"Puff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... picker-up of learning's crumbs, The not-incurious in God's handiwork (This man's-flesh he hath admirably made, Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste, To coop up and keep down on earth a space That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul) —To Abib, all-sagacious in our art, Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast; Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, Whereby the wily vapour fain would slip Back and rejoin its source before the term,— ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... yes, coming out is such a farce nowadays, you know. One really plays around so much before one is seventeen, that it's positively anticlimax. (Shaking hands with a visionary middle-aged nobleman.) Yes, your grace—I b'lieve I've heard my sister speak of you. Have a puff—they're very good. They're—they're Coronas. You don't smoke? What a pity! The king doesn't allow it, ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Monarch, approvingly, "we'll form a Court of Inquiry. This table shall be our bench, on which we'll hem and haw and puff and look judicial. Odsfish, we will teach Radamanthus and Judge Jeffreys ways ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire? Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... instance of smut in our corn last summer. The diseased cobs had large white bladders as big as a small puff-ball, or very large nuts, and these on being broken were full of an inky black liquid. On the same plants might be observed a sort of false fructification, the cob being deficient in kernels, which by some strange accident were transposed to the top ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... Mrs. Tulliver's cheesecakes were more exquisitely light than usual. "A puff o' wind 'ud make 'em blow about like feathers," Kezia the housemaid said, feeling proud to live under a mistress who could make such pastry; so that no season or circumstances could have been more propitious for a family party, even ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... I'll concede that. This won't do, though." Out came a tiny powder-puff. "How's that?" she ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... smoke puff and dull red flare, struck the one jarring note in a symphony blown otherwise on great nature's organ-pipes; but to Thomas Jefferson the furnace was as much a part of the immutable scheme as the hills or the forests or the creek which furnished the motive power for its ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... A puff of white smoke drifted upward from the deck of the launch ahead and floated lazily above the rigging. Some fifty feet beyond the port bow of the Petrel the water leaped upward in a tiny spout. Dickie's rifle ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... plain celestial blue satin with a white satin petticoat. On the neck a very large Italian gauze handkerchief with white satin stripes. The head-dress was a puff of gauze in the form of a globe on a foundation of white satin, having a double wing in large plaits, with a wreath of roses twined about it. The hair was dressed with detached curls, four each side of the neck ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... will be my bridegroom. You will see my simulacrum, a plastered effigy of me. I shall be stiff with gold-dust and diamonds; a doll marrying a doll's bed-gown. Why should I be there if his ever-august Majesty is represented by a puff of silly breath? Pray, never look for Bianca Maria in the Queen of the Romans. The Queen of the Romans is a doll, windy ruler of the name of a people; Bianca Maria Sforza, daughter of thieves, has been your friend, as you will see. She ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... pretty drawing-room, and the windows opened upon as pretty a bit of lawn as you could see, with one handsome cedar sweeping its dark branches majestically over delicious greensward; but some people did think it was too near George Street and the railway. Just at that moment a puff of delicate white vapour appeared over the wall, and a sudden express-train, just released from the cover of the station, sprang with a snort and bound across the Rector's view, very imperfectly veiled by the lime-trees, which were ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... also," Millar said, handing her a little mirror, then a powder puff and a tiny stick of rouge. Elsa could not help smiling through her tears at the absurdity of it, as she dabbed and dusted her tear-stained face, looking at herself in the little mirror, until all traces of her ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... A puff of wind, the last vital rally of the expiring breeze, carried the Spindrift forward till the punt at her moorings lay almost under ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... second measure a trifle louder, the third louder still, the fourth falling off again. As you stand on the shore and watch the great waves coming in, you see some that are higher and larger than others; so it is here. The concluding passage in sixths should diminish—like a little puff of vapor that ends in—nothing. On the second page we come upon something more positive; here is a tangible voice speaking to us. The melody should stand out clear, broad, beautiful; the accompanying chords should preserve the same ebb and flow, the advancing and receding wave-like ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... notice he took Of such trifling things. He must hurry to be Not a mere raindrop, but the whole sea. A stranded ship needed water to float, But he could not bother to help a boat. He leaped in the sea with a puff and a blare— And nobody even knew ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... down and compressed his lips, blew out his cheeks, and after looking about the apartment for a considerable time, let out his breath gradually until the puff ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... table should be the baby's basket containing a soft brush, different sizes of pins in a pin-cushion, several threaded needles, a thimble, squares of soft linen, absorbent cotton, wooden tooth-picks, a powder-box and puff, or a powder-shaker containing pure talcum powder, a box of bismuth subnitrate, one of cold cream, a tube of white vaselin, a dish containing castile, ivory, or pure French soap should be placed by the basket on the table; also a cup containing a saturated solution of boric acid; two cheese-cloth ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... sweep him away! When it rains, may the lightning strike him! May evil nights be his!" It is believed that in the knot the sorcerer has bound up the life of his enemy. In the Koran there is an allusion to the mischief of "those who puff into the knots," and an Arab commentator on the passage explains that the words refer to women who practise magic by tying knots in cords, and then blowing and spitting upon them. He goes on to relate how, once upon a time, a wicked ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Hargrove, next day was standing at the parapet near muzzle of 3rd piece talking to Corporal Maxwell, who was gunner to that piece. A puff of smoke came from a Federal embrasure across the river and both squatted below the protecting bank. The shell struck the body of an oak tree standing just in front, and some twenty feet above the ground, tearing off a heavy fragment, ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... pie a la mode. And the first cigar of my convalescence—ah, that, too, abides as a vivid memory! Dropping in one morning to replace the wrappings Doctor Z said I might smoke in moderation. So the nurse brought me a cigar, and I lit it and took one deep puff; but only one. I laid it aside. I ...
— "Speaking of Operations—" • Irvin S. Cobb
... Puff, "with a clock striking, to beget an awful attention in the audience; it also marks the time, which is four o'clock in the morning, and saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere."—Sheridan, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... kitchen, Marie peeped into the bedroom. She switched up the light and looked it over, well pleased. Soon, when she had unpacked, her dressing-table would be furnished with all her pretty things, tortoiseshell and silver, big glass powder-puff bowl, big glass bowl and spoon with scented salts for her bath, and the manicure set of super-luxury which a girl friend had given her on her marriage. She was really adorably equipped; she was starting so very, ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... John, in the evening, revealed to him the perplexing nature of the material processes necessary to get up his fair puff of thistledown in all that wonderful whiteness and fancifulness of costume which ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... then?—I may have seen her picture, as Puff says in the Critic, or fallen in love with her from rumour—or, to save farther suppositions, as I see they render you impatient, I may be satisfied with knowing that she is a beautiful and accomplished young lady, with a ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... hast made his mouth Avid of all dominion and all mightiness, All sorrow, all delight, all topless grandeurs, All beauty, and all starry majesties, And dim transtellar things;—even that it may, Filled in the ending with a puff of dust, Confess—"It ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... There was no staying with the past. The Earth was becoming too small for its expanding population. It was a stifling, dangerous little world that, if the pressures were not relieved, might puff into fire and fragments at any moment during any year. And the era of prospecting and exploration in the Asteroid Belt seemed destined soon to come to ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... with her subtly wreathed hair and her absurd little lace handkerchiefs and her furtive powder puff and her bits of immemorial ornaments and the soft sound of her skirts and all the rest of it. Never mind how grimly and even brusquely you may be dictating to her specifications for steel rails or ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... puts it: "No relaxation of the organs, no puff of wind or grunt of voice should intervene between the two parts of a doubled consonant, which should more resemble separated parts of one ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord
... began to be populated; by convicts first; and then by far better people; though the very worst felons sent out often became decent and respectable men, which is indeed a great "puff," we think, for the healthfulness of the climate. A convict shepherd now and then used to bring into Sydney small lumps of gold and sell them to the watch-makers, and as he refused to say where or how he got them, it was suspicioned that he had secreted guineas or ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... on, Sir Jarvy. A'ter cruising a winter and spring in the Bay of Biscay, I looks on this as no more nor a puff. Half a hand will keep a fellow in his ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a day! Princely! [His pipe goes out. He takes a last puff at it, squints into it to make sure all the tobacco is gone, then lays it down with a sigh.] I reckon I'll try making 'em too. I went to the Vestry again, this morning, to see whether they'd take ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... learning and thinking power!" He caught his wife's arm. "See! see, Sidonie, my dear! See her enhancing in magnitude so fastly approaching!" As he spoke a puff of white vapor lifted from the object and spread out against the blue, the sunbeams turned it to silver and pearl, and a moment later came the far-away, long, wild ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... darted to and fro; the violet and blue medusae, and the cream-colored jelly-fish as big as a watermelon. There were angel fish of a bright blue tinge; yellow snappers; black and white sergeant majors; pilot fish; puff fish which could inflate their bodies until they were round as a ball, or flatten themselves to the shape of a ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... solutions, that it is doubtful whether any putrid fluid habitually passes outwards. But we must remember that a bladder generally captures several animals; and that each time a fresh animal enters, a puff of foul water must pass out and bathe the glands. Moreover, I have repeatedly found that, by gently pressing bladders which contained air, minute bubbles were driven out through the orifice; and if a bladder is laid on blotting paper and gently pressed, water oozes out. ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... few thin slices of cold fillet of veal, a few thin slices of bacon, forcemeat No. 417, a cupful of gravy, 4 tablespoonfuls of cream, puff-crust. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... blowing full upon Surface, who did not appear to notice it. Queed got up and lowered the window. The old man's neglected cigarette burned his fingers; he lit another; it, too, burned itself down to the cork-tip without receiving the attention of a puff. ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... something in the fellow's simile. When an idea gets hold of us in Troy, we puff at it, we blow it out and distend it to a globe, pausing and calling on one another to mark the prismatic tints, the fugitive images, symbols, meanings of the wide world glassed upon our pretty toy. We launch ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he liked the slow, drawling voice that answered his innumerable questions and he found the chuckling laugh irresistibly infectious. The stranger's brown hands moved with steady skill among the horde of crawling insects, until the last frame was set in place, the last puff of smoke blown, and the ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... to camp at dusk they found a surprise. On the trail was a white thing, which on investigation proved to be a ghost, evidently made by Guy. The head was a large puff-ball carved like a skull, and ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... them," and he motioned to them to sit down by his side. A pipe, composed of a long flat wooden stem studded with brass nails, with a bowl cut out of red pipe-stone, was now handed round, each taking a short puff. ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... changed its mind about lifting, for the yellow tinge had gone and the world was once more grey and chill. They donned their coats again and, carrying their precious burdens, trudged on. Occasionally a puff of air came off the sound and the fog blew in trailing wreaths before them. When they had walked what they considered to be the proper distance they began to watch for that lane. And after they had watched for it for a full quarter of an hour and had walked a deal ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... and walking over to my boat-shed, which was but a few yards distant, I endeavoured to close the rough wooden doors so as to prevent the rain from blowing in and flooding the ground. But my strength was not equal to the task, for a puff of more than usual violence not only tore the handle of the door from my hand, but blew me inside the house. Feeling my way in the darkness along the boat's side, I reached her stern, where I was sheltered, and searched my saturated pockets to see if by any chance ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... and coke in the forge brightened and sent up fiery tongues, as the great leathern lungs wheezed and sighed, and Jack himself began to puff. ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... could not see what Jeanne did, but he felt a sort of soft puff fly all over him, and opening his eyes again at Jeanne's bidding, saw, to his amazement, that he too was now dressed in the same pretty shiny stuff as his little cousin. They looked just like two Christmas angels on the top of ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... we conceive, has religion been likened to a madman's robe, for the least puff of reason parts it and shows the wearer's nakedness. This view of religion explains the otherwise inexplicable fact that eminent piety is usually associated with eminent imbecility. Such men as Newton, Locke, and Bacon are not remembered ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... might have done at home. Sue, in her new summer clothes, flexible and light as a bird, her little thumb stuck up by the stem of her white cotton sunshade, went along as if she hardly touched ground, and as if a moderately strong puff of wind would float her over the hedge into the next field. Jude, in his light grey holiday-suit, was really proud of her companionship, not more for her external attractiveness than for her sympathetic words and ways. That ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... opportunity to bore in upon him unawares, and gripping him by the thigh, threw him to the ground, so that he fell on his back. She laughed at him and said, "Thou art surely an eater of bran: for thou art like a Bedouin bonnet that falls off at a touch, or a child's toy that a puff of air overturns. Out on thee, thou poor creature! Go back to the army of the Muslims and send us other than thyself, for thou lackest thews; and cry as among the Arabs and Persians and Turks and Medes, 'Whoso has might in him let him come to us!'" Then she made a spring and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... porous, nibbled. Brett stepped outside, examined the wall. He kicked at the grey surface. A great piece of wall, six feet high, broke into fragments, fell on the sidewalk with a crash, driving out a puff of dust. Another section fell. One piece of it skidded away, clattered down into the depths. Brett heard a distant splash. He looked at the great jagged opening in the wall—like a jigsaw picture with a piece missing. He turned and started off at a trot, his mouth ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer
... who is perfect in other ways, but who has simply little blue spots that puff out slightly where her eyes should be, is said to be living ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... experts to whom he chose to show them. And the more hugger-mugger they were, the less he should be pestered to let people in to see them. Occasionally he would rush up to London to attend what he called a "high puff sale"—or to an auction in one of the northern towns, and as he always bought largely, purchases kept arriving, and the house at the end of the winter was in a scarcely less encumbered and disorderly condition than it had been ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... asleep and unpassioned, White-faced in the dusk of your hair— Your beauty so fleetingly fashioned That it filled me once with despair To look on its exquisite transience And think that our love and thought and laughter Puff out with the death of our flickering sense, While we pass ever on and away Towards some ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... accidents occur with baby-carriages that this ought to be a great comfort to mothers, and a great help to the "little mothers" who mind the babies. Children's carriages are made so light that their weight is very slight, and a puff of wind is often enough to set them in motion; and if they chance to be on an uneven sidewalk they are likely to roll into the road among the vehicles. This simple brake, which keeps the wheels from moving when the handle ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 41, August 19, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... times she tried! But just as her boat would near the other, a chance current or a puff of wind would take the canoe just out of her reach. Paddling now with one oar she came very near the unsteady little craft, so near that Gladys suddenly decided to jump ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... sent to," muttered Jock, running round to give a sly puff to the white heap, diffusing a sprinkling of white powder ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of any other powder such as starch, finely divided and baked so as to be free from a tendency to form starch paste when applied to a mucous surface, is equally good. Well-browned flour is also serviceable. The use of the contents of a puff-ball, which contains many millions of fine spores, has been employed from time immemorial. The use of such drying powders tends to favor the speedy formation of clots. Where the small points of engorged vessels are to be readily reached, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... Chicago," said Drouet. "This is the Chicago River," and he pointed to a little muddy creek, crowded with the huge masted wanderers from far-off waters nosing the black-posted banks. With a puff, a clang, and a clatter of rails it was gone. "Chicago is getting to be a great town," he went on. "It's a wonder. You'll find ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... knowledge, shoreless, vast, Knowledge of ages past and yet to come, Knowledge of nature and the hidden laws That guide her changes, guide the roiling spheres, Sakwal on sakwal,[1] boundless, infinite, Yet ever moving on in harmony, He thought to puff his spirit up with pride Till he should quite forget a suffering world, In sin and sorrow groping blindly on. But when he saw that lust of power moved not, And thirst for knowledge turned him not aside From earnest search after the living light, From tender love ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... due at sundown, and at sundown a puff of dust rose on the track, and as a cry of "Mail oh !" went up all round the homestead, the Fizzer rode out of ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... little hobby horse, His name was Tommy Gray, His head was made of pease straw, His body made of hay; I saddled him and bridled him, And rode him up to town, There came a little puff of wind And blew ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... this catechism was freely agreed to by the sovereign people?—A fine sovereignty, truly! Idiots, who puff out your cheeks over the word Democracy! Democracy is the art of usurping the people's place, of shearing their wool off closely, in this holy name, for the benefit of some of Democracy's good apostles. ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... to do he never finished telling for, just then, there came a stronger puff of wind than before, and ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... flicker of welcome or recognition, but he shook hands silently with the two of us, and struck a blow on a dry gourd. Instantly three warriors appeared, and took their place by his side. Then all of us sat down and a pipe was lit and handed by the chief to Ringan. He took a puff and gave it to one of the other Indians, who handed it to me. With that ceremony over, the tongue of the chief seemed to be unloosed. "The Sachem comes," he said, and an old man sat himself down ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... as earth exhort me: Witness, this army of such mass and charge, Led by a delicate and tender prince, Whose spirit, by divine ambition puff'd, Makes mouths at the invisible event; Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great, Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw. ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... object staggering against the shutters of a shop, that another drunken object would stagger up before five minutes were out, to fraternise or fight with it. When we made a divergence from the regular species of drunkard, the thin-armed, puff-faced, leaden-lipped gin-drinker, and encountered a rarer specimen of a more decent appearance, fifty to one but that specimen was dressed in soiled mourning. As the street experience in the night, so the street experience in the day; the common folk who come unexpectedly ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... latter case the dynamo would come to a stop. If by any chance the little water wheel was given a chance to maintain itself against the blow for an instant, the dynamo, rated at 50 amperes, would do its best to deliver the 70,515 amperes you called for—and the result would be a puff of smoke, and a ruined dynamo. This is called a "short circuit"—one of the first "don'ts" in ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... sister was sick, she might not do any more work for six months. He was uncomfortable with her successor, Miss Havstad. What Miss Havstad's given name was, no one in the office ever knew. It seemed improbable that she had a given name, a lover, a powder-puff, or a digestion. She was so impersonal, this slight, pale, industrious Swede, that it was vulgar to think of her as going to an ordinary home to eat hash. She was a perfectly oiled and enameled machine, and she ought, each evening, to have been dusted off and shut ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... to El Pecachua. From its green crest a puff of smoke was swelling into a white cloud, the cloud was split with a flash of flame, and the dull echo of the report drifted toward us on the hot, motionless air. At the same instant our flag on the crest of Pecachua, ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... in fact, but tobacco he could forgive. Why did cursed fortune bring him into the rooms over mine? The odor of the cigars made his gentle spirit quite furious; and one luckless morning, when I was standing before my "oak," and chanced to puff a great bouffee of Varinas into his face, he forgot his respect for my family altogether (I was the second son, and my brother a sickly creature THEN,—he is now sixteen stone in weight, and has a half-score ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said Johnson; "disarrange is the word we ought to use instead of it."' In his Dictionary he gives neither derange nor disarrange. Dr. Franklin, who had been a printer and was likely to use the term correctly, writing in 1785, mentions 'the artifices made use of to puff up a paper of verses into a ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... demand he extends toward her a soiled palm. With hands encased in oversight gloves she fumbles at the catch of a hand bag. Having wrested the hand bag open, she paws about among its myriad and mysterious contents. A card of buttons, a sheaf of samples, a handkerchief, a powder puff for inducing low visibility of the human nose, a small parcel of something, a nail file, and other minor articles are disclosed before she disinters her purse from the bottom of her hand bag. Another struggle with the ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... afternoon was waxing late, the sternward vessel stood up so that every detail of her loomed plain. She was full cutter-rigged, spreading hundreds of feet of canvas. Every working sail was set, and every light air cloth that could catch a puff of air. The slanting sun rays glittered on her white paint and glossy varnish, struck flashing on bits of polished brass. She looked her name, the Gull, a thing of exceeding grace and beauty, gliding soundlessly across a sun-shimmering sea. But she ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Helen May retrenched herself behind the declaration. "And it's going to be gray. And a gray hat with a dove-colored band and the bow in the back. And tan shoes," she added implacably, daintily lifting the roof off her cream puff to see how generous ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... the ears of the Arcadians were sufficient to puff them up with pride. They were lavish in their love of Lycomedes, and thought there was no one his equal. He became their hero; he had only to give his orders, and they appointed their magistrates ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... always thought that Mrs. Sheehy must have suggested Mick as an emigrant, for he was distinctly not eligible. But it was very easy to puff up poor Mick's mind with pictures of America as a Tom Tiddler's ground, and the mother did this in private, while in public she wrung her hands over the wilful boy that would go and leave her lonesome in her old age. Pretty soon the matter was settled, ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... content to hold Edward's spare rifle in the background, with evident signs of uneasiness. Farther on, again, where the magnificent chamois sprang rigid into mid-air, Edward, crouched dizzily against the precipice-face, was the sportsman from whose weapon a puff of white smoke was floating away. A bare-kneed guide was all that fell to my share, while poor Harold had to take the boy with the haversack, or abandon, for this occasion at least, ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... words meant nothing. The puff of night air from the port-hole carried the fragrance from the room. The image wore its unchanging, meaningless smile, and Themistocles smiled ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... over his forehead in an oiled bang. His rather pugged nose seemed to revolt from contact with a bristling moustache of short, wire-like hairs. His blue double-breasted coat, edged with black braid, buttoned close to a red puff tie, and his patent-leather shoes looked like ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... sixty-four years before, and, just sighting New Guinea, Cook made his way to Java, for his crew were sickly and "pretty far gone with longing for home." The ship, too, was in bad condition; she had to be pumped night and day to keep her free from water, and her sails would hardly stand the least puff of wind. They reached Batavia in safety and were kindly received by ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... flaws from every point of the compass, we did not come to an anchor until nearly midnight. We had a boat ahead all the time that we were working in, and those aboard were continually bracing the yards about for every puff that struck us, until about 12 o'clock, when we came-to in 40 fathoms water, and our anchor struck bottom for the first time since we left Boston—one hundred and three days. We were then divided into three watches, and thus stood out ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... six of the crew had been set to work bailing in deadly earnest to keep ahead of the new leaks, there was time to consider the position and to realize how hugely better off we were than if the launch had caught us somewhere close inshore. Now we could sail safely northward, every puff of wind carrying us nearer to British water and safety, whereas unless they could mend that high-pressure boiler, they would have to lie there for a week, or a month—die unless some one came in search ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... could do so without being the worse. Of these Maurice Connor was not one, though he had a stiff head enough of his own. Don't think I blame him for it; but true is the word that says, 'When liquor's in sense is out'; and puff, at a breath, out he blasted ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... later there was a sound which can only be written "P-ttt" between his legs, and he had to wipe a shower of dust from his eyes. A puff of blue smoke rose slowly over the boat and a sharp report broke the ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... the stuff was required to deal King Robert of Warbeach the capital stroke, and commonly he could hold on till a puff of cold air from the outer door, like an admonitory messenger, reminded him that he was, in the greatness of his soul, a king of swine; after which his way of walking off, without a word to anybody, hoisting his whole stature, while others were staggering, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... more shot Prince made the mistake of leaving the shelter of his horse too soon. He swung astride and found the stirrup. A puff of smoke came from the entrance to the gulch. Billie turned to his friend with a puzzled, sickly smile on his face. "They got ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... have seen, Courteous Reader, how that those married people, who are but indifferently gifted with temporal means, indeavour to puff up each other with vain and airy hopes and imaginations, perswading themselves that all the troubles, vexations, and bondages of the married estate; are nothing else but Mirths, Delights and Pleasures; perhaps to no other end but to mitigate their own miserable condition, ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... straight, leading into Savannah, and about eight hundred yards off were a rebel parapet and battery. I could see the cannoneers preparing to fire, and cautioned the officers near me to scatter, as we would likely attract a shot. Very soon I saw the white puff of smoke, and, watching close, caught sight of the ball as it rose in its flight, and, finding it coming pretty straight, I stepped a short distance to one side, but noticed a negro very near me in the act of crossing the track ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... a puff or two, and then threw it away. He was lounging back in his chair, and his face was pale and drawn hard by that mood of intense concentration which lurks under the sunny shallows of the vineyard. In his voice there was a longer perspective than usual, a slight remoteness. "You see, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... observed her intently. The lady ate heartily, working without haste and without delay through the elaborate menu of the luncheon. Nella noticed that she had beautiful white teeth. Then a remarkable thing happened. A cream puff was served to the Baroness by way of sweets, and Nella was astonished to see the little lady remove the top, and with a spoon quietly take something from the interior which looked like a piece of folded paper. No one who had not been watching with the eye of a lynx ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... come from Kentucky, where they raise so much tobacco. When you see a thing so thick around you, you don't care for it. Well, we'll talk while I light mine and puff it. And so, young man, you ran ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... shot came to them quite a long time afterward, when the little puff of smoke which had spirted up from the distant sandbank had already begun to thin under the sunshine; but it was that gun-crack, and not the sight of the dead engineer, which gave the working negroes their final scare. With loud children's cries, ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... was almost over. In the afternoon the French Canadians went to sleep. Benjamin intended to row down the shore for salt. He stood by his dory, ready to start, but he seemed to be waiting for something. At last it came: a faint train whistle blew, a puff of white smoke floated across a distant ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... well ask me which way the wind will blow next week, or what will be the age of the next deer that will be shot! I can only say that their faces look a little dark upon me, but it doesn't thunder every time a black cloud rises, nor does every puff of wind blow up rain. That's a question, therefore, much more easily put ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Warner were near the head of the line on the right of the tracks, and Sergeant Whitley was with them. The train began to puff heavily, and in spite of every precaution some sparks flew from the smoke-stack. Dick knew that it was bound to rumble and rattle when it started, but he was surprised at the enormous amount of noise it ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... him in ten minutes' time, neatly dressed, gloved, and veiled, her hair smoothed—it had never been rough so far as Lawrence could observe—her complexion regulated by Catherine's powder puff. "Are you better?" said Lawrence, examining her anxiously: "able to walk as far ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... great importance, but it offers some points of interest. It appeared first in the colophon, in which the printer usually seized the opportunity not only of thanking God that he had finished his task, but of indulging in a little puff either of his own part of the transaction or of the work itself. The appearance of the Mark in the colophon therefore was a natural corollary of the printer's vanity. It soon outgrew its place of confinement; and when a pictorial effect was attempted it became promoted, ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... nothing could make her forget the factory. When she set forth in the morning on her father's arm, she always cast a glance in that direction. At that hour the works were just stirring, the chimney emitted its first puff of black smoke. Sidonie, as she passed, could hear the shouts of the workmen, the dull, heavy blows of the bars of the printing-press, the mighty, rhythmical hum of the machinery; and all those sounds of toil, blended in her memory with recollections ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Chikulu's, and pass a large puff-adder in the way. A single blow on the head killed it, so that it did not stir. About 3 feet long, and as thick as a man's arm, a short tail, and flat broad head. The men say this is a very good sign for our ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... inclined to award praise and reputation; it is more disposed to blame and find fault, whereby it indirectly praises itself. If, notwithstanding this, praise is won from mankind, some extraneous motive must prevail. I am not here referring to the disgraceful way in which mutual friends will puff one another into a reputation; outside of that, an effectual motive is supplied by the feeling that next to the merit of doing something oneself, comes that of correctly appreciating and recognizing what others have done. This accords with the threefold division of ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... they are not seen, until they are driven against them. A few years ago an English frigate in doubling the Cape, ran foul of an iceberg with such force that she sprung a leak, and broke the rudder in splinters. Luckily a puff of wind that streamed from a cleft in the ice and threw back the sails, freed the ship from her perilous condition since another stroke upon the iceberg would have ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... very center of the clump of bushes of which we have made mention, came a white puff of smoke, followed immediately by the faint but sharp report of a rifle. The bullet's course could be seen as it skipped over the surface of the water, and finally dropped out ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... shoulders. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "I scarcely believe in it. Lakely put a match to the powder in the 'St. George's', but 'twill only be a noise and a puff of smoke." ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... of the cult. The rattlesnake is "deadly." The copperhead and moccasin are "deadly." So is the wholly mythical puff adder. In hardly less degree is the tarantula "deadly," while varying lethal capacities are ascribed to the centipede, the scorpion, the kissing-bug, and sundry other forms of insect life. The whole matter is based upon the slenderest foundations. I don't mean, by this, that these ill-famed ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... at home. "Come again," said the man at the door. We came again about eight o'clock at night. It seemed as late as Christmas Eve and sort of lonely without our Parents or any other presents. We had to climb a lot of stairs. It made Tiger Lily puff a little and look very glad. It made our Uncle Peter puff some too. It made the little boy's Mother puff a good deal. There wasn't any Father. The Mother was all in black about it. Her clothes looked very sorrowful. But her face was just sort of surprised. She had ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... no need, for Vince had seen the white flying jib of a cutter coming into sight round the end of the Crag, with plenty of wind urging her on, while, by the time she was clear, a faint puff of light air made the schooner's sails shiver, but only for a few moments, then it was calm again, while the cutter, now quite clear of the point, was careening over and gliding rapidly along, with ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... a puff of white smoke broke out from the brig and, a second or two later, a ball dashed up the water fifty yards ahead of them. The emotions with which Patsey and Leigh watched the brig differed much from those of the captain. They would gladly have seen ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... rolled a cigarette. A deep inhalation and the gray cloud rose slowly from his lips and nostrils. Stooping he carefully gathered a handful of sharp pebbles and—one by one— flipped them idly toward the opposite side of the canyon. Another generous puff of smoke and a second handful of pebbles followed the first. Then rising he dropped the cigarette and ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... Trouble come bisitin' wey you lif; 'e mekky you' side puff; 'e mekky you' bre't' ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... field, and the bars were let down, the girls could break their ranks and rush for the persimmon-tree, which grew in the middle of the field. It did not look very inviting, Ruby thought, as she ran along with the others. All the leaves had dropped off except a few which dangled as if the next puff of wind would send them down upon the ground with the others; and the persimmons, which hung thickly upon the branches, did not look at all as Ruby had ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... come to London, and make herself as public as possible: go to operas and balls, and theatres; be presented at court; take a stall at every bazaar, and sell charity puff-balls — get as much into the papers as possible. 'The lovely, accomplished, ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... question of burning them up, and getting rid of them quickly enough, by exercise, with its attendant deep breathing and perspiration. The lungs are great garbage-burners. Exercise every day till you puff ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... incorrigible, and, having no hope of support from Cecil in any attempt to snub her, resolved to discountenance the proceeding by going away, and summoned the children from their tree, who were quite ready for a fresh start. The girls declared it was too hot to move. Lilla continued to puff away lazily, the zest rather gone now there was nobody to be shocked at it. Bluebell, mingling her voice with the birds, was singing the "Danube River," while Cecil, with shut eyes, lay in her canoe, and gave herself up to the dreamy music, till, aroused by its sudden cessation, she looked ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... was the last word he ever uttered; his parting breath scarcely carried it from his lips ere he ceased to live. I heard the fierce word, and almost simultaneously the crack of a rifle, fired close to my ear. I saw the dust puff out from the embroidered spencer of the Mexican, and directly over his heart; I saw his hand pass rapidly to the spot, and the next moment I saw him fall forward ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... came home, he had been trying to master the art of smoking, and had not yet succeeded. Each cigarette made him feel worse than before. But with a perseverance worthy of a better cause he would puff steadily on, and try hard to believe ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... cream tartar, or soda alone with sour cream or buttermilk for wetting, makes crust light and short with less butter, therefore is an economy. Genuine puff paste is requisite for the finest tarts, pies, etc., etc., but light short crust answers admirably for most things. Sift flour twice or even thrice for any sort of paste. Sift soda or baking powder well through it, but not salt. Make the salt fine, drop in the ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... Christian of his comforts. What he intended only for a moment's nap, like a man asleep during sermon-time in church, became a deep sleep, and his roll fell out of his hand; and yet he ran well while there was nothing special to alarm him. Religious privileges should refresh and not puff up-(Cheever). ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... them with pain and misery to an untimely grave. Where, then, is their value if they can neither embellish nor strengthen our forms, sweeten nor prolong our lives?—Again: Can they adorn the mind more than the body? Do they not rather swell the heart with vanity, puff up the cheeks with pride, shut our ears to every call of virtue, and our bowels to every motive of compassion?" "Give me your hand, brother," said Adams, in a rapture, "for I suppose you are a clergyman."—"No, truly," ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... about enlarging the work so as to double or treble it? 5. Is not this a delusion of Satan, an attempt to cast me down altogether from my sphere of usefulness, by making me to go beyond my measure? 6. Is it not also, perhaps, a snare to puff me up, in attempting to build a very ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... Centaurus on the last leg of her long journey to Sol. There was no flash, no roar as she swept across the darkness of space. As silent as a ghost, as quiet as a puff of moonlight she moved, riding the gravitational fields that spread like tangled, invisible spider webs ...
— The Passenger • Kenneth Harmon
... shout of some man that woke me, but that is neither here nor there. The house was afire! Yellow, dancing light and smoke poured under the door like something turned out of a pail. With every puff of the wind the trees in the orchard were all lit up and the flames yelled as if they were a thousand men far away and shouting together. Between the gusts you could hear the gentle snap and crackle ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... Frances; and if something is hurt and needs mending, I'm not a tinker, though my father and the priest—yes and you, too—sometimes think so. But sisters do mending, don't they?" and she laughed my earnestness off as one would puff out a candle. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... goose grew silent and dropped from the tree. Then he went to the next, and the next, and so on, till he had gobbled them all off the trees, one after another. But when Richard expected to see them go after the turkey, there was nothing there but a flock of huge mushrooms and puff-balls. ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald
... of bathers. The little timid waders could dip their toes and splash their hair in the shallow basin in-shore. The more advanced could wade out shoulder-deep, and puff and flounder with one foot on the ground and the other up above their heads, and delude the world into the notion they were swimming. For others there was the spring-board, from which to take a header into deep water; and, further out still, the ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... multiplied representations and editions are a proof of success, the legitimate issue of his Muse might well have been jealous of the fame and fortune of their spurious German relative. When the author of the Critic made Puff say, "Now for my magnificence,—my noise and my procession!" he little anticipated the illustration which, in twenty years afterwards, his own example would afford to that ridicule. Not that in pageantry, when tastefully and subordinately introduced, there is any thing to which criticism ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... a fourth puff (see Nos. 223, 229, 290) of Addison's friend Ambrose Philips. The art of packing a house to secure applause was also practised on the first night of the acting of this version ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... so bad if his hair were dressed properly," continued the duenna; "but, so far, no one had been able to persuade him to have it powdered. Saint-Jean told me that just as he was about to put the powder puff to his head he got up in a rage and said, 'Anything you like except that confounded flour. I want to be able to move my head about without coughing and sneezing.' Heavens, what ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... Rivers replied deliberately, 'that the heart of the English people was not just as sound and true now as ever it was—I dare say it is just about the same—meme jeu, don't you know?' and he took a languid puff ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... and speaking, reached out his torch to bed-alcove and tapestried wall; and immediately silk and arras went up in a puff of flame—a leaping fire, yellow-tongued, that licked at gilded roof-beam ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... asked Joyce. And Martin looked about for a Dandelion Clock, and having found one blew it all away with a single puff and cried, "One ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... generals with armies at their backs start into being from apparent nothingness, dispute the sovereignty of Italy in bloodless battles, found ephemeral dynasties, and pass away like mists upon a mountain-side beneath a puff of wind. Conflict, ruin, desolation, anarchy are ever yielding place to concord, restoration, peace, prosperity, and then recurring with a mighty flood of violence. Construction, destruction, and reconstruction play their part in crises that have to be counted ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... that shell, you can see the smoke just this side of Sharpsburg on our left," said the Colonel, addressing his companion. "There it bursts," and a puff of white smoke expanded itself in the air fifty yards above one of our batteries posted on a ridge on the left. Two pieces gave quick reply. "Officers, to your posts," shouted an aide-de-camp, and forthwith the officers galloped to their ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... said the Doctor after a long pause in which he lit his cigar and again began to puff rings out into the moonlight, "I'd like to say that ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Crackle, crackle—puff—whish; and, in another few moments, the whole cliff seemed on fire, the flames licking every particle of herbage off the face of ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... heavily runs, Silent and sullen, the floating fort; Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, And leaps the terrible death, With fiery breath, From each ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Quebec and Jean Jacques Lartigue, the Suffragan of Montreal, down to the most profligate of the half-pay military officers, among whom are to be found some of the dregs of the British army, all of them will avail nothing. They are not worth a puff of wind against the internal evidence of Maria Monk's book, in connexion with the rejection of the proposal of the New York Protestant Association, that the Nunnery shall undergo a strict and impartial examination. It is one of the remarkable evidences of the extraordinary delusion which blinds, ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... gave a passing glance, seemed even less earthly in her nature. Indeed, it appeared as if she had never more than half belonged to the material creation. Slight, ethereal, with untroubled blue eyes, and little puff curls too light to show their change to gray, she struck Gregory unpleasantly, as if she were a connecting link between gross humanity and spiritual existence, and his eyes reverted to Miss Walton, ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... around. There was no one to be seen. He moved back the panel. There was a flash and a tiny puff of smoke. Locke coughed once, clutched at his throat, and lay gasping ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... ship that had been lying tide-rode swung to a heavier puff; and suddenly the slack of the chain cable between the windlass and the hawse-pipe clinked, slipped forward an inch, and rose gently off the deck with a startling suggestion as of unsuspected life that ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... light, the shadow follows the tumbler, and when receding the tumbler follows the shadow; and as the tumbler is moved around the light, the shadow will swing round from one side to the other. If the tumbler be held so that a puff of smoke can be blown into the transmitted rays, the particles of smoke will reflect the transmitted light, and will illustrate my idea of what constitutes a comet's tail. A dark band may be observed in this stream of light, as also in the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... very suspicious;" and that he would beard the foe who had so unceremoniously taken possession of their own proper apartment, face to face, even though he should turn out to be Beelzebub, in propria persona. This determination was received with a vast and simultaneous puff of exultation from every pipe in the room, so that the cloud was for a short space so great as completely to envelope the ample proportions of Mrs. Judy Teague, who had been an unnoticed witness ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... written or thought of before. "They have given out," said Alfred Bunn in his vituperative "Word with Punch," "in distinct terms that none but themselves can write a pantomime, and modestly entitled the one they did write 'Punch's Pantomime' ... which they laboured so lustily, but so vainly, to puff into notoriety." It was written in 1842, by Lemon, Jerrold, and Henry Mayhew; but when it was read by the first-named to the Covent Garden Company, by whom it was produced, it was found to contain a great deal of wit, but very little ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann |
