am useless as a child yet they are unwearied of me. The nurses in my Maharanee Baharanee's Hospital, which is by day a home and a house to me, minister to me as daughters ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling
... subordinate officials but declared (and seemingly proved) that he had acted only in retaliation and self-defence. As there was no way of obtaining evidence from the shippers, in whose favour the concessions had been made, it was impossible to sift out the truth. Each Chairman or President could only say that he had entire confidence in his own staff. There was no visible remedy except to discharge the entire membership of the Traffic Departments of all the companies simultaneously and get new men, to the number of ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... mind and body." I might better have said "difficulties of body, mind and character," or even character alone, for, after all, when you come to sift things down, it is the character that is at the root of ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... scrutinizing gaze, Resolved to fathom these your secret ways: But, sift them as I will, Your ways ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... into the insoluble state, and undo what the sulphuric acid has done. Peat, saw-dust, sand, decaying leaves, or similar substances, will answer the purpose, and they should all be made thoroughly dry before being used. An excellent plan is to sift the bones before dissolving, to apply the acid to the coarser part, and afterwards to mix in the fine dust which has passed through the sieve, to dry up the mass; or a small quantity of bone ash, of good quality, ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... best results, we recommend the following recipe changes when preparing these old-fashioned recipes. When using Pillsbury BEST(R) Flour, there is no need to sift the flour. Just lightly spoon the flour into the measuring cup and level it off. When combining the flour with other dry ingredients, stir the ...
— A Little Book for A Little Cook • L. P. Hubbard
... they concerned the truth of the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, may fitly close. But there was yet another question closely connected with the above which it concerned the interests of morality, no less than of religion, thoroughly to sift. It was no easy task which Dr. Clarke and his friends undertook when they essayed to prove from Scripture and antiquity that the Son and Holy Ghost were not one with the supreme God. But they attempted a yet harder task than this. They contended that ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... thin, spread it with butter, fold it, then roll it again into a sheet one-eighth of an inch thick; now spread it with jam, and place it in the oven. When it is baked, frost it; strew it plentifully with minced almonds or nuts of any kind; sift sugar over it, and place it in the oven a ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... wield the flail of the lashing hail And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain And laugh as I pass in thunder. I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night 'tis my pillow white, While I sleep in ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... the recollection of words I saw that the problem, as stated, was still too broad, and that, to put the question in its most precise and interesting form, I should have to substitute the recollection of the sound of words. The literature on aphasia is enormous. I took five years to sift it. And I arrived at this conclusion, that between the psychological fact and its corresponding basis in the brain there must be a relation which answers to none of the ready-made concepts furnished us ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... of the primary and national cause. His mind, eminently liberal, highly cultivated, and supported by solid good sense, was more original than inventive, profound rather than expanded, more given to sift thoroughly a single idea than to combine many; too much absorbed within himself, but exercising a singular power over others by the commanding weight of his reason, and by an aptitude of imparting, with a certain solemnity of ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... perilous task—the interpretation of passages where the difficulty arises from the peculiar texture of Chapman's thought and style. Such a critical venture seems a necessary preliminary if we are ever to sift truth from falsehood in Dryden's indictment—indolently accepted by many critics as ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... grimy hand into a sack, and lifted a handful of beans aloft to let them sift through his fingers, clattering, on those below. The partners agreed that he had everything in the world that any one could crave in the way of delicacies, and gave him their orders; then, that hour's task completed, sauntered out ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... were to feel that he was in some way unfitted for office work. I very nearly provided for myself an escape on that plea;—but when I came to sift it, I thought that it would be false. But let me tell you that the delight of political life is altogether in opposition. Why, it is freedom against slavery, fire against clay, movement against stagnation! The very inaccuracy ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... shouldst have taken that high gift Of Love as it was meant, that mystery Did ask thy faith, the Gods do test our worth, And ere they grant high boons our heart would sift! ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... study of Bryant's work increased my desire to sift that of Thornton, for I had been told that it not only contained the "Fallon Diary," but lengthier extracts from the Star, and I wanted to compare and analyze those details which had been published ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... then continued: she had taken the trouble, she said, to sift the whole affair, in order to shame Lady Honoria by a pointed conviction of what she had invented, and to trace from the foundation the circumstances whence her surmises or ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... who is seeking him, a perfectly respectable man, you know ... it's a long story. We have chased many a man supposed to be Endicott, and Mr. Dillon is the latest. I don't accept the theory myself. I know Dillon is Dillon, but a detective must sift the theories of his employers. In fact my work up to this moment proves very clearly that of all our wrong chases ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... Leaving to antiquarians to sift the stories about the waggon of the strolling Thespis, the contests for the prize of a he-goat, from which the name of tragedy is said to be derived, and the lees of wine with which the first improvisatory actors smeared over their visages, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... to go its own way, but I hold it for suspected, and no way established, until it has submitted to a new trial and a fresh judgment has been thereupon pronounced. And lastly, the information of the sense itself I sift and examine in many ways. For certain it is that the senses deceive; but then at the same time they supply the means of discovering their own errors; only the errors are here, the means ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... notions taken generally is wrong in itself, and that even as many have died in the profession of falsehoods, so some have suffered though innocent of the crime for which they died. The true use, therefore, of this reflection is that where life is concerned, too much care cannot be taken to sift the truth, since appearances often deceive us and circumstances are sometimes strong where the evidence, if the whole affair were ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... Always sift flour before using, when setting sponge for bread. When mixing sponge use one quart liquid to about three pounds of flour. "Aunt Sarah" always cut several gashes with a sharp knife on top of loaves when ready to be placed in oven. She also made several cuts across the top of loaves with a hot knife ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... know of the situation, before we commit ourselves to a measurement. And they may be accurate observers without being good judges. They do not think so, and their bent is to glean hurriedly and form conclusions as hasty, when their business should be sift at each ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... If you are going to sift everything so, and get back of everything! I can't live in metaphysics: I have to live in the things themselves, ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... on my protection, doubtless," said Elizabeth. "Thou shalt have it—that is, if thou art worthy; for we will sift this matter to the uttermost. Thou art," she said, bending on the Countess an eye which seemed designed to pierce her very inmost soul—"thou art Amy, daughter of Sir ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... of antiquity cannot fail to discover many vestiges of a primitive revelation of some of the principal truths of religion, although in the lapse of time they have been so distorted and mingled with fiction that it requires careful study to sift the few remaining grains of truth from the great mass of superstition and error in which they are all but lost. Among these truths may be reckoned monotheism, or the belief in, and the worship of, one only God, which the learned Jesuit, the Rev. Aug. Thebaud, in ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... keep pace with the changing modes and tendencies of another generation—often sets in while physical life is but little enfeebled. In this case, it is true, the evil is not very great, for Time may be trusted to sift the chaff from the wheat, and though it may not preserve the one it will infallibly discard the other. 'While I live,' Victor Hugo said with some grandiloquence, but also with some justice, 'it is my duty to produce. It is ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... there at last. The place could not be better for my birdlets; shallow, tepid water, interspersed with muddy knolls and green eyots. The diversions of the bath begin forthwith. The ducklings clap their beaks and rummage here, there and everywhere; they sift each mouthful, rejecting the clear water and retaining the good bits. In the deeper parts, they point their sterns into the air and stick their heads under water. They are happy; and it is a blessed thing to see them at work. We will ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... serious than accident here, Mr. Brently," said the captain. "I wish that you would make a personal and very careful examination of Mr. Caldwell's effects, to ascertain if there is any clew to a motive either for suicide or murder—sift the thing to ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the matter fall, Shall tax my fears of little vanity, Having vainly fear'd too little.—Away with him;— We'll sift this matter further. ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Jo. I'll comfort Meg while you go and get Laurie. I shall sift the matter to the bottom, and put a stop to such ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... his answer. "I've known a derelict up-end and sift her engines out of herself and flicker round the Lower Lanes for three weeks on her forward tanks only. We'll run no risks. Pith her, George, and look sharp. ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... under false pretences, but rather discouraged than stimulated light-hearted adhesion. His constant effort was to sift the crowds that gathered round Him. So here great multitudes are following Him, and how does He welcome them? Does He lay Himself out to attract them? Luke tells us that He turned and faced the following multitude; and then, with a steady hand, drenched with cold ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Pardon at thine unconscious hands! "Murmurous with music not their own," I say? And in that saying how do I missay, When from the common sands Of poorest common speech of common day Thine accents sift the golden musics out! And ah, we poets, I misdoubt, Are little more than thou! We speak a lesson taught we know not how, And what it is that from us flows The hearer better than ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... presence near, impending, yet impotent; suggesting by analogy and effect the misdirected efforts of a blind person seeking something in a room, or the painful attempt of one almost deaf, striving to sift out words from a confused murmur of sounds. The personality of Stella seemed to pervade him, yet he could see nothing, could hear nothing. The impression might be from within, not from without. Perhaps, after ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... Aunt Kate at de gyardin gate! She's a good ole 'oman. W'en she sift 'er meal, she give me de husk; W'en she cook 'er bread, she give me de crust. She put de hosses in de stable; But one jump out, an' skin his nable. Jes look at Ole Aunt Kate at de gyardin gate! ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... sift Jamie's tender passion—that's the novelle-name for calf-love; and if it's within the compass o' a possibility, get the swine driven through't, or it may work us a' muckle dule, as his father's moonlight marriage did to your ain, worthy ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... time, sitting on the side of the bed, mystified, and quite at a loss what to do. But, as he was essentially a man of action, he soon grew weary of idle speculation, and determined to search more actively into the mystery, and if possible sift it to the bottom. So he drew a match and lighted his torch. The flame flared up brightly and flung a lurid glow all around. Holding this high above his head, Harry walked about, peering into the darkness, and scanning every nook and corner of the large apartment. But he could see nothing. It ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... sift this mystery to the bottom," thought he. "I shall foil the conspirators, if so they be, with their own weapons; art with art; chicane with ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the forgetfulness of physical condition by men over forty, but we had prided ourselves considerably over the belief that the majority of our youth would compare favorably with those of other countries. When one comes to sift the statement, he should remember that many disabilities for which the military examiners might reject a man are not so serious, after all, and that nothing has been said about the splendid physique of the large number of men who ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... Well, 'twill need some thinking, what you've to do. We're badly served with news. We've got spies, of course; but I don't set much store by native spies in this country. We've information by the bushel, but when you come to sift it out there's precious little of it you can trust. And the enemy has got spies, too—hundreds of 'em. I'll bet my boots there's a regular system of kasids for carrying news of us to Manik Chand and from him to the Nawab. If the truth was ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... each one in four, soak the pieces in milk sweetened and flavored with vanilla, for three hours. When they are well soaked roll them for a moment in grated and dried breadcrumbs, and dip them for a moment in boiling fat, just as you would do croquettes. Sift some white sugar over them ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various
... into which M. le Duc d'Orleans and I were thrown. We could not believe what we had heard, but fancied we were dreaming. M. le Duc d'Orleans put several questions to Dubois, I took the liberty to do the same, in order to sift the affair to the bottom. But there was no variation in the replies of the Cardinal, furious as he was. Every moment he presented the same option to the Regent; every moment he proposed that the Cardinal ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... again getting close to nightfall. The slant sun was throwing its rays on less and less of the trail. They could see the shadows grow and the coolness of night sift into the air. They were pushing on to pass the rim of a great valley basin that lay like a saucer in the mountains in order that they might camp in the valley by a stream all of them knew. Dusk was beginning to ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... latent state in every part of the organism." (Ibid., p. 1355.) The "nerve power," contended for by Mr. Bain, also may suggest a rational solution of much that has seemed incredible to those physiologists who have not condescended to sift the genuine phenomena of mesmerism from the imposture to which, in all ages, the phenomena exhibited by what may be called the ecstatic temperament ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... later Professor Challis succeeded in finding the planet, but of course he was now too late. On reviewing his labours he ascertained that he had actually noted down its place early in August, and had he only been able to sift his observations as he made them, the discovery would have ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... our powers through which growth is attained affords the finest gratification that mortals know. To think, reason, weigh, sift, decide and act—this is life. It means health, sanity and length of days. Those live longest ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... would have sufficed, and neither warrants nor letters would have been necessary. Was it a sudden idea which occurred to him upon his progress? If so, he might surely have waited for a better opportunity. If not, he might at least have taken care to sift Brackenbury before leaving London, so as to be sure of the two he intended to employ. Is it likely that Richard would have given orders for the commission of a crime, without having good reason to rely upon his intended agent's boldness ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... as much," said Miss Panney. "Well, you take the whites of two eggs and beat them up, and while you are beating you sprinkle rum over the egg, from a pepper caster, which you ought to keep clean to use for this and nothing else. Then you should sift in sugar according to taste, and when you have put a dry macaroon, which has been soaking in rum all this time, in the bottom of a glass saucer, you pile the flake over it, and it's ready for him, except that sometimes you put in,—let me ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... to sift me with his pride: As in this furnace God shall try my faith, My faith, vile hell, shall triumph over thee. Ambitious fiends, see how the heavens smile At your repulse, and laugh your state to scorn! Hence, hell! for hence I ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and when thou ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... this separation, he further threatened to punish them for their sins, by dispersing them over the world: "I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you."[113] "For lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the last grain fall upon the earth."[114] It was further threatened, as if to make sure of their national destruction: "And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... Lafayette and that Anti-jacobin Visit of his, reports, this day, that there is 'not ground for Accusation!' Peace, ye Patriots, nevertheless; and let that tocsin cease: the Debate is not finished, nor the Report accepted; but Brissot, Isnard and the Mountain will sift it, and resift it, perhaps for some ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... give them information by every method, of the approach, strength, and plans of their enemies. Even the negroes will be found often, either from fear or other motives, to give all the information they can obtain to the Southerners. And the Southerners know far better than we do how to obtain, and sift, and estimate, the value of what the slaves ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... watch'd a time when they might sift This hidden whim; and long they watch'd in vain; For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift, And seldom felt she any hunger-pain; And when she left, she hurried back, as swift As bird on wing to breast its eggs again; 470 And, patient, as a ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... hour drew near at which Philinnion usually appeared, they were on the watch for her. She came, as was her custom, and sat down upon the bed. Machates made no pretence, for he was genuinely anxious to sift the matter to the bottom, and secretly sent some slaves to call her parents. He himself could hardly believe that the woman who came to him so regularly at the same hour was really dead, and when she ate and drank with him, he began to suspect what had been suggested to him—namely, that some ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... could never have spoken had she not learned through Duncan Polite's help the true meaning of all sorrow and happiness, spoke to him of his mother, of his duty, of his God. It was the hour of Donald's weakness and trial, when Satan desired to sift him as wheat, an hour in which he might have fared ill had the woman who loved him not stood by with her new strength. But it passed in victory, and when at last he laid his head down upon the top of the gate where they ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... books survive. Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh to-day as when they first passed through their authors' minds, ages ago. What was then said and thought still speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page. The only effect of time has been to sift and winnow out the bad products; for nothing in literature can long survive but ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... Once let this sift into thought and heart, then who would not believe, and trust, and love, and fall on his face in the utter devotion of a voluntary slave ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... served honour scrupulously. What if it were but a myth, but a legend of fools, a destroying idol worshipped by brave and brainless visionaries, who had more courage than intelligence, more desire to do right than discernment to sift right from wrong? Pity that so many daring, honest men should have been spitted on rapiers, cloven with sabres, riddled with bullet-holes, for the sake of a vain breath, emptier than the glass he had raised to his lips last night! And yet—he might search, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... Cavaliere asked Rendel and me which of us had seen the ghost, and I told him my story; then I asked him to grant me permission to sift the thing to the bottom; and he courteously gave the whole matter into my charge, promising that ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... a difference what our thoughts, our theories, may be; and, therefore, there is good in this work of investigation which proposes to sift and test and try things, and find out the real nature of the forces which confront us and with which we ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... bad fare, poor food, clothes an shoes. Dey didn't sift slave meal. Dey had no sifters. Sometimes de collards and peas was not cleaned 'fore cookin'. Dey said de more slaves a man had de wusser he wus to slaves. Marster had dirt floors in de cabins. Dey slept on straw bunks made outen baggin' ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... Tom, and Strong had wandered through the bars, restaurants, and cheap hotels of Spaceman's Row in Luna City searching for information that would lead them to Wallace and Simms. Each night they returned to the freighter to exchange, sift, and analyze the bits of information gathered, but for three nights they had come up with a total of nothing. Finally, Strong had decided that this would be the last night they would spend in Luna City. It was after making this decision that he and Tom spotted the scar-faced man sitting ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... unfortunate hero—his name was Margary, his occupation Interpreter at a Consulate—on his journey across Yunnan to Burmah as far as Tengyueh. We know he was cruelly done to death there, but we cannot sift out truth from falsehood in the rumours that he met his death with the connivance—and perhaps even under the ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... during these nine months in forming the eye alone—with its lens, and its humours, and its miraculous retina behind. Consider the ear with its tympanum, cochlea, and Corti's organ—an instrument of three thousand strings, built adjacent to the brain, and employed by it to sift, separate, and interpret, antecedent to all consciousness, the sonorous tremors of the external world. All this has been accomplished, not only without man's contrivance, but without his knowledge, the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the horrific. We turn with relief to the ballet-girl series. The impression gained from this album is that Legrand sympathises with, nay loves, his subject. Degas, the greater and more objective artist, nevertheless allows to sift through his lines an inextinguishable hatred of these girls who labour so long for so little; and Degas did hate them, as he hated all that was ugly in daily life, though he set forth this ugliness, this mediocrity, this hatred in terms of beautiful art. Legrand sees ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... rose and called W. Hewer, and he and I, with pails and a sieve, did lock ourselves into the garden, and there gather all the earth about the place into pails, and then sift those pails in one of the summer-houses, just as they do for dyamonds in other parts of the world; and there, to our great content, did with much trouble by nine o'clock (and by the time we emptied several pails and could not find one), we ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... an early train the next morning. He had a long day's work before him—a mass of correspondence to sift, several business interviews, and some proofs to revise. It was later than usual when he went back to Cheyne Walk, but Verity had put aside his dinner for him, and sat beside him while he ate it. She even brought him coffee with her own hands. Perhaps these little womanly ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Commons assembled, in January, 1855, it became apparent that there was a determination to sift to the bottom the charges that had been made against the ministry regarding their manner of carrying on the war. The Queen expressed her sympathy for Lord Aberdeen, who was in a most unenviable position. Motions hostile to the government ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... canoe had started on its voyage that was to prove so terrifying to the girls, Joy had stretched herself at full length in the sand preparing for a lazy afternoon. She was content just to let the sand sift through her fingers. Mostly she liked to dance or sing, but today she was too indolent. Shirley busied herself as usual, directing her camera this time toward some gulls that flew above ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... was that the light and the darkness seemed separate things, each distinctly visible. After each stroke of his wings he saw the darkness sift downwards past him through the air like dust. It floated all round him in thinnest diaphanous texture—visible, not because the moonlight made it so, but because in its inmost soul it was itself luminous. It rose and fell in eddies, swirling wreaths, and undulations; inwoven ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... concern to the future prosperity and happiness of the people of America. I think it my duty, as a citizen of the Union, to espouse their cause; and it is incumbent upon every member of this house to sift the subject well, and ascertain what can be done to restrain a practice so nefarious. The Constitution has authorized us to levy a tax upon the importation of such persons as the States shall authorize to be admitted. I ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... try them, don't we! Is it nothing to show a disposition to sift things and bring people to a strict account? I tell you ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sources of information in the Orient are not always easy to find, nor always in accord after one finds them. Consider, for example, the population of Manchuria: it seems a simple enough matter, yet it required the help of consuls of two or three nations to enable me to sift out the truth from the conflicting representations of several writers and ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... positively that Mrs. Montague could not doubt the truth of her statement. "Is it the likeness of some relative of yours?" she asked, determined if possible to sift the matter to ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... active form than that displayed in the conversation reported, tant bien que mal, from subsequent hearsay. Indeed, it has been my experience that when a woman fails to comprehend a mystery—whether it be her own affair or not—it is rarely for the want of trying to sift it. ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... on these matters, as about Greek and Roman folklore in general, we have to sift painfully from the works of literary authors who were concerned with other topics. Still, in the region of the ghostly, as in folklore at large, we have relics enough to prove that the ancient practices and beliefs were on the ordinary ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... one else," suggested Dick, not because he believed that, but because he wanted to sift all the evidence and get to the ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... it's become the talk of all the town, And make a stir that's scarcely to your credit; And I have met you, sir, most opportunely, To tell you in a word my frank opinion. Not to sift out this scandal to the bottom, Suppose the worst for us—suppose Damis Acted the traitor, and accused you falsely; Should not a Christian pardon this offence, And stifle in his heart all wish for vengeance? Should you ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... know which side has won, But this is not so easy done; Indeed I have a world of pity For the executive committee Who hear in silence all this clatter And then decide upon the matter; To give each speaker justice due, And sift the error from the true, Is not an easy thing to do. To decide what facts have any bearing Upon the question they are hearing, And generally keep in hand The arguments, so strong and grand, And draw ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... the pest to pass from one stage to the other. If maggots cannot be gotten put some fresh manure in the jar and catch a number of live house flies and put them in with the manure and watch for results. Collect a jar of fresh manure with maggots and sift over it a little powdered borax and see what happens to the maggots. Where horse manure can not be properly disposed of, cheap borax is used to throw over piles of manure to destroy the maggots and prevent the flies from breeding in it. Write ...
— An Elementary Study of Insects • Leonard Haseman
... cannot—whether we wish or not, we cannot—let go any truth that has been assimilated into our lives; and what truth we have not assimilated it is no advantage to hold without agitation. We know better where we are when we are forced to sift it. It is the very great apparent advantage of recognised order that deceives us! When we lose that apparent advantage, when we lose, too, the familiar names and symbols, and think, like children, that we have lost the reality they have expressed ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... It is to these posts that, if its men are properly trained, its graduates rapidly ascend, after a brief apprenticeship in the city-room and a round in the routine work of a paper. Dull men, however educated, will never pass these grades, and not passing they will drop out. A school should sift such out; but so far, in all our professional training, it is only the best medical schools which are inflexible in dealing with mediocrity. Most teachers know better, but let the shifty and dull pass ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... plant the apple-tree. Cleave the tough greensward with the spade; Wide let its hollow bed be made; There gently lay the roots, and there Sift the dark mould with kindly care, And press it o'er them tenderly, As round the sleeping infant's feet We softly fold the cradle sheet; So plant we ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... and thoroughly sift this sort of people, wherewith the world is so pestered, will, as I have done, find, that for the most part, they neither understand others, nor themselves; and that their memories are full enough, but the judgment totally void ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... incredible bulk, shooting straight to an incredible height and tapering exquisitely as it soars, it drops not foliage but plumage. To walk in a redwood forest at night and to look up at the stars tangled in the tree-tops, to watch the moonlight sift through the masses of soft black-green feathers, down, down, until strained to a diaphanous tenuity it lies a faint silver gossamer at your feet, is to feel that you are living in one of the old woodcuts which illustrate ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... demonstrates with what peril fraught His case, not more with death than lasting stain, If in the castle were that murder taught; Nor any time has he to sift his brain. Will he or nill he, in conclusion nought Is left him but the bitter cup to drain. Thus in his troubled heart prevailing more, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... a level with the floor was screwed a large coffee mill. The doctor spread a sheet of paper out on the floor on the other side, and laid a line sieve upon it. Then he showed me how to grind the dry and brittle leaves in the coffee mill, put them into the sieve, and sift them on the paper. This work had a scientific and professional look which infused a glimmer of light into the Cimmerian darkness. The bilious powders were made of the leaves of four plants familiarly known as spearmint, sunflower, ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... forgot the advice of Mr. Crawford, and sometimes would strain a point in order to effect strict and substantial justice. As a judge, he was peculiarly cautious. However intricate was any case, he bent to it his whole mind, and the great effort was always to learn the right—to sift from it all the verbiage and ambiguity which surrounded and obscured it, and then to sustain it in his decision. Upright and sincere in his pursuits, methodical, with fixity of purpose, he was never in a hurry about anything, and was always content, in his business, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... holding his tongue he might escape being detected, while the rejection of both the novels from which he had hoped so much was a heavy blow which he felt he could scarcely bear in public; but they seemed so determined to sift the matter to the end that he decided to enlighten them at once, since it must be only a ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... was said, in a conspiracy for overthrowing the power of the Queen-mother, bringing in the Huguenots, and securing the crown to Alencon on the King's death. Down-stairs, the Ambassador and his secretaries sat anxiously striving to sift the various contradictory reports; up-stairs, Philip and Lady Walsingham were anxiously watching Berenger in what seemed the long-expected crisis, and Philip was feeling as if all the French court were welcome ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... atmospheric changes may alter the whole condition of the deposit, and decide whether it shall sparkle like Italian marble, or be dead-white like the statuary marble of Vermont,—whether it shall be a fine powder which can sift through wherever dust can, or descend in large woolly masses, tossed like mouthfuls ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... Burnflat; winking at Mr. Brandon, "we must sift this a little. Pray, Mr. Paul Lobkins, what relation is the good landlady of the Mug, in ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the room and downstairs with the message, the purport of which did not sift through her puzzled head until Lady Saxondale smiled and instructed her to inform Miss Garrison that she would be charmed to have her dine with her ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... came to see you and sift you into Flowr to know your pureness, and I have found you excellent, I thank you; continue so, and shew men how to tread, and women how to follow: get an Husband, an honest man, you are a good woman, and live ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... imagination and wit and a natural gift for terms. That Samuel Clemens maintained his promise as to drink and cards during those apprentice days is something worth remembering; and if he did not always restrict his profanity to moments of severe pressure or sift the quality of his wit, we may also remember that he was an extreme example of a human being, in that formative stage which gathers all as grist, later to refine it for the uses and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... he took his first real ride on the back of the mare. He noted how easily she answered the play of his wrist, how little her head moved in and out, so that he seldom had to sift the reins through his fingers to keep in touch with the bit. He could start her from a stand into a full gallop with a touch of his knees, and he could bring her to a sliding halt with the least pressure on the reins. He could tell, indeed, ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... certain number of cart-loads having been raked and searched for all the different things just described, the whole of it now undergoes the process of sifting. The men throw up the stuff, and the women sift it. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the life serve both to sift out the incapables, and to produce officers who are more mature, more manly, and who do not look upon their inferiors ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... myself. But Mr. Forbes has a very strong reason for wishing to sift this matter to the bottom. Don't, girls,—oh, DON'T ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... have been no limit and no end had Athalie not learned very early in the game how to check them gently but firmly; how to test, pick, discriminate, sift, winnow, and choose those to be admitted to her rooms after the hours of business ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... powder both set in a brass case, is bad ammunition to pack; for, no matter how carefully it is handled, there is almost always some leakage of powder from the cartridge case, thus causing a certain amount of loose powder to sift into the box in which it ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... surprised, "how could she do that without your intervention? However, will you authorize my father-in-law to undertake your case? He will see the assignee, and sift the whole affair, since you have neither the time nor the inclination to ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... accepted blindly rather than the acquittal at Rome. At any rate, the council had an express commission to re-open the whole case, and indeed had met for no other purpose; so, if they were not to do it, they might as well go home. The Westerns were determined to sift the whole matter to the bottom, but the Eusebians refused to enter the council. It was in vain that Hosius asked them to give their proofs, if it were only to himself in private. In vain he promised that if Athanasius ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... When hawthorn-trees sift thick their rifted snow, The English mother o'er her babe sings low; Where red the cross burns on the ivied fane, Unwitting, pagan Lilith lives again— And softer sings, nor feels the wailing pain Still faintly surging through that low refrain; Nor dreams ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... home, Lagerfeldt came again to him to sift him, and to know what answer the Queen had given to his objections upon the new articles. But Whitelocke fitted his inquiry, and thought not convenient to communicate to him more than what might advantage his business to be reported to Grave Eric; and because, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... if there are no sandpits from which it can be dug, then we must sift it out from river beds or from gravel or even from the sea beach. This kind, however, has these defects when used in masonry: it dries slowly; the wall cannot be built up without interruption but from time to time there must be pauses in the work; and such a wall ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... parlour; and that's the way, Tilly; and I don't know no better way but to conclude that somebody else's convenience is yourn—and then you'll live in clover. The minister had to preach to me a good while before I could see it, though. Now, honey, sift your flour;—here it is. Kin ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... Asphalte Paths.—Sift coarse gravel so as to remove the dusty portion, and mix it with boiling tar in the proportion of 25 gallons to each load. Spread it evenly, cover the surface with a layer of spar, shells, or coarse sand, and roll it in ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... caribou rawhide, for caribou shrinks when wet, thus tightening the lacing where other materials would stretch. Above and below the cross-pieces he put in a very fine weaving; between them a coarser, that the loose snow might readily sift through. Each strand he tested again and again; each knot he made ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... circles at the time, that even an abstract was refused publication in the Report of the British Association, and it was not until the Society for Psychical Research was founded that the paper was published, in the first volume of its Proceedings. It was the need of a scientific society to collect, sift and discuss and publish the evidence on behalf of such supernormal phenomena as Prof. Barrett described at the British Association that induced him to call a conference in London at the close of 1881, which led to the ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... desolate now. They went down the road to a mossy place where the ironwood trees leaned out over a stream. They looked at the sun-fish flashing their golden sides in the light; they sat down to smoke a pipe, the rising voice of the preacher seeming to sift in the leaves above them. The sun was shining aslant when they got up and a shadow ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... midday. By that time most of the guests had departed from the moat-house and were on their way to London. Superintendent Merrington and Captain Stanhill were in the library examining the servants. Sergeant Lumbe had gone by train to Tibblestone to sift the story of the suspicious stranger who had descended on that remote ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... which in pronouncing his sentence, he ought to follow rather than the information he has acquired as a private individual. And yet this same information may be of use to him, so that he can more rigorously sift the evidence brought forward, and discover its weak points. If, however, he is unable to reject that evidence juridically, he must, as stated above, follow ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Ruby could hardly sift her emotions when she found herself panting and doubling in flight. The chase had started without her will or dissent; had suddenly sprung, as it were, out of the ground. She only knew that she was very angry with Zeb; that she longed desperately ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the statue to Alexander II., which now adorns one of its squares, was then swathed in canvas awaiting its unveiling. It is merely a sort of grand junction, through which other cities and provinces sift their products. In kumys alone does Samara possess a characteristic unique throughout Russia. Consequently, it is for kumys that multitudes of Russians flock thither ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... for belief. But why should it not be true? What new achievement of the human mind ought to startle one in this nineteenth century, after having witnessed the wonders of steam and electro-magnetism? I determined to sift the matter, but immediately remembered that all the knowledge I had of it had been imparted to me in the strictest confidence. The ingenious inventors, as was clearly their right, had reserved it to themselves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... set him to beat out and sift some corn. I let him see me make the bread, and he soon did all the work. I felt quite a love for his true, warm heart, and he soon learnt to talk to me. One day I said, "Do the men of your tribe ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... you now, friend Paul, to sift the precise meaning and the moral of this tale. You may perhaps judge, and I hope you will, that a chimerical imagination can alone magnify into an event this vulgar episode of society life; but if you see in the facts I have ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... incontestable proofs establishing this fact, and before endeavoring to sift out the true cause or causes of Secession, let us first examine such evidences as are submitted by him in support of ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... have you (My Apostles), that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee (Peter) that thy faith fail not; and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren."(179) It is worthy of note that Jesus prays only for Peter. And why for Peter in particular? Because on his ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons |
