"Sifting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to know who. After all, it may not be the man arrested and arraigned, though most think it is. But, to be fully convinced, further evidence is wanted; as also a more careful sifting of that already obtained. ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat; O, be swift, my soul, to answer Him; be jubilant, my feet,— Our ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... about the transition of the first century to the second, a series of teachers, who, under the impression of the Gospel, sought to make the Old Testament capable of furthering the tendency to a universal religion, not by allegorical interpretation, but by a sifting criticism. These attempts were of very different kinds. Teachers such as Cerinthus, clung to the notion that the universal religion revealed by Christ was identical with undefined Mosaism, and ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... overseas uniforms that they had worn in their ride over the Old Apache Trail. In addition, a red bandana handkerchief was twisted about the neck of each Overland Rider, in true western style, to keep the alkali dust from sifting down ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... gallon bottles with long necks, pots or pitchers for their bear oil, which will hold forty pints; lastly, large and small plates in the French fashion: I had some made out of curiosity upon the model of my delf-ware, which were a very pretty red. For sifting the flour of their maiz, and for other uses, the natives make sieves of various finenesses of the splits of cane. To supply themselves with fish they make nets of the bark of the limetree; but the large fish they shoot ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... very steadily to work all the same; advertising in medical journals, reading testimonials, sifting character and qualifications; and just when the elderly maiden ladies of Hollingford thought that they had convinced their contemporary that he was as young as ever, he startled them by bringing his new partner, Mr. Gibson, to call ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... from the twenty-seven million British subjects; that any ballot-box, reform-bill, or other political machine, with force of public opinion ever so active on it, is likely to perform said process of sifting? Would to heaven that we had a sieve; that we could so much as fancy any kind of sieve, wind-fanners, or ne plus ultra of machinery, devisable by man ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... beneath the slight covering of powder. The head stands out against a light-blue background, which in general dominates the whole picture. Everything satisfies and delights the eye; it is a melody, perhaps, rather than a harmony. A bluish light, sifting downwards, falls across every object. There is nothing in this enchanted boudoir which does not seem to pay court to the goddess,—nothing, not even L'Esprit des Lois and L'Encyclopedie. The flowered ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... was divine with his inquisitive forefinger? In our time that finger has multiplied itself into ten thousand thousand implements of research, challenging all mysteries, weighing the world as in a balance, and sifting through its prisms and spectroscopes the light that comes from the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... eyes, that were inflamed with dust, and immediately fresh dust bit into them. On the coarse blankets on which I lay the dust was half an inch thick. Above me, through sifting dust, I saw an arched roof of lurching, swaying canvas, and myriads of dust motes descended heavily in the shafts of sunshine that entered through holes in ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... Boyd's twenty riflemen stood craning their sunburnt necks; and my Indians, terribly excited, fairly quivered where they crouched beside us. But all we could see was the rifle smoke sifting through the trees, and early sunshine ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... was hastily removed from the little kitchen to Mrs. Wilson's own matted room,—the very same which she had occupied as housekeeper, and which she continued to retain. "It was," she said, "better secured against sifting winds than the hall, which she had found dangerous to her rheumatisms, and it was more fitting for her use than the late Milnwood's apartment, honest man, which gave her sad thoughts;" and as for the great oak parlour, it was never opened ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... another home in San Francisco, one that possessed for me the strongest attraction. It was bosomed in the sandhills south of Market Street,—I know not between what streets, for they had all been blurred or quite obliterated by drifts of sifting sand. It was a small house fenced about; but the fence was for the most part buried under sand, and looked as if it were a rampart erected for the defense of this isolated cot. Some few hardy flowers had been planted there, but they were knee-deep in sand, and their petals ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... the fancy, and lead it back through a systematic review of local history with unlooked-for nimbleness. Gradually the mind gets to roving among scenes imaged as if by memory, and bearing some strangely intimate relation to the actual scenes before one. The drift of clouds, the sifting of sudden light from the sky, acquire the import of historic changes of adversity and prosperity. The spires of Salem, seen one day through a semi-shrouding rain, appeared to loom up through the mist of centuries; ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... kinds of travellers,—those who tell us what they went to see, and those who tell us what they saw. The latter class are the only ones whose journals are worth the sifting; and the value of their eyes depends on the amount of individual character they took with them, and of the previous culture that had sharpened and tutored the faculty of observation. In our conscious age the frankness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... of sugar, one-half a cup of milk, one-quarter teaspoonful of salt, one-quarter teaspoonful of cinnamon extract (Burnett's), two cups of flour, one-quarter cup of Baker's Breakfast Cocoa, two teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Mix in the order given, sifting the baking powder and cocoa with the flour. Roll to one-third an inch in thickness, cut ...
— Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes • Miss Parloa
... streets. It was two in the morning, and the narrow canons were emptied of life, save the shadowy fleeting shape of some night prowler, some creature of the underworld. The air was a trifle less cold, and a fine hard snow was sifting down—crunched underfoot—a bitter, tiny, ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... of the tree-tops. Thick shadows stole across the stretch of dusty road. Off in the distance there was the sound of cowbell. Slowly these came nearer and nearer—as the golden light slanted, sifting deeper ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... out of all incompetent Advocates, "Follow that Attorney-Company, you; away!"—sifting out all these, and retaining in each Court, with fees accurately settled, with character stamped sound, or at least SOUNDEST, the number actually needed. In a milder way, but still more strictly, Judges stupid or otherwise incompetent are riddled out; able Judges appointed, and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... my hands get so dirty," said Zaidee, suddenly, looking at her small, grimy palms with close attention. "I guess it sifts right through my skin. Course I can't keep clean when it keeps sifting through all the time, and 'Liza says she don't see how I get myself so dirty," with a funny imitation of Eliza's tones. "I'm going to tell her I can't help it. If she keeps scrubbing me as fast as it comes out, it may get all used ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... a fondness for detective work—not the police part of it, but the inquiry into mystery, the deduction from clues and the sifting of evidence. I had no mind to miss the inquest, and I had a burning curiosity to know what had become of Vicky Van. This was not only curiosity, either. I had a high respect and a genuine liking for that little lady, and, as Mrs. Reeves had put it, I was ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... neighbors, tardy at the great rendezvous. The encampment, scattered up and down the river front, had become more and more congested. Men began to know one another, families became acquainted, the gradual sifting and shifting in social values began. Knots and groups began to talk of some sort of accepted government for the ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... village below. Wagg commented with satisfaction on the location when they had reached the place. The van had been concealed in a ravine which led from the lane. The work of loading the horse with the sacked supplies, and the ascent of the mountain, had consumed hours. Twilight was sifting into the valleys by the time they had unloaded the stuff and stabled the horse in ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... looked eagerly, and sure enough, there was Farmer Hayseed with a big box marked "Paris Green" in one hand, and in the other a sieve through which he was sifting ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... weeks afterwards ere Tom Collins succeeded in sifting this interesting point to the bottom; but perhaps the reader may not object to have the result of his inquiries noted at this point in ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... market: porters discharging sacks down the shoots of lofty elevators upon the pier, and loose grain rolling as a golden torrent through a blonde dust. Men in red skullcaps were sifting it as they caught it in large asses'-skin sieves, and loading it upon carts which took their millward way, followed by a regiment of women and youngsters with wisps and gleaning baskets. Farther on, the dry docks, where large vessels were laid low on their sides ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... spread in a warm, airy room to dry thoroughly. When this method is practiced the stems are cut finally; that is, when the bulk of the seed has been gathered. They are dried, threshed or rubbed and the trash removed, by sifting. During damp weather the seed will not separate ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... compare. There have been great actors on the stage of tragic humanity that might, with the same depth of confidence, have appealed from the levity of compatriot friends—too heartless for the sublime interest of their story, and too impatient for the labour of sifting its perplexities—to the magnanimity and justice of enemies. To this class belongs the Maid of Arc. The ancient Romans were too faithful to the ideal of grandeur in themselves not to relent, after a generation or two, before the grandeur of Hannibal. Mithridates, a more doubtful person, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... Poe has been actually beneficial to the reputation of its subject, contrary to its obvious design. It has caused a thorough sifting of all accessible records of the poet's short and dreary life, and elicited many reminiscences from men of mark who were in one way or another personally associated with him. We know now, more certainly than we might have done but for Griswold's effort to prove the opposite, that Poe ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... harbours, can be met by transferring the business, of the former to the railroads, of the {p.101} latter to other ports not blockaded. This is not so, because the local conveniences and methods, which have developed under the sifting tests of experience and actual use, cannot be transferred at short notice; and until such transfer has been made, distribution cannot proceed. The body economic and commercial will be in the state of the body physical whose liver is congested, whose blood therefore circulates poorly, with consequent ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... divulged one syllable of that poor wretch's confession, save to yourself alone. You, as a magistrate, a relative of the murdered gentleman, and the head of that establishment among whom the guilt rests, are invested with an interest in detecting, and powers of sifting the truth in this matter, such as none other possesses. I clearly see, with you, too, the inexpediency and folly of talking, for talking's sake, of this affair. I mean to keep my counsel, and shall most assuredly, irrespectively ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... person, Mr. Pleydell,' answered the Baronet, 'who is peculiarly interested in investigating, sifting, and clearing out this business to the bottom; you will excuse ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... greatest influence over him. Now the picaresque method is not exactly untrue to ordinary life: on the contrary, as we have seen, it was a powerful schoolmaster to bring the novel thereto. But it subjects the scenes of ordinary life to a peculiar process of sifting: and when it has got what it wants, it proceeds to heighten them and "touch them up" in its own peculiar manner of decoration. This is Smollett's method throughout, even in that singular pastiche of Don Quixote itself, Sir ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... of the story-teller makes it needful to curtail some of the incidents which would render the narrative too complicated to be interesting to those who wish more for a view of noted characters in remarkable situations, than for a minute and accurate sifting ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the importance of this class by their pretension, or imagine that a fop can be the dispenser of honor and shame. They pass also at their just rate; for how can they otherwise, in circles which exist as a sort of herald's office[413] for the sifting of character? ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... asked how two plants are united to procure a third. The act is based on the procreative law of nature. Plant-breeding is simply accomplished by sifting the pollen of one plant upon the stigma of another, this act—pollenation—resulting in fertilization, Nature in her own mysterious ways bringing ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... were clever enough people; they entertained their contemporary public sufficiently, but their work had no vitality or "power of continuance." The great majority of the writings of any period are necessarily ephemeral, and time by a slow process of natural selection is constantly sifting out the few representative books which shall carry on the memory of the period to posterity. Now and then it may be predicted of some undoubted work of genius, even at the moment that it sees the light, that it ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... named Talib. The man was innocent of the theft, but his protestations were not believed, and he was forthwith consigned to the Pen-jara or local gaol. The tedious formality of a trial was dispensed with, and nothing in the nature of the sifting of evidence was considered necessary. The stolen kris was the property of a Prince. That was enough; and Talib went to gaol forthwith, the Raja issuing an order—a sort of lettre de cachet—for his admittance. ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... south hillside and about my wood-pile, the partridges came out of the woods morning and evening to feed there. Whichever side you walk in the woods the partridge bursts away on whirring wings, jarring the snow from the dry leaves and twigs on high, which comes sifting down in the sunbeams like golden dust; for this brave bird is not to be scared by winter. It is frequently covered up by drifts, and, it is said, "sometimes plunges from on wing into the soft snow, where it remains ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... in a frame of mind at all suited to the sifting of evidence. He did not care to say anything about Mrs. Jones; he got no crumb of comfort out of that view of the matter. Things had come out, unwittingly for the most part, in his conversations with Mollett, ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... bread flour, measured after sifting once 5 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon sugar. Work in with fingers 2 tablespoons shortening. Add 1 egg yolk, slightly beaten, mixed with 2/3 cup milk, cutting it in with a knife. Toss on floured ...
— For Luncheon and Supper Guests • Alice Bradley
... answered Mr. Marwood, "and are the machines most liable to get out of order. They become clogged. Our sifters are self-cleaning. By that I mean they have an attachment which removes the waste obstructing them. Nevertheless, even with this improvement they still bother us at times. If you watch this sifting machine carefully you can see that the method is one of sliding the slip back and forth until it is forced ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... departments, by interrogating prisoners and reading papers found on enemy dead, by collating the reports of the air service, by minutely sifting the enemy press, arrives at a fairly accurate knowledge of the enemy's order of battle on the front of its own army. So essential is this system to the successful carrying-on of operations that raids are often specially organized ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... Personally and practically exercised in zoology, in minute anatomy, in geology; a student of geographical distribution, not on maps and in museums only, but by long voyages and laborious collection; having largely advanced each of these branches of science, and having spent many years in gathering and sifting materials for his present work, the store of accurately registered facts upon which the author of the "Origin of Species" is able to draw at ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... yet-watching men: Mary of Seven Evils, Mary Magdalen. And he was frighted at her. She sighed: 'I dreamed him dead. We sell the body for silver....' Then Judas cried out and fled Forth into the night!... The moon had begun to set: A drear, deft wind went sifting, setting the dust afret; Into the heart of the city Judas ran on and prayed To stern Jehovah lest ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... He beheld him sifting his seeds, and soaking them in liquids which were destined to modify or to deepen their colours. He knew what Cornelius meant when heating certain grains, then moistening them, then combining them with others by a sort of grafting,—a minute and marvellously delicate manipulation,—and when he ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... and the temperature fell sharply. Jason woke sluggishly from a dream in which he was being frozen to death, to find it was almost true. Fine snow was sifting through the trees, powdering the ground and drifting against him. The cold bit into his flesh, and when he sneezed it hurt his chest. His aching and numb body only wanted rest, but the spark of reason ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... vessel's side, a dream of rosy lustre sifting through the purple and pearly mist, behind which the stars grew large and lost while it moved away to the west in one great cloud, and out of which the river gleamed as if just newly rolled from its everlasting fountains,—morning was dawning with the sweet freshness of its fragrant airs stealing ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... may be met by concentrating the whole of the coarse gold in a small fraction of the ore, by sifting and making a separate assay of this fraction. A portion of the ore, of about 1000 grams, is ground to a very fine powder and passed through an 80 sieve, re-grinding when necessary, until only 20 or 30 grams is left of the coarser powder. ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... they approached some other objects. They were gigantic fragments lying in wild confusion and covered with snow sifting everywhere into the chasms between them. The children almost touched them before seeing them. They went up to them to examine what ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... and my heart was bent upon understanding, sifting, and seeking the outgrowth of wisdom and knowledge, madness, and folly. 26. Whereupon I found that more bitter than death is woman—that snare whose heart is a net, whose arms are fetters: the God-favoured shall escape her, but the sinner shall ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... but little to say of matters of a retrospect approaching two generations. But seated at last with pen in hand, and with memory stirred up, I had ere long to exercise mercy towards my expected readers, in sifting the surging crowd of recollections, so as to keep to such as might have general interest. I hope I have reasonably succeeded; and if I have also contributed, in however small a degree, to the information, interest, or ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... long in ascertaining the truth. The expected storm had set in, with that low, deep commotion of the elements, and that slowly gathering impetus, which, as may often be noted at the commencement of great storms, was but the too certain prelude of its increase and duration. The fine snow was sifting down apace to the already whitened ground, and the rising wind, even in their mountain-hemmed nook, was whirling in fierce and fitful eddies about their camp, and shrilly piping among the strained branches of the vexed forest around; ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... began with the promise of only moderate enjoyment. Somehow in the gray light sifting through the windows the beans did not look as good as they had tasted the night before, and the early mouthfuls were less blithesome on the palate than the remembered ones of yesterday. He thought perhaps he was not ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... for this new Mr. Maybold, though he mid be a very well- intending party in that respect, he's unbearable; for as to sifting your cinders, scrubbing your floors, or emptying your slops, why, you can't do it. I assure you I've not been able to empt them for several days, unless I throw 'em up the chimley or out of winder; for as sure as the sun you meet him at the door, coming ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... boy. If the time ever comes when you go so soft on me as to quit laying it on the line and start sifting out your language...." Garlock paused. For one of the very few times in his life, he was at a loss for words. He thrust his hands into his pockets and shrugged his shoulders. "Hell, I don't want to get maudlin, either ... so ... well, how many ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... well-wishers, and then, in the years' steady sifting, Some of them turn into friends. Friends ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... the men and women from whom he and his were sifted who spoke the burning words that ended in burning deeds for the extinction of slavery; and thus it was with Temperance. There remained after the "sifting" many societies, of one of which William E. Dodge and President Mark Hopkins were chief officers, and John ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... stared upward. The soft tropical foliage in a great wide swath was dead, with naked sticks of limbs. Black, then turning white. Not with heat—but cold. Ice was forming from the moisture in the humid air. And then the sudden condensation brought snow—a thick white fall of it sifting down into the palm-laden garden; falling gently, then swirling in a sudden ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... was ripe for great collisions of principles and aims; for the decomposition of elements which had been hitherto united; for sifting them out of their old combinations, and regrouping them according to their more natural affinities. It was a time for the formation and development of unexpected novelties in teaching and practical effort. There ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... the sufferings of prisoners of war, as of soldiers in the field, cannot be adequately presented in official reports, but the sifting of more human and biased evidence is an extremely difficult task, and it is sufficiently plain that we should not rely on official evidence to exculpate ourselves, while using rumours and unofficial information to ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... a good reporter. If we turned out to be wrong, we were given to understand our careers on the Tribune would be at an end. I slept little or none during that month of intense work and excitement, but spent my days as my nights sifting every scrap of evidence. There was nothing to justify the stories, and we maintained in our paper that they were lies. Mr. Shanks himself left the city desk and came up to work with us. His head, too, would fall, we heard, if his ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... everlasting snow-drifts, In the kingdom of Wabasso, In the land of the White Rabbit. He it was whose hand in Autumn Painted all the trees with scarlet, Stained the leaves with red and yellow; He it was who sent the snow-flake, Sifting, hissing through the forest, Froze the ponds, the lakes, the rivers, Drove the loon and sea-gull southward, Drove the cormorant and curlew To their nests of sedge and sea-tang In the realms ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... facts, from the best sources at his command, with the closest sifting he can give them, so as to exclude errors of observation or intentional bias. From the facts he aims to discover on the above lines what are or were the regular characteristics of the people or peoples he is studying. The ethnic differences so revealed are to him what organic variations are to the ...
— An Ethnologist's View of History • Daniel G. Brinton
... Princess. Thus the two elder brothers set off with the rest; but as for Boots, they said outright he shouldn't go with them, for if they were seen with such a dirty fellow, all begrimed with smut from cleaning their shoes, and sifting cinders in the dust-hole, they said folk would ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... her total want of education prevented her from acquiring any idea of the construction of the language; nor could she always be made to understand the meaning of a question—however simple in its form—framed to elicit information on this point. Even by carefully sifting at leisure hours the mass of crude materials obtained from her and written down at each interview, day by day, I did not make sufficient progress in the grammar of the language to enable me to pursue the subject further, until her value as an authority ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... by the last-named biographer to such good purpose that he has superseded all predecessors. Thoroughness is the chief characteristic of Navarrete's work. Besides sifting, testing, and methodising with rare patience and judgment what had been previously brought to light, he left, as the saying is, no stone unturned under which anything to illustrate his subject might possibly be found. Navarrete has done all that industry and acumen ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... according to others, completely alone. "What she said to him there is none who knows," wrote Alan Chartier, a short time after [in July, 1429], "but it is quite certain that he was all radiant with joy thereat as at a revelation from the Holy Spirit." M. Wallop, after a scrupulous sifting of evidence, has given the following exposition of this mysterious interview. "Sire de Boisy," he says, "who was in his youth one of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber on the most familiar terms with Charles VII., told Peter Sala, giving the king himself ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... most first offenders are not sent to a penal institution at all, but are placed on their good behavior under the watchful eye of the probation officer. Experience with the reformatory method shows that about eighty per cent of the cases turn out well. In the sifting process of the reformatory there are always a few incorrigibles who are turned over to the penitentiary, and most recidivists, or old offenders, are sentenced ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... and while studying Mr. Macaulay, one feels as if vibrating between facts that every one knows and consequences which nobody can believe. We are satisfied that whoever will take, as we have been obliged to do, the pains of sifting what Mr. Macaulay has produced from his own mind with what he has borrowed from others, will be entirely of our opinion. In truth, when, after reading a page or two of this book, we have occasion to turn ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... almost entirely on microscopic animals and embryos; and these would be most easily captured by a current of water brought in at the mouth. The whole branchial apparatus in its simplest forms would seem to be an apparatus for sifting out the microscopic particles of food and only later a purely respiratory apparatus. Moreover, we have seen that the parapodia of annelids naturally point to the development of an external skeleton, for their muscles are already a part of the external body-wall and attached ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... falsehood of all that had been alleged on oath against the queen was assumed as an undeniable axiom; the witnesses were loaded with the most opprobrious epithets, while those who had been concerned in collecting or sifting evidence were represented as conspirators or suborners. We shall see, when we come to speak of the caricatures of Robert Cruikshank, the light in which these unhappy witnesses were regarded by the graphic satirists on the popular side.[41] ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... estate of Sir Cosmo Gordon Antrobus, was sold to Sir C.H. Chubb, who immediately presented it to the nation. The work of restoration is being carried out by the Office of Works, and the Society of Antiquaries are, at their own expense, sifting every cubic inch of ground under those stones that are being re-erected—to the dismay of many of that body—in beds of concrete! Much apprehension has been felt by archaeologists that this renovation will have deplorable results, but it is promised that nothing is to ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... wells of the sky,—all these, seized by the creating spirit, and woven by Athena herself into films and threads of plume; with wave on wave following and fading along breast, and throat, and opened wings, infinite as the dividing of the foam and the sifting of the sea-sand; even the white down of the cloud seeming to flutter up between the stronger plumes,—seen, but too ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... celebrated at Allan's and New Year's at the master's. We had been looking for what people in Scotland dread, a Green Yule, for the ground was bare. When we rose the morning before Christmas we were pleased to see it white, and a gentle sifting of snow falling. Allan came for us early in the afternoon and we filled his big sleigh with children and parcels. We had just got into the house when the clouds lowered and it became suddenly dark. You have seen in summer a gentle rain prevail, until, all at ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... gold-washing association of five, who were wending their way towards the snow with their wooden implements. They were all also weighted with bags of grain, to keep them alive during their search. Their labour consists in sifting the fine sand which comes down in the snow-torrents, charged with minute particles of gold; and the proceeds, from the appearance of "the trade," would not seem to be very great. They say it amounts only to a few annas a day, ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... garnets are often found associated with diamonds, and noticing some garnets in one of the small streams that coursed through the valley, concluded to do a little prospecting on his own account. Sinking a hole a few feet in depth and sifting the sand and gravel through a common sieve, he came across a diamond weighing fifty carats—nearly half ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... spirit's gray defeat, From my pulse's flagging beat, From my hopes that turned to sand Sifting through my close-clenched hand, From my own fault's slavery, If I can sing, I ...
— Love Songs • Sara Teasdale
... a basis of either religion or ethics. The one who is moved by fear makes his chief concern the avoidance of detection on the one hand, or the escape of punishment on the other. Men of large calibre have an unusual sagacity in sifting the unessential from the essential as also the false from the true. Lincoln, when replying to the question as to why he did not unite himself with some church organisation, said: "When any church will inscribe over ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... bren: Examine the matter thoroughly; a metaphor taken from the sifting of meal, to divide the fine flour from ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... light of some sort from the lamp-room, Webb. They'll have to put up with that as far as Croydon. Move sharp. She'll be along presently." Then he took up a lantern (for, in addition to fog, a slight, sifting snow had come on about an hour previously, rendering the evening one of darkness and extreme discomfort) and crossed by way of the tunnel over to the down platform to be ready for the train's arrival, having some little difficulty in progressing easily, for it ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... cell, from which it might again be brought forth if occasion required it.' The Doctor's description of the present state of Vanity Fair is very deeply interesting and amusing—(ED). When religion is counted honourable, we shall not want professors; but trying times are sifting times. As the chaff flies before the wind, so will the formal professors before a storm of persecution—(J.B.). [258] Kindness to the poor increases and builds up the church. It conquers the prejudices of the worldly, secures their confidence, and brings them under ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to be found only in the lower Delta lands of the state, that there are no Creoles north of New Orleans; and will raise their hands in horror at the idea of being confused with the "Cajans," the descendants of those Nova Scotians whom Longfellow immortalized in Evangeline. Sifting down the mass of conflicting definitions, it appears that to a Caucasian, a Creole is a native of the lower parishes of Louisiana, in whose veins some traces of Spanish, West Indian or French blood runs.[19] The ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... reconciliation of heaven and earth, the Convention promulgates the Law of Prairial which suppresses, with a sort of ferocious good-nature, all the traditional forms of Law, whatever has been devised since the time of the Roman jurisconsults for the safeguarding of innocence under suspicion. No more sifting of evidence, no more questioning of the accused, no more witnesses, no more counsel for the defence; love of the fatherland supplies everything that is needful. The prisoner, who bears locked up ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... preparing the daily menus between them—for Nancy had never again attempted the feat—never let a day go by without making a new plat de jour or inventing a sauce; was in the throes of composing a new casserole, and it was a pleasure to watch him deftly sifting and sorting his ingredients, his artist's eyes aglow with the inward fire of inspiration. Nancy called all the waitresses together and offered them certain prizes and rewards for all the buttermilk, and prunes and other health ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... defeat at Edinburgh for reelection to Parliament gave him time for concentrated labor on the 'History of England' which he had already begun as his crowning work. To it he thenceforth devoted most of his energies, reading and sifting the whole mass of available source-material and visiting the scenes of the chief historical events. The popular success of the five volumes which he succeeded in preparing and published at intervals was enormous. In 1852 he ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... bad, he knew the day would be a hundred times worse. Already a gray light was sifting into the hollow of the sky. The vague misty outlines of the mountains were growing sharper. Soon from a crotch of them would rise a red hot cannon ball to pour its heat ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... may be described as containing (1) a reference to psychology as the mother science, (2) a classification, comparison, and contrast of the fine arts themselves, and (3) an induction of the principles of art composition from the best examples. Anything like a thorough sifting of fine-art questions would strain psychology at every point—senses, emotions, intellect; and, if criticism is to go deep, it must ground upon psychological reasons. Now the mere artist can never be a psychologist; the art critic may, but seldom will; hence, as they ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... she half-dreamed and half realized that she found herself neatly tucked between white silk sheets and lying on a floor mattress of a Japanese sleeping-porch. A gentle breeze fanned her face through the lattice work and low slanting sunbeams sifting in between the shutters fell in rounded blotches upon the opposite straw matting wall. For a time she lay musing and again ...
— In the Clutch of the War-God • Milo Hastings
... In the kingdom of Wabasso, In the land of the White Rabbit. He it was whose hand in Autumn Painted all the trees with scarlet, 135 Stained the leaves with red and yellow; He it was who sent the snow-flakes, Sifting, hissing through the forest, Froze the ponds, the lakes, the rivers, Drove the loon and sea-gull southward, 140 Drove the cormorant and curlew To their nests of sedge and sea-tang In the realms of Shawondasee. Once the fierce Kabibonokka Issued from his lodge of snow-drifts, ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... religion by resolving it into allegory. A quasi-historical analysis of religion was given in the "Sacred Memoirs" of Euhemerus of Messene (about 450), which, under the form of reports on the travels of the author among the marvels of foreign lands, subjected to thorough and documentary sifting the accounts current as to the so-called gods, and resulted in the conclusion that there neither were nor are gods at all. To indicate the character of the book, it may suffice to mention the one ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... north wind had begun again to blow, and the trees to moan in response; they seemed to say, "How sad thou art, wind of winter! see how sad thou makest us! we moan and shiver! each alone, we are sad!" The sorrow of nature was all about him; but the sighing of the wind-sifting trees around his head, and the hardening of the earth about the ancient roots under his feet, was better than the glow of the bright drawing-room, with its lamps and blazing fires, its warm colors and caressing softnesses. Who would take joy in paradise with ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... pour on it a ladle-full of the batter. When brown on one side, turn the cake on the other. [Footnote: Indian batter cakes may be made in a plain and expeditious way, by putting three pints of cold water or cold milk into a pan, and gradually sifting into it (stirring all the time) a quart of indian meal mixed with half a pint of wheat-flour, and a small spoonful of salt. Stir it very hard, and it may be baked immediately, as it is not necessary to set it ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... great evil in the church has always been the presence in it of persons unsuited for the work there required of them. One very simple sifting rule would be, that no one should be admitted to holy orders who had not first proved himself capable of making a better living in ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... No white man had ever seen them, but about fifteen years ago Dr. Henry Schlichter, of the British Museum, collected all the information which natives had given to missionaries, traders, and explorers of the existence of these little people some hundreds of miles from the sea. Sifting all this evidence, he concluded that these dwarfs really existed, and that they lived in a region which he marked on the map north of Lake Stefanie. Donaldson Smith had not heard of Schlichter's paper, and knew nothing of these dwarfs, but he found them in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... window and balcony and roof, sifting among the bayonets, fluttered an unbroken shower of tokens—gloves, flowers, handkerchiefs, tricoloured bunches of ribbon; and here and there a bracelet or some gem-set chain fell flashing ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... sifting of evidence at the inquest. You will not enjoy this; but the situation, hard as it may prove, has certainly improved so far as you are concerned. That should hasten ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... the pantry window stood Delight Hathaway, her sleeves rolled to the elbow, and her slender figure enveloped in a voluminous gingham pinafore that covered her from chin to ankle and was tied in place at the back by a pert bow. She was sifting flour into a mammoth yellow bowl, and as she stirred the mixture the sweep of her round white arm brought a flood of color into her cheeks and wreathed her brow with ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... facts, followed by a judgment. The oath of a witness has no effect unless it is believed. But in the time of Henry II. our trial by jury did not exist. When an oath was allowed to be sworn it had the same effect, whether it was believed or not. There was no provision for sifting it by a second body. In those cases where a trial by witnesses was possible, if the party called on to go forward could find a certain number of men who were willing to swear in a certain form, there was an ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... scholars,[2] in the true historical order, they show the history of Mahomet's mind with great clearness. After the Koran came the traditions. From the immense volume of these the industry of the scholars of Islam as well as others has succeeded in sifting out what is most to be relied on. In no other case is the separation of the mythical from the historical element in the early traditions so easily made, and the religion comes into view in ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... they put near the places, which they will digge, a close and even Earth; and to it they carry those Earths, they have digg'd out of the Mine, and gently spread it abroad, and leave it exposed to the Sun for two days. Then being dryed enough they beat it, and sifting this Earth, they find the Diamonds in ashes of Flints, in which Nature hath set them. Here he adds, that the King of that Country farms out these Diamond-Mines for 600000. Crowns per annum, reserving to himself ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... a writer on English literature within brief limits is forced to bow to it if he wishes his book to avoid the dreariness of a summary, and he can plead in extenuation the increased literary output of the later age, and the incompleteness with which time so far has done its work in sifting the memorable from the forgettable, the ephemeral from what is going to last. The main body of imaginative prose literature—the novel—is treated of in the next chapter and here no attempt will be made ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... pe peing a coot poy today," returned the tremulous voice of a grey headed old man, who was leaning over a small peat fire on the hearth, sifting oatmeal through the fingers of his left hand into a pot, while he stirred the boiling mess with a short stick held in ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... that he might not have the tedium of repeating instructions; she acquired the faculty of keeping his engagements in her head; she came early to the office, remaining after hours, going through the files, becoming familiar with his system; and she learned to sort out his correspondence, sifting the important from the unimportant, to protect him, more and more, from numerous visitors who called only to waste his time. Her instinct for the detection of book-agents, no matter how brisk and businesslike they might appear, was unerring—she remembered faces and the names belonging ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... spring up full-armed in a single night. It was, on the contrary, nourished during a long period of time by fireside discussions as well as by debates in the public forum. Women shared that fireside sifting of political principles and passed on the findings of that scrutiny in letters to their friends, newspaper articles, and every form of written word. How widespread was this potent, though not spectacular force, is revealed in the collections of women's letters, articles, songs, ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... all that day and the ensuing night Remains alone, and so the following day; Forever sifting in his doubtful sprite, If it be better to depart or stay: Lastly for Agramant decides the knight; To him in Africk will he wend his way: Moved by his love for his liege-lady sore, But moved by honour and ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... was put in hand, under the editorship of Mr. Richard Cannon, Principal Clerk of the Adjutant General's Office. The duty of examining, sifting, and preparing the records of that distinguished Regiment which I shall here call the Moray Highlanders (concealing its real name for reasons which the narrative will make apparent) fell to a certain Major Reginald Sparkes; who in the course of his researches came upon a number ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... sugar, butter the size of an egg, one egg, one cup of milk, two cups of flour, one teaspoonful of cream of tartar, half a teaspoonful of soda. Mix in the usual way, but sifting the soda and cream of tartar with the flour. Put in a shallow pan, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon, and bake about fifteen minutes ...
— The Golden Age Cook Book • Henrietta Latham Dwight
... I set him to work beating some corn out, and sifting it in the manner I used to do, as I observed before; and he soon understood how to do it as well as I, especially after he had seen what the meaning of it was, and that it was to make bread of; for after that, I let him see me make my bread, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... been erected. I refer to these elementary matters here for two reasons. First, because they are so often overlooked by ethnologists; and secondly, because in these pages I shall have to discuss a series of historical events in which a bewildering number of factors played their part. In sifting out a certain number of them, I want to make it clear that I do not pretend to have discovered more than a small minority of the most conspicuous threads in the complex texture of the fabric ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... in thoroughly sifting all the other great captains, there is found in every one some peculiar quality that illustrates his name: in this man only there is a full and equal virtue throughout, that leaves nothing to be wished for in him, whether in private or public employment, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... here which I never expected to make, and I value them too much to risk the loss of them." That friendly temper, combined with his ability, made him a valuable member of this Convention: but for the critical work of bringing men's minds together, of sifting the essential from the unessential, he was a bad ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... be taken by whoever should win in the contest now on. Warner received forty-four, Ridgway twenty-six, eight went to Pascom, a former governor whom the cattlemen were supporting, and the remaining three were scattered. Each day one ballot was taken, and for a week there was a slight sifting down of the complimentary votes until at the end of it the ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... and in like manner left her alone. As she grew past girlhood, the cui bono question had come to interfere with her ardour in study for its own sake, and she felt the influence of an age eminently practical and sifting, but with small powers of acting. The quiet Lady Bountiful duties that had sufficed her mother and sister were too small and easy to satisfy a soul burning at the report of the great cry going up to heaven from a world of sin and woe. The examples of successful ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... closed his eyes. The fine, sifting snow came and covered his body and the smaller body of the boy who was lashed firmly to his broad back—and all about him the blizzard howled ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... until the nuts which they contain fall out. The empty husks are sold for firewood, and the kernels in their stony shells reserved for exportation. You may see the peasants, men, women, and boys, sorting them by millions, drying and sifting them upon the open spaces of the wood, and packing them in sacks to send abroad through Italy. The pinocchi or kernels of the stone-pine are largely used in cookery, and those of Ravenna are prized for their good quality ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... realized that time had elapsed. Before I could make myself believe that what I saw was really happening, I was looking at a scorched post, a smoldering fire, blackened bones, charred fragments sifting down through coils of chain; and the smell of burnt flesh—human ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... to impart the hardness of Oak to shutters, doors, etc., made of soft wood. This is easily done by giving them a first coating of common gray paint, and then sifting some very fine sand over it. When dry a coat of paint is laid on, after which the surface becomes so hard that it will resist the action of sun and rain, for many years without ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... to relate, the prowess, cunning, strength, and ferocity of the grisly being favorite topics for camp-fire talk throughout the Rockies; but in most cases it is not safe to accept these stories without careful sifting. ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... Wun Lung, sifting flour in one part of the kitchen, and Pasqual scrubbing a kneading board at the sink, both paused and eyed the strange proceedings with curiosity if not displeasure; for not only had the children been bestowed within the "cold closet," but Aunt Sally and Ephraim had, also, followed ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... happened. There in the Municipal Hall in the small town of Ripston, as we sat round the stove that cold November day, with the sleet sifting against the windows, I got my commission from these women, whom I had not seen until that day, to tell what we think and feel, to tell how it looks to us, who are the mothers of soldiers, and to whom even now the ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... I, sitting underneath the trees In that old garden of the Tuileries, Watching the dust of twilight sifting down Through chestnut boughs just toucht with autumn's brown— Not twilight yet, but that illusive bloom Which holds before the deep-etched shadows come; For still the garden stood in golden mist, Still, like a river of molten amethyst, The Seine slipt through its spans ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... processions, veils, cakes, rice, boots, all the properties dear to the heart of the Roman mob. In the meantime there was to be a vast business of runnings and stitchings, of old women beating eggs and sifting flour, of schoolgirls writing "MARY BLAKE" on forbidden walls with ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... away their books and their sewing to go down to dinner, a few uncertain feathery flakes were softly sifting down and late that night it began to snow in ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... him. She kneeled downe on her knees, and sayd it was such as Zacliarie the Jew had deliuered her with his owne hands, and therefore if it misliked his holines she craued pardon. The Pope without further sifting into the matter, woulde haue had Zacharie and all Jewes in Rome put to death, but shee hung about his knees, & with crocodile teares desired him the sentence might bee lenified, and they bee all but banisht at most. For doctor Zacliary quoth she, your ten times vngrateful ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... it under the shed next to the stable and covered your stuff with a horse blanket. The snow is sifting in there some, but I don't think anything will get hurt; unless, of course, you've got some stuff ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... contrary, held that all of our knowledge begins with "the singular," that is, with the particular and the relative, and is derived from sensation and experience. The "sensible object," taken as it is without any sifting and probing, is the basis of science, and reason is simply the architect constructing science according to certain "forms" or laws inherent in mind. The object, then, of metaphysical science is to investigate ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... northern nations. The publication of his Adagia in 1500 marks the advent of a more critical and selective spirit, which from that date onward has been gradually gaining strength in the modern mind. Criticism, in the true sense of accurate testing and sifting, is one of the points which distinguish the moderns from the ancients; and criticism was developed by the process of assimilation, comparison, and appropriation, which was necessary in the growth of scholarship. The ultimate effect of this recovery of classic culture was, once ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... as this of Mangku Nagara would seem to point to the conclusion that a consecutive and reliable account of the Hindu period could be produced by careful sifting and comparison of the various babads dealing with this epoch. For this purpose they require to be examined by the methods of scientific history, and the results thus obtained must be checked by the faithful records ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... with the production of a concrete story. In this I was most fortunate, for a writer of established worth and national fame in the person of Mrs. Grace Livingston Hill came to my assistance; and having for many days had the privilege of working with her in the sifting process, gathering from the mass of matter that had accumulated and which was being daily added to, with every confidence I am able to commend her patience and toil. How well she has done her work the book will bear ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... lawyer's blood in Lady Jocelyn's veins she had the judicial mind. A confession was to her a confession. She tracked actions up to a motive; but one who came voluntarily to confess needed no sifting. She had the habit of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... conspirator of Burr's type really intended, and exactly how guilty his various temporary friends and allies were. Part of the conspirator's business is to dissemble the truth, and in after-time it is nearly impossible to differentiate it from the false, even by the most elaborate sifting of the various untruths he has uttered. Burr told every kind of story, at one time or another, and to different classes of auditors. It would be unsafe to deny his having told a particular falsehood in any given case ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... will come back and put an end to our sins and darkness. We have many diamonds, but they want sifting. Go forth now, to conquer. Be like Baale Tressim, armour-clad like our ancestors; and my blessing and the blessings of those who, like me, wished, but could not—longed, but did not obtain what ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... the two traditions—that reproduced by Berosus or the Biblical one—was to be considered as the oldest. Here again it was George Smith who had the good fortune to discover the original narrative (in 1872), while engaged in sifting and sorting the tablet-fragments at the British Museum. This is how it happened:[BC]—"Smith found one-half of a whitish-yellow clay tablet, which, to all appearance, had been divided on each face into three columns. In the third column of the ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin |
