"Chaff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more the perplexed pair threshed away, striving to winnow the chaff from the pure grain in Aunt Sharley's nature, and the upshot was that Emmy Lou had a headache and Mildred had a little spell of crying, and they agreed that never had there been such a paradox of part saint and part sinner, part black ogre and part black angel, as their Auntie was, created into ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... the Maroccan town: see The Mines of Midian p. 74 for a note on the name. Near Gibraltar is a fuimara called Guadalajara i.e. Wady al-Khara, of dung. "Barts" is evidently formed "on the weight" of "Bartt;" and his metonym is a caricature, a chaff ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day 'ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... him," said Jacqueline, as if taking her under her protection. "He is nothing but a tease; what he says is only chaff. But I might as well talk Greek to her," she added, shrugging her shoulders. "In the convent they don't know what to make of a joke. Only spare her at least, if you ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... learning, progress, and common sense, we had such an inadequate idea of the responsibilities of government that we elected men to office who were incapable, simply because they had carried a gun or tripped over a sword! No, no. The shrewd Yankee and the calculating Hoosier are not caught with such chaff. They selected these officers as servants of the nation because the war had served to show what sort of men ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... should correspond to what they show in front, then the rebel force must muster several hundreds of thousands. Such large numbers they have not, and I am sure that four-fifths of their whole force constitutes their vanguard, and behind it the main body is chaff. The rebels treat us ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... chaff Chris, but he had slipped away at the first words of the explanation. Soon he reappeared with an armful of dry wood. His face was still ashen, but his ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... policemen mounted the box of the hansom, amid the "chaff" of the crowd, and the cab started. A few hats were raised in George's neighbourhood, and there was something of ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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 ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... had taken too much wine, and thus had forgotten that he was a gentleman; and what happened in consequence of his forgetfulness. Little things, of no importance whatever to the world, yet with now and then a grain of wheat among the chaff. Thus Blondel ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... High above them, scarcely visible in the dusk, an English aeroplane droned back from its reconnaissance, and once there was the order given to scatter over the fields as a German Taube passed across them. This caused much laughter and chaff among the men, and Michael heard one say, "Dove they call it, do they? I'd like to make a pigeon-pie of them doves." Soon they scrambled back on to the road again, and the interminable "Tipperary" was resumed, in whistle and song. Michael remembered how Aunt ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... 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 of the ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... the cell for this other bed. "Come," said he, "you must not chaff the officers. The governor will serve you out enough without your giving ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... pagan peoples sever Railway line and telegraph Thou shalt keep thy staunch endeavour, Thou shalt scatter us like chaff. Still, O goddess of the Prussians, Thou shalt sound thy trump of tin Undeterred by rude concussions While the Frenchmen hail the Russians On ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... particles, and dexterously catching it again in their bowls, as it came down, or allowing it to fall on blankets or hides spread on the ground at their feet, in a manner very similar to the ancient method of separating the grain from the chaff. ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... foregoing natural outgrowths of the Nibelungen saga are the modern dramas and poems founded upon it since the time of the romanticists at the beginning of the nineteenth century.[7] Nearly all of these have already vanished as so much chaff from the winnowing-mill of time: only two, perhaps, are now considered seriously, namely, Hebbel's Die Nibelungen and Richard Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen. Hebbel in his grandly conceived drama in three parts follows ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... be!' said Jasper. 'There's a man in my house that writes poetry, and don't they chaff him! And this must ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... weary and disheartened that 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 ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... gauntlet of cheer and chaff from the noisy inmates of the many Bakele villages, and worried by mangrove-flies, we held our way up the muddy and rapidly narrowing stream, whose avenues of rhizophoras and palms acted as wind-sails; when the breeze failed the sensation was stifling. Lyamba (Cannabis ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... did, sir," answered Joe, in much lower tones than my own, obviously with the intention of putting me on my guard. "You see, sir, them chaps for'ard are pretty cute; they're too old birds to be caught with chaff; and I knew that if I was to get on the blind side of 'em, it'd have to be by means of throwin' you into a genuine, downright passion with me. Besides, if you'll excuse me for sayin' of it, Captain Saint Leger, you ain't much of ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... middle Atlantic division Early Genesee Giant, Jones Winter Fife, and Fultz are chiefly grown. In the Southern States Fultz, Fulcaster, Purple Straw, and May are foremost. In the north central group of States Early Red Clawson, Poole, Dawson's Golden Chaff, Buda Pest, and Fultz are common. In the Dakotas and Minnesota Scotch Fife and Velvet Blue Stem (both spring wheats) are generally planted. In Kansas and Texas and the adjacent locality the principal varieties are Turkey, Fulcaster, and Mediterranean (all winter wheats). In California and the ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... his "third floor back"; had breakfasted and dined with two old maids, their scrawny niece, and a muscular young stenographer who shouted militant suffrage and was not above throwing a brickbat whenever the occasion arrived. There was a barmaid or two at the pub where he lunched at noon; but chaff was the alpha and omega of this acquaintance. Thus, Thomas knew little or ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... infantry bugles above us on the hill—side, and we could see them suddenly start from their lair, and form; while between us and the clearing morning sky, the cavalry, magnified into giants in the strong relief on the outline of the hill, were driven in straggling patrols, like chaff, over the summit—their sabres sparkling in the level sunbeams, and the reports of the red flashes of their pistols ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... things right:— night brands and chokes as if destruction broke over furze and stone and crop of myrtle-shoot and field-wort, destroyed with flakes of iron, the bracken-stems, where tender roots were sown, blight, chaff and waste of darkness to ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... Chautauqua itself she got nothing but wind and chaff and heavy laughter, the laughter of yokels at old jokes, a mirthless and primitive sound like the cries ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... sickle, and sometimes by an instrument which produces the effect of shears. Threshing consists in beating the ears with thick sticks to loosen the husks, after which the padi is carried in baskets to platforms ten feet above the ground, and is allowed to fall on mats, when the chaff is driven away by the wind. It is husked by a pestle, and it requires some skill to avoid crushing the grain. All these operations are ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... heard when William tried to unharness the pony. I cultivated in myself whatever amused her in me; I drew out whatever amused her in William; I never let slip any of the things that amused her in herself. 'Chaff' is a great bond; and I should have enjoyed our bouts of it even without Mary's own special obbligato. She used to call me (for I was very urban in those days) the Gentleman from London. I used to call her the Brave Little ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... creation to which Lee Haines had to listen, impatient, sifting the chaff from the grains of truth. Down upon Alder, exactly at midnight, had ridden a cavalcade headed by that notorious, half-legendary man-slayer, Dan Barry—Whistling Dan. While his crew of two-score hardened ruffians held the doors and the ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... all the while it is the word that he is intent upon. You may trace his reading by some fine word that has not escaped him, but has been garnered for use when his fan has been quick to purge away the chaff of commonplace. He is thus fastidious and alert in many languages. You wonder at the delicacy of the sense whereby he perceives a choice rhyme in the Anglo-Norman of Marie de France or a clang of arms in the brief verse of Peire de Bergerac, or touches sensitively a word whereby Dante has ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... to do, Anthony unwillingly crossed the yard, and stepped into the pleasant, whitewashed gloom of the chicken house. Loose chaff was scattered on the floor, and whitewashed boxes lined the walls. An adjoining shed held the roosts, which a few murmuring fowls were looping ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... family, the zinc-worker, who was already pretty lazy, had got to the point of never touching a tool. When tired of doing nothing, he sometimes let himself be prevailed upon to take a job. Then his comrade would look him up and chaff him unmercifully when he found him hanging to his knotty cord like a smoked ham, and he would call to him to come down and have a glass of wine. And that settled it. The zinc-worker would send the job to blazes and commence a booze which lasted days and weeks. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... look across the ages and the beacon-moments see, That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion's sea; Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose feet earth's chaff must fly; Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... magnificent ceremony with which they were removed from the cemetery of the Madeleine to the Abbey of St. Denis,—when the escape of Napoleon from Elba in February,1815, scattered the royal family and their followers like chaff before the wind. The Duc d'Angouleme, compelled to capitulate at Toulouse, sailed from Cette in a Swedish vessel. The Comte d'Artois, the Duc de Berri, and the Prince de Conde withdrew beyond the frontier. The King fled from the capital. The Duchesse d'Angouleme, then at Bordeaux ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... science which alone was to be handled, and that with as much brevity and simplicity as possible. The Greek literature was doubtless made use of, but only to furnish some serviceable maxims of experience culled from the mass of chaff and rubbish: it was one of Cato's commonplaces, that "Greek books must be looked into, but not thoroughly studied." Thus arose those household manuals of necessary information, which, while rejecting Greek subtlety and obscurity, banished also Greek acuteness and depth, but through ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Winslow, who was not used to being ignored in this fashion. Besides, as a general rule, he had been quite good friends with Mrs. Pennington's hired girls. She had had three strapping damsels during his sojourn in Riverside, and he used to sit on this very doorstep and chaff them. They had all been saucy and talkative. This girl was evidently ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... time, the first shots were fired. The marines armed with binoculars were not unduly elated by any one shot, but merely reported progress in a characteristic American fashion—that is, by a system of chaffing. This provided tonic, and presently the bullets crept in so close to the marks that all chaff was forgotten. Sometimes it took an hour, or even two, to bring down a single man; but no matter how long the time necessary might be, the Americans stayed patiently with their man until the sniper's life's blood was drilled out of him by these thin pencils of Lee straight-pull bullets. Once, and ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... taken this prudent resolution, when another wave, more huge than the last, thundered down on the raft, scattering her timbers, as the wind scatters a heap of chaff. Odysseus clung fast to one beam and, mounting it, sat astride as on a horse, until he had stripped off his clothes. Then he bound the veil round him, flung himself head foremost into the billows, and swam lustily ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... wooden vat of about 50 to 60 gallons capacity, standing upright, the bottom of which is covered with a little rye flour and wheat bran—the poor use chaff of rye—upon which hot water is poured. The water becomes acidulated in about 24 hours and tastes like water mixed with vinegar. A little clean rye straw is placed inside of the vat, in front of the ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... Mormonism, out of its range; and it does, and always has done, just as good service for any one of the other religions as it does for ours. It is a free-for-all, go-as-you-please argument; but it is the sort of chaff they feed theological students on—and they sift it over for women. It is pretty light diet when it gets ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... can we glean in this vile age Of chaff, although our gleanings be not grist. I must not quite omit the talking sage, Kit-Cat, the famous Conversationist, Who, in his common-place book, had a page Prepared each morn for evenings. 'List, oh, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer
... fire made against an iron back in the great hall. Houses, often of gentry, were built of a heavy timber frame, filled up with lath and plaster. People slept on rough mats or straw pallets, with a round log for a pillow; seldom better beds than a mattress, with a sack of chaff ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and within sits a grave man in old German costume, who from a large sack before him takes handsful of grain, and liberally casts it about him. This is the sower, but the grain is in this instance only chaff. Now follow heavy instruments of husbandry—ploughs and harrows—while rakes, scythes, and reaping-hooks form a picturesque trophy behind them. A shout of laughter greets the next figure in the procession, for it is no other ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... 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 ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... and magnetism which dashed itself into the crowd like a spark of electricity, knocking men from off their feet, and driving the Truth into them as if by a charge of a powerful explosive. He told them that the spiritual grain was to be gathered into the garners, while the chaff was to be consumed as if by a fiery furnace; that the axe was to be laid to the root of the trees which brought not forth good fruit. Verily, the "Day of Jehovah," long promised by the prophets, was near to hand ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... his first one wide of the plate. O'Leary laughed, and nodded his head, as though to tell the pitcher he was too old a bird to be caught with such chaff. ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... four or five years, practically all of these lands are washed away and as farm lands they are abandoned. Not only are the hillside lands unprotected from the beating rains and flowing streams, but the bottom or lowlands are not properly drained, and the sand washed down from the hill, the chaff and raft from previous rains soon fill the ditches and creeks and almost any ordinary rain will cause an overflow ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... ring yet—the wedding-ring, darling; but I ha' got money to buy it—ten pound; it does seem a sight of riches. Let's go down to Higgins' and change the notes, Bet. We can get the ring there." Bet did not object—she turned at once in the right direction, walking so fast that Will began to chaff her. ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... setting forth of a higher truth; and sorrow, distress, and adversity being the appointed means for the separating in men of whatever in them was light, trivial, and poor from the solid and the true, their chaff from their wheat, [Footnote: Triticum itself may be connected with tero, tritus; [so Curtius, Greek Etym. No. 239].] he therefore called these sorrows and trials 'tribulations,' threshings, that is, of the inner spiritual man, without which ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... mean to save the workman many a "bob". But, lessening his chance of toping ale, The Witler tells his pals the saddest tale. Bacchus for his true friend mistaketh me, Then step I from his side, down topples he, And "Traitor!" cries, and swears I did but chaff, And the Teetotallers hold their sides and laugh, And chortle in their joy, and shout, and swear That GRANDOLPH GOODFELLOW's a spirit rare. But room, old boy, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... laughed at such a notion. "Depend on it, as soon as the troops and militia can be collected, the slaves will fly from them as chaff before the wind, or will, if they resist, to a man be cut to pieces," he observed. "It will be a bad look-out for us, I confess, for we shall become bankrupt; but our estates will remain, and we must procure fresh labourers from other countries, ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... be over thirty masters," returned Pocket more pointedly than before. He was not going to stand chaff about his public school from ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... have been that a tide had rushed in and wiped away even the prints of Esther's little feet. It might have been that a wind blew in at the windows of his mind and beat its great wings in the corners of it and winnowed out the chaff. As he saw life then his judgments softened and his irritations cooled. Nothing was left but the vision of life itself, the uncomprehended beneficence, the consoler, the illimitable beauty we look ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... saw this ram still battering the same place, and that the wall would quickly be thrown down by it, he resolved to elude for a while the force of the engine. With this design he gave orders to fill sacks with chaff, and to hang them down before that place where they saw the ram always battering, that the stroke might be turned aside, or that the place might feel less of the strokes by the yielding nature of the chaff. This contrivance very much delayed ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... depths of the sea, reining back its foaming waves as a rider his white-maned steed; giving to the thirsty—water from the rock, to the hungry—bread from the skies, and scattering the foes of Israel before them, as chaff is driven by the wind. I have heard of the sun's fiery chariot arrested in its course by the voice of a man, speaking with authority given to him by an inspiring Deity. Tell me what is the name ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... features and fulness of 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, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... spoke dully. He had changed once more; he affected a sort of harshness towards the young man. He teased him cruelly about his plans, his hopes of success, as though he were trying to chaff himself, now that he had recovered himself. He set himself coldly to destroy his faith in life, his faith in art, his faith in himself. Bitterly he gave himself as an example, speaking of his actual ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... of them to Apollo, who received them very graciously, and resolved to make the Author a suitable Return for the Trouble he had been at in collecting them. In order to this, he set before him a Sack of Wheat, as it had been just threshed out of the Sheaf. He then bid him pick out the Chaff from among the Corn, and lay it aside by it self. The Critick applied himself to the Task with great Industry and Pleasure, and after having made the due Separation, was presented by Apollo with the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and new rum; pease-pudding and chaff-biscuits,' said the manager, taking a whiff at his pipe to keep it alight, and returning to ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... He knew that the selectmen would be obliged to clear the street of the obstruction, but a display of loyalty to the king might possibly inure to his benefit. Boys on their way to school began to chaff the informer. ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... lighted up in the conversation. John could hear something of their conversation, which was somewhat noisy. They were talking in that strain of objectless question and answer which may be stupid to idiocy or clever to the verge of wit, according to the talkers. Joe called it "chaff." ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... Wherever the meat came from it could be masticated with some effort. In Barclay's boarding-house, in Williamstown, we had to take a spell in the middle of a mouthful. I have seen steak there that would have pauled a chaff-cutter. In the dining-room at Salthouse Lane there lived the wildest, most eccentric clock I ever saw in all my travels. It had a most remarkable way of striking quite peculiar to itself. We used ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... Rinaldo and Dudon fight; then friendship make, And to each other fitting honour pay. Agramant's host the united champions break, And scatter it, like chaff, in disarray. Brandimart wages war, for Roland's sake, With Rodomont, and loses in the fray. This while, for good Baiardo, with more pain, Contend Rinaldo and ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... 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
... rather! Chaff, because I'm so tall and thin. Bracy, you're not half such a boy as the Captain. You don't think I'm wild and ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... blew away the chaff from her handful of beans. The spring breeze blew the chaff back again, and sifted it over her face and shoulders. She rubbed it out of her eyes impatiently, and happened to notice old Peggy holding her ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... in the dense ranks, but picking out the smaller parties of the enemy—that is to say, mobs not more than double our own strength; and when we could get within striking distance they were punished and scattered like chaff before the wind, in spite of the scattered volleys they sent at us before ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... morning, his five tentmates fell to catechising him as to his pensive mood, and their catechism was largely intermingled with chaff. ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... newspaper writer commented that a "consensus of opinion among biologists" would probably rate Dr. Loeb as a man of lively imagination rather than an inerrant investigator of natural phenomena, he felt called to chaff the consensus idea. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... ever been a result of persecution that the persecuted cause has made progress—naturally so, for trial and suffering winnow out the chaff and leave the good seed to flourish with increased vigour. Few false professors attended those midnight meetings, which were so full of joy and danger, and none of these ever got the length of Ranavalona's fiery stakes or ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... leave the bench for their chamber, the crowd in court give way outright to joy. Every face is bright; every heart is light; jokes go round, and there is great "chaff" of the crown officials, and of the "polis," who, poor fellows, to tell the truth, seem to be as glad as the gladdest in the throng. Five o'clock arrives—half-past five—the jury must suavely be out soon now. At a quarter ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... chaff. "Fellows, stop guying Ward; cut it out, I tell you. He's only a kid freshman, but he's liable to hand you a punch, and if he does you'll remember it. Besides, he's right.... Look here, Ward, you stick to that promise. It's a good promise to stick ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... elective rank of captain of his company, and contrived to maintain some sort of order in that, doubtless brave, but undisciplined body. He saw no fighting, but he could earn his living for some months, and stored up material for effective chaff in Congress long afterwards about the military glory which General Cass's supporters for the Presidency wished to attach to their candidate. His most glorious exploit consisted in saving from his own men a poor old friendly Indian who had fallen among them. A letter of credentials, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... that as the down noon express was leaving H—— yesterday a lady! (God save the mark) attempted to force herself into the already full palatial car. Conductor Slum, who is too old a bird to be caught with chaff, courteously informed her that the car was full, and when she insisted on remaining, he persuaded her to go into the car where she belonged. Thereupon a young sprig, from the East, blustered like a Shanghai rooster, and began to sass the conductor with his chin ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... explained. "You need not believe me if you don't like. I don't care, since I have done what I wanted to. Bar chaff, Henry, I am telling you the truth. The girl appears to be a young woman of decision. She explained at once her circumstances, and it struck us both that to go through the ceremony of marriage would smooth all our difficulties. We can easily get ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... Huckaback; he was found in the streets, overpowered by the forbidden juice, after having beaten many of your highness's subjects, and the cadi would have administered the bamboo, but he was as a lion, and he scattered the slaves as chaff, until he fell, and could not rise again. I have taken him from the cadi, and brought him here. He speaketh but the Frankish tongue, but the sun who shineth on me knoweth I have been in the Frank country; and Inshallah! ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... the Professor relapsed into his former tone of dry chaff. The Father could not quite make up his mind whether Guildea was feeling unusually grave or unusually gay. As the two men drew near to Hyde Park Place their conversation died away and they walked forward silently in ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the slightest intention of yielding; her mind and her feet were braced against any divergence from the straight road now; but the man Janet Payne had called Gregory Jessup said something that scattered her resolutions like so much chaff. ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... 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 ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... 1. The perforated edge strips on printer paper, after they have been separated from the printed portion. Also called {selvage} and {perf}. 2. obs. The confetti-like paper bits punched out of cards or paper tape; this has also been called 'chaff', 'computer confetti', and 'keypunch droppings'. This use may now be mainstream; it has been reported seen (1993) in directions for a card-based voting ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... 'That's a quare un!' she thought, but she found him handsome all the same, and, retreating behind the beer-taps, she eyed him surreptitiously. She was a raw country lass, not yet stript of all her natural shyness, or she would have begun to 'chaff' him. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Of heaps of "vacant chaff well-meant for grain," If, like the pious spouse of Jerry Cruncher, You "flop," and, camel-wise, won't rise again To bear big burdens that strength staggers under, On ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... The peasants chaff Slimak for living in exile like a Sibiriak.[1] It is true, they say, that he lives nearer to the church, but on the other hand he has no one ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... they tramped slowly forward. The darkness grew more intense, and the chaff and laughter—for the soldiers, elated by success, had hitherto shown no sign of fatigue—died gradually away. Nothing was to be heard but the clang of accoutrements, the long rumble of the guns, and the shuffle of weary feet. Men fell in the ranks, overpowered ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... this side of Jordan. Wal, that might be a little child, we'll say; if there's a thing handsomer than a field o' wheat, it's a little child. But bimeby comes reapin' and all, and then the trouble begins. First, it's all in the rough, ain't it, chaff and all, mixed together; and has to go through the thresher? Well, maybe that's the lickin's a boy's father gives him. He don't like 'em,—I can feel Father Belfort's lickin's yet,—but they git red of ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... agree on the idea of the divine; but no, that is not the question—the chaff must be separated from the good grain. The supernatural is miracle, and miracle is an objective phenomenon independent of all preceding casuality. Now, miracle thus understood cannot be proved experimentally; and besides, the subjective ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was thus in two minds, Neptune sent a terrible great wave that seemed to rear itself above his head till it broke right over the raft, which then went to pieces as though it were a heap of dry chaff tossed about by a whirlwind. Ulysses got astride of one plank and rode upon it as if he were on horseback; he then took off the clothes Calypso had given him, bound Ino's veil under his arms, and plunged into ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... to the Resident and his party. The shouts of laughter proceeding from their corner of the house announced that business was over, and that chaff and fun, so dear to the heart of every Kanowit, was being carried on with great gusto. As we arrived and stood by the group, one of their number (evidently a privileged buffoon) begged to be allowed to speak ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... we deal, preach to us. What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff and the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, insects, sun,—it is a sacred emblem from the first furrow of spring to the last stack which the snow of ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... from the grain of that name, which abounds in the rivers and marshy lands. This plant is described as growing about two feet above the water, resembling European oats, and is gathered by the savages during the month of September. The ears are dried, separated from the chaff, and prepared for food either by pounding into meal, or simply boiling the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Don't chaff. Present company always excepted. I wasn't thinking about you. But I say, didn't he take it all in as innocent as could be about uncle setting him adrift out ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... small, poor bunches. The bunches selected are freed from all bruised berries. The stems of the bunches are then dipped in melted wax. After this treatment they are packed in layers of finely cut, soft chaff, made from clean, bright, fragrant oat straw. The chaff serves to keep the berries and clusters well apart, and also to keep out the air, which otherwise would soon wilt the fruit. Packed in this way the grapes reach distant markets ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... the O'Reagans of Castle Reagan, or the D'Arcy de Montmorenci, or the Montescudi di Bajocchi. Among this set there was much merry-making when the news from the Dolph household sifted down to them from the gossip-sieve of the best society. They could not very well chaff young Dolph openly, for he was muscular and high-tempered, and, under the most agreeable conditions, needed a fight of some sort every six months or so, and liked a bit of trouble in between fights. But a good deal of low and malicious humor came his way, from one source or another, and he, with ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... yourselves that the doctrines of the cross are really irrational and absurd, and that you are doing right in opposing and deriding them? Recollect, I pray you, with whose word you are contending;—whose wisdom you are despising! Let the chaff contend with the tempest, and the stubble with the devouring flame; let the glow-worm despise all the lamps of heaven;—but Oh, let not a worm contend with Omnipotence; let not dim reason reject all the splendours of the Sun of righteousness. The redemption of the soul is precious—Its rescue ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin
... will keep on bringing pretty girls into camp—that is, I scarcely think it will grow into a steady habit," he said, and met her eyes so steadily that she dismissed all idea of any heart interest in the girl. "But I'd rather 'Tana didn't hear any chaff of that sort. You know what I mean. The boys, or any one, is like enough to joke about it at first; but when they learn 'for keeps,' that I'm not a marrying man, they'll let up. As she grows older, there'll be enough boys to bother her in camp without me. All I want is to see that she is looked ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... like chaff upon the wind before him, and impregnable Sicilian castles fall into his power by impossible feats of arms, or incredible stratagems. A Greek empress, "the mature Zoe," as Gibbon calls her, falls in love with him, and ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... "Notes and Observations on the Ionian Islands." "The grain is beaten out, commonly in the harvest field, by men, horses, or mules, on a threshing-floor prepared extempore for the purpose, where the ground is firm and dry, and the chaff is separated by winnowing."—Wilkinson, ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... than was absolutely necessary,—Disko did not wish to spend a week hunting for his cable,—but scuttled up into the wind as the Carrie passed within easy hail, a silent and angry boat, at the mercy of a raking broadside of Bank chaff. ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... Chorus of Chaff from the bridges and terraces as they pass. 'Ullo, 'ere comes another boat-load! 'Igher up, there!... Four-wheeler!... Ain't that toff in the tall 'at enjoyin' himself? Quite a 'appy funeral! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... days; but they told me, as near as I can now remember, "We regret to leave you, but we have to obey orders." The most ignorant private in the whole army saw everything that we had been fighting for for four years just scattered like chaff to the winds. All the Generals resigned, and those who did not resign were promoted; colonels were made brigadier-generals, captains were made colonels, and the private soldier, well, he deserted, don't you see? The private soldiers of the Army of Tennessee ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... breath. "Well, Leonard, you fooled me. I believed all this chaff you've been giving me about not ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... entertaining as Rabelais tells us they were in his time. Then he 'amused himself much with the boatmen, and above all with those of Chauny in Picardy—wonderful chatterboxes, and great at bandying chaff on the subject of green monkeys.' There is no lack of boatmen now at Chauny, though the railway has taken away much of their living; but the glory of the green monkeys, I fear, has departed. In the days of Gargantua, the Chaunois were as famous as the Savoyards now are, for wandering over France ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... same in diameter. Then the rice is heated over a fire-place, and emptied into the hole while it is hot. A young man, having washed his feet and put on a new pair of moccasins, treads upon it until all is hulled. The women then pour it upon a robe and begin to shake it so that the chaff will be separated by the wind. Some of the rice is browned before ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... like chaff before the wind, while Di, full of remorseful zeal, charged at the kettles, and wrenched off the potatoes' jackets, as if she were revengefully pulling her own hair. Laura had a vague intention of going to assist; but, getting lost among ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... feet, and when it had passed there was not one scrap of that dry alfalfa hay where I'd thrown it. I found my hat a mile distant. My nostrils and ears and eyes and mouth were literally loaded with dirt and fine hay chaff. And my hair! Heavens!" She put her hands to it. "I usually wear it in braids, you know, but to-day I thought I'd be smart and perk up a bit. Now I'll have to 'go to the ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... some sense one of opposition and contrast. I think we are put on the right track for understanding the solemn words of this text if we remember the great saying of John the Baptist, where, in precisely similar fashion, there are set side by side the two conceptions of the chaff being cast into the unquenchable fire (the same expression as in our text), and 'He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... However, he continued the work till the evening, and brought his soldiers back into their camp. The next morning a gentle breeze at first arose, and moved the lightest parts of the earth, and dispersed it about as the chaff before the wind; but when the sun got higher, and the strong, northerly wind had covered the hills with the dust, the soldiers came and turned this mound of earth over and over, and broke the hard clods in pieces, whilst others on horseback ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... when the snow melts in the mountains, the Rio Grande is flooded to its full capacity, often overflowing its banks in marshy regions. The first bridge built by the railway company at this point was of wood, which was swept away like chaff by the next flood of the river. The present substantial iron structure bids fair to last for many years. The river, such as it is, belongs to the two nations, the boundary agreed upon being the middle of ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... the villagers, most of their gear, and most of the day were required to get us down. They were a poor and wretched folk, their food difficult even for the stomach of a sea-cuny to countenance. Their rice was brown as chocolate. Half the husks remained in it, along with bits of chaff, splinters, and unidentifiable dirt which made one pause often in the chewing in order to stick into his mouth thumb and forefinger and pluck out the offending stuff. Also, they ate a sort of millet, and pickles of astounding variety and ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... thicken; Cuckoo, nightingale, no art Of yours my heart can quicken! 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 ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... figured by the 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 of ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... details of cleaning. For a pleasing appearance the seed heads must be gathered before they become the least bit weather-beaten. This is as essential as to have the seed ripe. Next, the seed must be perfectly clean, free from chaff, bits of broken stems and other debris. Much depends upon the manner of handling as well as upon harvesting. Care must be taken in threshing to avoid bruising the seeds, particularly the oily ones, by pounding ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... beside him from somewhere in the darkness. The tip of her little finger barely touched his hand as she stood there, leaning against the railing and firing back some "chaff" into the darkness. There came a lull in the chatter and Joe was feeling a bit mollified. Suddenly, before he realized it, the crowd was leaving, and one by one they filed past him, each bidding good-night. There was ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... way of truce, served out the liquor from an eighteen-gallon cask, and sucked it up himself like the sole of an old shoe. Then Caesar said grace, and the company fell to. Such noise, such sport, such chaff, such laughter! Everything was a jest—every word had wit in it. "How are you doing, John?"—"Haven't done as well for a month, sir; but what's it saying, two hungry meals make the third a glutton."—"How are you doing, Tom?"—"No time to get a right mouthful for myself Caesar; kept so busy ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... when we went into the tap-room on Wednesday, some of his companions were chaffing Crockett about a certain Nancy Webb, and the chaff went home, as was plain to see. The woman, then, who could most easily entice Sammy Crockett away was Nancy Webb. I resolved to find who Nancy Webb was and ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... France, Colonel," replied La Corne de St. Luc, scornfully, "that 'King's chaff is better than other people's corn, and that fish in the market is cheaper than fish in the sea!' I believe it, and can prove it to any gentleman ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby |
