"Buff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of all the above species are of similar appearance, the ground colour being greenish, or buff, or the hue of stone or cream, with reddish or brownish blotches. Three is the full complement of eggs. The bare white glittering sands on which these eggs are deposited are often at noon so hot as to be painful to touch; accordingly during the daytime there ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... these, his head bent, his hands still thrust deep in his pockets, stood Sir Jasper. And from him, for no apparent reason, my eyes wandered to the man upon the bridge—a tall, broad-shouldered fellow, in a buff-colored greatcoat, who whistled to himself, and stared down into the stream, swinging his tasselled riding-boot to and fro. All at once, as if in response to some signal, he rose, and unbuttoning his surtout, drew it off and flung it across ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... that night two hundred slingers were enrolled, and next day as many as fifty horse and horsemen passed muster as duly qualified; buff jackets and cuirasses were provided for them, and a commandant of cavalry appointed to command—Lycius, the son of ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... Wandenberg, who choking with a tempest of passion that was too great to find utterance in words, had gathered up his rotund figure, and with an agility wonderful in a man of his years and vast obesity, so heavily armed, in a buff coat and jack-boots ribbed with iron, a heavy sword and cloak, clambered on the back of his horse, as a clown would climb up a wall; and with a visage alternating between purple and blue, by the effects of rage and strangulation, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... light, open wicker-work, revealed. Aunt Jane had had it made at the basketmaker's, while as to the head and covering, her own ingenious fingers had painted and fashioned them. Everybody had to look at everybody's presents, a lengthened operation, and then there was a splendid game at blindman's-buff in the hall, in which all the elders joined, except mamma, who had to go and sit in the nursery with the restless and excited Primrose while Mrs. Halfpenny and Lots went down ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his equipage, he had a leathern cap upon his head, faced like those worn by marines, and exhibiting in embroidery, the figure of a crescent. His coat was of white cloth, faced with black, and cut in a very antique fashion; and, in lieu of a waistcoat, he wore a buff jerkin. His feet were cased with loose buskins, which, though they rose almost to his knee, could not hide that curvature, known by the appellation of bandy legs. A large string of bandaliers garnished a broad belt that graced his shoulders, from whence depended an instrument ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... moving in upon him quickly, groping, yet moving rapidly. It was like playing blind man's buff with everyone blindfolded except one. "Get hold of him!" cried one. He found himself in the arc of a loose curve of pursuers. He felt suddenly he must ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the buff, and sallying out to the pipe, enjoyed the unexpected luxury of a glorious shower-bath, which he wanted badly. Then he dressed himself, appropriating the belts and equipment of a poor youngster named Binks, who had been killed during the raid, and, ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... buff in the school-room; I had just been caught by the hair. It hurt and I was squealing. Everybody else was clapping and laughing, when suddenly the door burst open and there stood Jerry Junior! He looked straight ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... ladies went back across the old bridge. Miss Kilner, wrapt in a soft buff shawl, paused a second to look down into the dark moat. Only a few moonbeams touched the still water; the rushes stood up like tall black spears; one could fancy armed men crouched in ambush there in the shadow ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... Blue and buff, rose and orange, straw-color and lavender, surely not a tint was missing, and the result was absolutely comical! One would have thought that a ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... fears on every threat of Mr. Fox, which he did, insomuch that Lord Apsley and myself were obliged to threaten him with a prosecution. On the hustings were posted a set of young men, neatly dressed in blue and buff for the occasion, blacklegs from all the race-courses, and all the Pharo and E.O. tables in town. Their business was to affront every gentleman who came on the hustings without their livery. "You lie!" "Who are you? damn you!" and a variety of such ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... year of Charles's reign he had the seals taken from him, and was sent to the Tower. When Episcopacy was abolished, he returned to Wales, his native country, where it is said he joined the Roundheads, and changed his lawn for buff. He ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... a full-length, and represented a singularly handsome young man, dark, slender, elegant, in a costume then quite obsolete, though I believe it was seen at the beginning of this century—white leather pantaloons and top-boots, a buff waistcoat, and a chocolate-coloured coat, and the ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... was Julie, and the Indian boy was Annette, disguised so perfectly that her father could not have guessed the truth were he standing by. She wore a buff coat and deer skin leggings; and about her waist was a belt in which were stuck a long knife and a pair of pistols. She patted her pony, took the bridle in her little brown hand, and vaulted lightly into her seat. "There now, Julie; return quickly, ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... 'speed germ.' Automobiles whiz here and there, and many a hen which now tries to cross the country road never gets more than half way. We who live in town have to keep a sharp lookout or we are apt to share the fate of many a valuable Buff Cochin or Plymouth Rock. Trains speed along their glistening rails faster than ever before. Great ships skim across the ocean in days instead of weeks. The aeroplane, which needs neither steel rails nor water to glide upon, darts through space still more rapidly. Everybody ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... breadth which might have become the jaws of an ogre, completed this delightful portrait. He was clad like a fisherman, in jacket and trousers of the blue cloth commonly used by seamen, and had a Dutch case-knife, like that of a Hamburgh skipper, stuck into a broad buff belt, which seemed as if it might occasionally sustain weapons of a description still ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... proceed to dedicate, In honest simple verse, this song to you. And if in flattering strains I do not predicate, 'Tis that I still retain my "buff and blue"; My politics as yet are all to educate: Apostasy's so fashionable, too, To keep one creed's a task grown quite Herculean: Is it not so, my ...
— English Satires • Various
... eight watchers by the beacon. Two stood apart from the others, looking to the right and the left of the hill. Both were armed with swords and arquebuses, and wore steel caps and coats of buff. Their sleeves were embroidered with the five wounds of Christ, encircling the name of Jesus—the badge of the Pilgrimage of Grace. Between them, on the verge of the mountain, was planted a great banner, displaying a silver cross, the chalice, and the Host, together ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... by the sea, A skittish and beautiful widow is she; She has black shiny tresses, and curly buff toes, And a heavenly tilt to the tip ...
— Fishy-Winkle • Jean C. Archer
... injured to the huge enjoyment of the crowd. The twenty-seventh cavalry from Fort Bliss performed a sham battle. The home team beat several other teams. Enormous apples raised by irrigation in the Pecos Valley attracted much attention, and a hungry Mexican absconded with a prize Buff ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... not borrowed from aliens, their pastimes, in many instances, bear close resemblance to those in vogue among children in this and other lands; notably is this the case with regard to those known to us as blind-man's buff, leap-frog, and hide-and-seek,"—Mr. Man enumerates the following: mock pig-hunting (played after dark); mock turtle-catching (played in the sea); going after the Evil Spirit of the Woods; swinging by means of long stout creepers; swimming-races (sometimes ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... these fisher-folk are farmers also, tilling and cultivating the heath-lands which lie beyond the village. The fisher cottages are quite pretty, with thatched or red-tiled roofs, white or buff rough-cast walls, green painted doors and windows, with black painted foundations which protect them from the sand. Bright flowering plants in the windows and the neat and clean appearance of the whole betoken the joy and comfort that reigns in the fisherman's home. Many household duties ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... it into Cluhir on a misty Saturday morning, with a basket of fowl under her brown and buff shawl, was not sorry when, from a side road on the line of march, a donkey-cart, driven by an acquaintance, drew forth at the instant of ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... of the small size, merriami and ordii do not require detailed color comparison with the other two. The general color of the upperparts of spectabilis is much darker than that of deserti; whereas spectabilis is ochraceous-buff or light ochraceous-buff grizzled with blackish, deserti is near pale ochraceous-buff ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor
... appearance of ruffians. I saluted them, upon which they made way for me to the bar, taking off their sombreros with great ceremony. I emptied a glass of val de penas, and was about to pay for it and depart, when a horrible looking fellow, dressed in a buff jerkin, leather breeches, and jackboots, which came half way up his thighs, and having on his head a white hat, the rims of which were at least a yard and a half in circumference, pushed through the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... lives. He's everlastingly at it, a trotter is; an' when he isn't, he's studyin' haow. You seen 'em trot? Much you hev! You was hitched to a rail, back o' the stand, in a buckboard with a soap-box nailed on the slats, an' a frowzy buff'lo atop, while your man peddled rum fer lemonade to little boys as thought they was actin' manly, till you was both run off the track an' jailed—you intoed, ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... must have left at a swoop; "my eyes fairly bleeds for poor Mrs. Maggs" (the housekeeper), "that they do. 'Twas bad enough in the old country, where we knew our places, even though some was ambitioned to get out of them; but here it's like blind man's buff, and enough to turn a body giddy. Mrs. Maggs hasn't a sittin' room of her own where she and the butler and the nurse can have their tea in peace or entertain guests, but she sets two tables in the servants' hall, and a pretty time she has ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... games. Boston, Puss in the Corner, Stir you must, Hunt the Squirrel round the Woods, Blind Man's Buff, and Jerusalem. Mr. Atkins, who built the hall, and was a strict Orthodox man a Know-nothing, got them to play "Break the Pope's neck," which made a deal of fun. The oldest people sung some of the old New ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... the responsibility of all proprietorship of the crisp morsel of paper that he slipped with slow firmness into the pocket of his waistcoat, rubbing it gently in its passage against the delicately buff-coloured duck of which that garment was composed. "So quite too awfully kind of you that I really don't know what to say"—there was a marked recall, in the manner of this speech, of the sweetness of his mother's droop and the tenderness of her wail. It was as if he had been moved for the moment ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... long claws, and in his jaws Four and forty teeth of iron; With a hide as tough as any buff Which did him round environ." Dragon of Wantly ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... play blind man's buff," I said gayly, sending another handful into Dr. Pettit's face, and then slipping adroitly to one side I laughed with, I fancy, as much mischief as any hoyden of sixteen could have put into her voice, at the picture the men made trying to get the salt water ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... death, a few years since, of Thomas, fifth Duke of Meldrum. He had come to a sudden and, as the duchess often remarked, very suitable end; for, on his sixty-second birthday, clad in all the splendours of his hunting scarlet, top hat, and buff corduroy breeches, the mare he was mercilessly putting at an impossible fence suddenly refused, and Thomas, Duke of Meldrum, shot into a field of turnips; pitched upon his head, and spoke ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... muttered the man. "Blind man's buff's nothing to it, and no pretty gals to catch. Now, whereabouts am I? I should say I'm just close to the corner by the square, ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... uv trouble 'tween de whites en de colored peoples, but dere wuzn't none uv dat 'round whey I stay. Dey say some uv de slave run 'way fa bad treatment en stay in de woods. Didn't hab no jails den en when dey'd ketch em, dey'ud buff em en gag em en hoss whip em. Now, I ne'er see none uv dat but I ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... a dense, hard cocoon, usually attached to leaves. There {104} are two generations in the Southern states, and one in the Northern states. The moth which comes out of the cocoon has a wing spread of fully five inches. It is reddish-gray or somewhat buff in color with darker bands near the edge of the wings, which themselves are pinkish on the outside, and with a large clear spot near the centre of the forewing and a regular eyespot (clear in part and blue in the rest) in the centre ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... lads, though stripped unto the buff, Even so are bold enough. Their twelve hands go weaving on; Now the web of cloth is done. They made kaftans for us here; Kaftans do not cost you dear When you've grist within your hopper. In our purses silver bright Will not let us ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... importance to all the human race, and will be to the end of time, as then. Ringers came next, and lastly mummers played their parts, according to an ancient custom, which some might consider "more honoured in the breach than in the observance." After this there was blind-man's buff, in which all the maid-servants as well as the children joined, and Mrs Clagget's own maid and the Diceys' Susan, who had come with the children. Well was that Christmas Day remembered by ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... anybody, so that I should loathe her being in my house. However, she took us by and by and showed us indeed some pictures at one Hiseman's, a picture drawer, a Dutchman, which is said to exceed Lilly, and indeed there is both of the Queenes and Mayds of Honour (particularly Mrs. Stewart's in a buff doublet like a soldier) as good pictures, I think, as ever I saw. The Queene is drawn in one like a shepherdess, in the other like St. Katharin, most like and most admirably. I was mightily pleased with this sight indeed, and so back again to their lodgings, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... and of that light sandy colour which is the last to disclose its own changes towards grey. He was dressed in a dark frock-coat, of some substance much thinner than cloth, and in waistcoat and trousers of spotless white. His feet were effeminately small, and were clad in buff-coloured silk stockings, and little womanish bronze-leather slippers. Two rings adorned his white delicate hands, the value of which even my inexperienced observation detected to be all but priceless. Upon the whole, he had a frail, languidly-fretful, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... of foulness art, All outward and within is foul; Condensed filth in every part, Thy body's clothed like thy soul: Thy soul, which through thy hide of buff Scarce glimmers ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... green. The decks had none of that creamy purity which Cowes expects, but were rough and grey, and showed tarry exhalations round the seams and rusty stains near the bows. The ropes and rigging were in mourning when contrasted with the delicate buff manilla so satisfying to the artistic eye as seen against the blue of a June sky at Southsea. Nor was the whole effect bettered by many signs of recent refitting. An impression of paint, varnish, and carpentry was in the air; a gaudy new burgee fluttered aloft; there seemed to be ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... gilt dragon for a handle, these smaller jugs, boxes, and dishes, all of the same pattern, all with dark-blue dragons (no cold "Canton" blue, but a rich, splendid ultramarine), large and small, prancing and sprawling on a pale buff ground,—what were these things doing in the paltry bedroom of a common farm-house? Hilda felt a new touch of indignation at "these people" for presuming to have such things in ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... vase, light buff in color, holding roses—red and white—relieved by pansies, of intermingled purple and golden dyes, and by sprigs of the lemon verbena, of dainty heaths, mignonette, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... dresses than one; it not being safe, or worth the danger, for Popish priests to wear their proper dress; so he was in no wise astonished that the priest should now appear before him in a riding-dress, with large buff leather boots, and a feather to his hat, plain, but ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... stan' right 'n' show ye're game," said the convict, "thar won't no hurt come to ye. This here car's way-billed fer Buff'lo, 'n' I'm waitin' ter be took up now. It's a grain car. Yer ain't goin' ter peach wot I tell ye, now? I wuz put wise to it afore I come out by a railroad bloke. I had it straight these here cars would be picked up fer Buff'lo the nex' day after I done my trick. But they ain't took 'em up yet, ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... opposite, and spread upon the bed a complete dress of the Incroyable of the very latest fashion. It consisted of a short coat, cut square across the front and long behind, of a soft shade between a pale-green and a pearl-gray; a waistcoat of buff plush, with eighteen mother-of-pearl buttons; an immense white cravat of the finest cambric; light trousers of white cashmere, decorated with a knot of ribbon where they buttoned above the calves, and pearl-gray silk stockings, striped ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... long white feather in a shady hat trimmed with dark green, velvet; she is fresh and rosy, you know, sir, and looks well in green, and then, is it Grace's taste, Rachel? for it is the prettiest thing you have worn—a pale buff sort of silky thing, embroidered all over in the same colour," and he put a fold of the dress into his ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unimportant talk [les causeries sans portee] of people whom he esteemed; he delighted in the childish pleasures of young people. He passed readily whole evenings in playing blind-man's-buff with young girls, in telling them amusing or funny little stories, in making them laugh the mad laughter of youth, which it gives even more pleasure to hear than the singing of the warbler. [FOOTNOTE: This, I think, must refer to the earlier ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... he went often to see Patsy, and upon occasion would stay for luncheon, where the originality of his language and the quaintness of his dress pleased the Princess and her guests. The Laird of Supsorrow in his coat of blue and silver, his buff waistcoat and corded moleskin small clothes, his silver buckles and broad silver thumb-ring, his gold snuff-mull and the cowries clashing at his fob, was considered the type of the real Scottish countryman. He was really infinitely like ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... were then in use, but chose the plain handkerchief for their necks, differing from those of others, which had rich point, and curious lace. They rejected the crimson sattin doublet with black velvet skirts, and contented themselves with a plain gown, generally of stuff, and of a drab, or grey, or buff, or buffin colour, as it was called, and faced with buckram. These colours, as I observed before, were the colours worn by country people; and were not expensive, because they were not dyed. To this gown was added a green apron. Green aprons had been long worn in England, yet, at ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... than one good tug, but after the first tentative trial, which seemed to cause the man no suffering, the first lieutenant pulled hard, and at last drew the spear right through the two pierced portions of the tough buff leather. ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... a house as this that Hannah Puddington lived. Old Buff, her large, yellow cat, would sometimes run to the ridgepole and from there watch for the river boats as they returned ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... which sexual selection could have no place. We have numbers of such caterpillars in this country, and they are characterised not only by their gay colours but by not concealing themselves. Such are the mullein and the gooseberry caterpillars, the larvae of the spurge hawk-moth, of the buff-tip, and many others. Some of these caterpillars are wonderfully conspicuous, as in the case of that noticed by Mr. Bates in South America, which was four inches long, banded across with black and yellow, and with bright red head, legs, and tail. Hence it caught the eye of any one who passed ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... "Blind Man's Buff" is one of the best, oldest, and simplest of games. One player is blindfolded, is turned round two or three times to confuse his ideas as to his position in the room, and is then told to catch whom he can. If he catches some ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... lips, Ethelberta took breath, and then went on to describe the scene that ensued, 'A dreadful variation on the game of Blindman's buff,' being the words by which ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... high, bare windows through which the afternoon sunshine streamed on the carpet. The carpet had a pattern of pink peonies on a delicate buff ground, and was shamefully dirty. And the vast apartment, with its white paint and gilding and Italian sketches in water-colour and statuettes under glass, might have been a lady's drawing-room. But paint and gilding were tarnished; the chintz chair-covers soiled and torn; the pictures ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... with a lazy wink. "Vi, of the Hopperer-Buff? You've 'erd of 'er surely, Mamzelle? No? There's not a man (as is worth calling a man) about town, as don't know 'er! Dukes, Lords, an' Royal 'Ighnesses—she's the style for 'em! Mag-ni-ficent creetur! all ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... the building, stretching over the narrow path like birds of prey, which, about to make a stoop, have folded their wings. Often, too, the old man, opening his cloak, beat his arms against his breast to warm himself, or blew upon his fingers, ill protected from the cold by a pair of buff gloves reaching nearly to the elbow. At last he saw a slight shadow ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... the danger signal. We start by looking at the danger signal, then at the base of the dead area. If we find here some of the reddish pustules which have been shown on this bark we are quite sure that the disease is present. Then by cutting into the bark a little, instead of the normal buff or yellowish tint of the fresh clean bark, we get, when the disease is present, a rather mottled effect, varying from a brownish to lighter or even darker. There is a peculiar fan-like effect to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... end of Gracechurch Street, in the City of London. Others were coming up from all quarters towards the spot. As the first arrived, they stood gazing towards the door of a building, before which were drawn up a body of bearded, rough soldiers, with buff coats, halberds in hand, and iron caps on their heads. Several of the persons collected, in spite of the armed men at the door, advanced as if about to ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... tempting me to think it possible that a fortunate selection and a mutual deference may subscribe to human happiness:—filled the paragraphs. Reviews of her first literary venture were mentioned once: 'I was well advised by Mr. Redworth in putting ANTONIA for authoress. She is a buff jerkin to the stripes, and I suspect that the signature of D. E. M., written in full, would have cawed woefully to hear that her style is affected, her characters nullities, her cleverness forced, etc., etc. As it is, I have much the same contempt for poor Antonia's performance. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... house, since they show without, should be uniform in color, and no attempt be made to suit the individual decoration of a room to them. The material should be plain Holland, white or buff when there are outside blinds, otherwise green or blue. In recent years shutters, or outside blinds, have come somewhat into disuse. This is, on the whole, perhaps an improvement, for they are rarely manipulated with judgment, being either left open ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... she invited some young ladies of my own age, to spend the day with me. She had a swing put up in the garden for us, and a room cleared of the furniture that we might play at blindman's-buff. One of the liveliest of the girls, who had taken on herself the direction of our sports, she kept to be my companion all the time I staid with her, and every day contrived some new amusement ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... long, sheathed at the base by thinnish narrow deciduous scales, some of which are one inch long. The cones come in clusters of one to seven, from six to eight or rarely ten inches long, very slender when closed and usually curved towards the tip, black-purple or green when young, buff-brown when ripe. It is best recognized by its light-gray smooth bark, broken into squarish plates, its pale-blue-green foliage composed of short needles, and its pendulous cones so slender as to give rise to the name ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... repaid robbing equally well. As a rule those from that Army were not searched so closely as those from the West, and not unfrequently they came in with all their belongings untouched, where Sherman's men, arriving the same day, would be stripped nearly to the buff. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... unfeeling to her like Aunt M. to me. I wish Hannah had come instead of me for it was Hannah that Aunt M. wanted and she is better than I am and does not answer back so quick. Are there any peaces of my buff calico. Aunt J. wants enough to make a new waste, button behind, so I wont look so outlandish. The stiles are quite pretty in Riverboro and those at Meeting quite ellergant, more so than ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... set deep beneath brows bristling like a wire-haired terrier's—were on the boy in the farther corner, who sat on his backer's knee, shoeless, stripped to the buff, with an angry red mark on the right breast below the collar-bone; a slight boy and a trifle undersized, but lithe, clear-skinned, and in the pink of condition; a handsome boy, too. By his height you might ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... majestically in defiance of the elements as a symbol of man's growing independence of nature. This building with its cream terra-cotta surface and intricate architectural details touched here and there with buff, blue, green, red, and gold, rises 792 feet or sixty stories above the street and typifies the American spirit of conceiving and of executing great undertakings. In it are blended art, utility, and majesty. Viewed ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... he had), I walked forth from Master Carter's door. To make up the deficiency, their highnesses had insisted on furnishing me with a suit made up from the simplest in their joint wardrobes—riding-boots, breeches, buff-coat, sash, pistols, cloak, and feather'd hat, all of which fitted me excellently well. By the doors of Christ Church, before we came to the south gate, Prince Rupert, who had been staggering in his walk, suddenly pull'd up, and ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... one will dispute that for beauty, animation, plumage, and courage the Bantam is entitled to rank next to the game fowl. As its name undoubtedly implies, the bird is of Asiatic origin. The choicest sorts are the buff-coloured, and those that are entirely black. A year-old Bantam cock of pure breed will not weigh more than sixteen ounces. Despite its small size, however, it is marvellously bold, especially in defence of its progeny. A friend of the writer's, residing at Kensington, possessed ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... building-lots, enough remained to give an impression of ample outdoor space. Against the blue of the October morning sky the house, with its dignified Georgian lines, was not without a certain stateliness—rectangular, three-storied, mellow, with buff walls, buff chimneys, white doorways, white casements, white verandas, a white balustrade around the top, and a white urn at each of the four corners. Where, as over the verandas, there was a bit of inclined roof, russet-red tiles gave a warmer touch of color. From the borders ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... institution of slavery lay in the Union. However it ended, disunion led to abolition. The world—the whole trend of modern thought—was set against slavery. But politics, based on party feeling, is a game of blindman's buff. And then—here I show myself a son of Scotland—there is a destiny. "What is to be," says the predestinarian Mother Goose, "will be, though it ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... planted in cemetery lots. In that delightfully enthusiastic little book, "The Garden's Story," Mr. Ellwanger says of the Ghent azalea "In it I find a charm presented by no other flower. Its soft tints of buff, sulphur, and primrose; its dazzling shades of apricot, salmon, orange, and vermilion are always a fresh revelation of color. They have no parallel among flowers, and exist only in opals, sunset skies, and the flush of autumn woods." Certainly American ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... cut, with an air of rather ponderous slow dignity that nevertheless became his style very well. He was dressed in tall white hat, a white winged collar, a black stock, a long tailed blue coat with gilt buttons, an embroidered white waistcoat, dapper buff trousers, and varnished boots. He carried a polished cane and wore several heavy pieces of gold jewellery—a watch fob, a scarf-pin, and the like. His movements were leisurely, his voice low. It seemed to me, then, that somehow the perfection of his appointments ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... his sympathy. In his first official report he wrote, "That the Indian is confused in mind as to his status and very much at sea as to our ultimate purpose toward him is not surprising. For a hundred years he has been spun round like a blindfolded child in a game of blindman's buff. Treated as an enemy at first, overcome, driven from his lands, negotiated with most formally as an independent nation, given by treaty a distinct boundary which was never to be changed while water runs and grass grows,' he later found himself ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... called The Sorrows of Werther, is meant for his friend Kestner. He is a young German farmer, who married Charlotte Buff (called "Lotte" in the novel), with whom Goethe was in love. Goethe represents himself under the name of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... The Chicken Run, on being informed, in the column headed "Hints to Beginners," that Mr. LLOYD GEORGE'S pet Leghorn cockerel has developed a surprising taste for latchkeys, and recently swallowed two of them, while Mr. ASQUITH'S Buff Orpington pullet has taken to following him about like a dog and roosting on his bed-rail. Then there would be a breezy editorial article designed to prove that poultry had come out of the war with a much enhanced reputation, owing to the loyal part they had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various
... the world! How can I object to a stepmother who is playing Blind Man's Buff at the present moment with the Norwegian nobility? I am not so overstrained as all that. But really I cannot allow my old friend HIALMAR, with his great, confiding, childlike mind, to remain ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... necessary to purchase many articles of clothing, for the dress of the people of Holland differed little from that of the English. Ned bought a thick buff jerkin to wear under his armour, and had little difficulty in buying steel cap, breast and back piece, sword and pistols; for the people of Holland had not as yet begun to arm generally, and many of the walls were defended by ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... the party entered the Ledstone family pew. An oldish woman with a huddled figure—how unlike grandmamma!—looking about the class of a housekeeper; a girl of my age, with red hair and white eye-lashes and a buff hat on; and a young man, dark, thick, common-looking. He seemed kind to his mother, though, and arranged a cushion for her. Their pew is at right angles to the one I sit in, so I have a full view of them all the time. He has box-pleated teeth—which seem quite ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... biographical sketch published in the "Gardener's Chronicle", 1864) as having been one of the first physicians in London who gave up the customary black coat, knee-breeches and silk stockings, and adopted the ordinary dress of the period, a blue coat with brass buttons, and a buff waiscoat, a costume which he continued to wear to the last. After giving up practice, which he did early in life, he spent much of his time in acts of unpretending philanthropy.) Your helping me into the Athenaeum has not been thrown away, ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... forsaken Quakerism hung around him; his coat was buff, his hat straight in the brim, his manner prim, and when he spoke it was in the speech of his people. His complexion was very light, hair, eyebrows and lashes, and the down on his chin—almost flaxen; his face was browned by ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... he tells ther truth, fer I hes seen him handle ther ribbons, and he does it prime too; he are the Pony Rider who they calls Buff'ler Billy," said ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... say 1,000 words, a sheet of paper. My writing is very small. It was tucked into a half-penny open envelope—a magazine office envelope, marked 'Proof, urgent.' There were the proofs of a short story in the buff envelope." ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... him in amazement. He was grown a deal stouter, but my eye was caught and held by the blue coat and buff waistcoat he wore. They were frayed and stained and shabby, yet they seemed all of a piece with some new grandeur ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of them; said they were "incorporated with Boehmen"; said this and that; much disinclined to homage; and would not do it. Stiff, surly fellows, much deficient in discernment of what is above them and what is not: a thick-skinned set; bodies clad in buff leather; minds also cased in ill habits of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... SYRACUSE. No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell. A devil in an everlasting garment hath him; One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel; A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough; A wolf—nay worse, a fellow all in buff; A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands; A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry foot well; One that, before the judgment, carries poor ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... at their best," the old man apologized. In what he described as the gabine'o segre'o of the Countess, over the fireplace, hung the full-length, life-size portrait of a gentleman, in the dress of eighteen-forty-something—high stock, flowered waistcoat, close-fitting buff trousers, and full-bottomed blue frock-coat, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... his somber overhanging brow like lights in the blackness of night from a sepulcher. No one understood better than Mr. Webster the philosophy of dress; what a powerful auxiliary it is to speech and manner when harmonizing with them. On this occasion he appeared in a blue coat, a buff vest, black pants and white cravat; a costume strikingly in keeping with his face and expression. The human face never wore an expression of more withering, relentless scorn than when the orator replied to Hayne's allusion to the "Murdered ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... it could be said without any figure of speech that the water ran down into his boots from the collar of his coat, for they were entirely filled with it. His hat of very fine beaver was so ruined that it fell down over his shoulders, his buff belt was perfectly soaked with water; in fact a man just drawn out of the river would not be wetter than the Emperor. The King of Saxony, who awaited him, met him in this condition, and embraced him ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... continued Hermiston. "And I would send no man to be a servant to the King, God bless him! that has proved such a shauchling son to his own faither. You can splairge here on Edinburgh street, and where's the hairm? It doesna play buff on me! And if there were twenty thousand eediots like yourself, sorrow a Duncan Jopp would hang the fewer. But there's no splairging possible in a camp; and if ye were to go to it, you would find out for yourself whether Lord Well'n'ton approves of caapital punishment or not. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had rounded a corner and the tall buff house was left behind. Then Terry raised a shy, laughing face. "Downcast, Tabs? You look as though you were bearing the sins ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... schooner and return to the House on the Dunes. He smiled a little as he thought of the account the lively young maid-servant would give of his recent visit. But withal, he felt very much as if he were playing a game of blind man's buff and that he was "it." He was impatient for his interview with the Marquis, though he was but little hopeful that an hour's confinement would have been sufficient to bring the old gentleman to terms. Nor was he to ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... child, the pleasure of his amusements was smothered by officialism. My old Lord Aurbach, though gouty and stiff of joint, was eager to "run" his balls or his arrows, and old Sir Giles Butch could be caught so easily at tag or blind man's buff that there was no sport for Max in doing it. Everything the boy did was done by the heir of Styria, except on rare occasions when he and I stole away from the castle. Then we were boys together, and then it was ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... frail form clad in a buff-colored smock, turned and surveyed the laboratory. In the center of the square room five improvised operating tables were drawn up, each one flooded individually with, light from focused flood-tubes above in the white ceiling. Flanking them were tables ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas-eve, and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman's buff. ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... brindled with grey. His frame seemed of that kind which most readily defies both toil and climate, for he was thin-flanked, broad-chested, long-armed, deep-breathed, and strong- limbed. He had not laid aside his buff-coat, which displayed the cross cut on the shoulder, for more than three nights, enjoying but such momentary repose as the warder of a sick monarch's couch might by snatches indulge. This Baron rarely changed his posture, except to administer to Richard the medicine ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... there to me, investing the figures of Fergus MacIvor and the MacGregor and the Children of the Mist as it did in childhood, when I was so fascinated that I prized my Campbell plaided paper soldiers next to my Continentals in blue and buff. In going through an old trunkful of school-books only the other day, I came upon one of these bonneted fellows, still wonderfully preserved, in an old atlas of the heavens, and then I knew all of a flash why ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall, Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer; Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good, Till at length into ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... at his belt as we went to meet him, "I love him best in buff and steel, though he'll ever be my cap'n, pal. There aren't what you'd call a lot of him, neither, but what there is goeth a prodigious long way in steel or velvet. Talk o' glory! Talk o' fame! Pal, glory's a goblin and fame's a phantom ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... the city there stood a brownstone house, with grotesque turrets, winding steps, and glaring polished red tiles. There was a touch of the Gothic, of the Renaissance, of the old English manor; just a touch, however, a kind of blind-man's-buff of a house. A very rich man lived here, but for ten months in the year he and his family fluttered about the social centers of the world. And with a house like this on his hands, one could scarce blame him. Twice a week, during this absence, ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... reappeared Sam Weller, accompanied by no less a person than the notorious Mr. Pott of the Eatanswill Gazette—who, that worthy had discovered, was also staying in the hotel. He was on his way to the great Buff Ball, to be held at Birmingham the next evening. Needless to say, he was heartily welcomed and an agreement was made to club their dinners. Mr. Pott soon began to entertain the company with gossip about his mission and ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... seems. Wake me early, bunkie, comrade, tell the fellows who I am, Not forgetting all the favors I will do you when I can. Tell them that I wouldn't have it, if it sacrificed their love, Tell them that I'm the same as ever, though they think me far above. Bunkie, I have dreamed so often of the buff that I shall wear, That I feel the honor greater than a man like me can bear. Long I've waited; long I've cherished thoughts of how I'd look and feel When the captain said: Howard, here's a stripe to aid your zeal. Then I'd ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... that, they wint through the jungle like buck-rabbits. About midnight we come to the shtrame which I had clane forgot to minshin to my orficer. I was on, ahead, wid four bhoys, an' I thought that the Lift'nint might want to the-ourise. "Shtrip, bhoys," sez I. "Shtrip to the buff, an' shwim in where glory waits!"—"But I can't shwim!" sez two av thim. "To think I should live to hear that from a bhoy wid a board-school edukashin!" sez I. "Take a lump av thimber, an' me an' Conolly here will ferry ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... structure are everywhere in evidence, and an element of its beauty, by reason of the admirably direct and logical arrangement of posts and trusses. The vertical walls are covered with plaster-board of a light buff color, converted into good sized panels by means of wooden strips finished with a thin grey stain. The structural wood work is stained in similar fashion, the iron rods, straps, and bolts being painted ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... young friends came to see us, there was much rejoicing from brother Barnes, who was full of life and spirits, and always ready to play, and from Arminda and myself; but brother Horace, not at all allured by blind-man's-buff or a dance, would retire to a corner with a pine knot (for in those days candles were few), preferring the companionship of his book to our merry games. Coaxing was all in vain: the only means of inducing him to join us was to snatch away his book and hide it; but even then he preferred ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... modest group{17} Who look like chaste Diana's troop, The Ladies Molineaux; With Sefton, the Nimrod of peers, As old in honesty,—as years, A stanch true buff' and blue. "What portly looking man is that In plain blue coat,—to whom each hat Is moved in ride and walk!" That pleasant fellow, be it known, Is heir presumptive to the throne, 'Tis Frederick of York.{18} A better, kinder ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... own. The details of his campaigns are, of necessity, the less interesting to a general reader from their very completeness. Desultory or semi-civilised warfare, where the play of the human passions is distinctly visible, where individual man, whether in buff jerkin or Milan coat of proof, meets his fellow man in close mortal combat, where men starve by thousands or are massacred by town-fulls, where hamlets or villages blaze throughout whole districts or are sunk beneath the ocean—scenes of rage, hatred, vengeance, self-sacrifice, patriotism, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... travel in far lands than did the very respectable, commonplace fathers of families she saw scattered about the deck. He was a man in knee breeches, leather leggings, a bright blue shirt and a claret and buff blazer. He wore a wide-brimmed brown hat and a fierce expression. From his leather belt hung a huge clasp knife and two small pistols. She thought him very funny, but very much like herself when she had dressed up as King Arthur. She sympathized entirely with his dressing a part. ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... the troops] marched Nicols Gonzalez with his famous and victorious company of the buff doublets; around his shield-bearer walked many other pages, carrying the weapons that Don Nicolas had taken away from the Mindanaos in the naval battle. We gave him a thousand congratulations for his notable ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... and presently I heard spurs and a sword jingling on the stairs, and turned to receive his Excellency's staff-officer—a very elegant and polite young man in a blue uniform, faced with buff, and ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... Laureate, I proceed to dedicate In honest simple verse this song to you. And if in flattering strains I do not predicate, 'Tis that I still retain my buff and blue; My politics as yet are all to educate. Apostasy's so fashionable too, To keep one creed's a task grown quite Herculean Is it not so, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... hill-sides, crashing through the beech-woods, echoing through the chalky hollows, ride leisurely the gay Cavaliers. Some in new scarfs and feathers, worthy of the "show-troop,"—others with torn laces, broken helmets, and guilty red smears on their buff doublets;—some eager for their first skirmish,—others weak and silent, still bandaged from the last one;—discharging now a rattle of contemptuous shot at some closed Puritan house, grim and stern as its master,—firing anon as noisy a salute, as they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... atone for it! I have already arranged with him that we shall have it out between ourselves alone, in the jungle, stripped to the buff, with our fists—Queensberry rules! I haven't fought since I stood up against Spinks Major—you remember old Spinks, now of the Bombay Offensibles?—at Eton." And the old boy pluckily bared his ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... glittering garments of peacock green and silver that gave a snake-like quality to their lithe bodies. They were talking to the German tutor, who had become a sort of cotton Cossack, a spectacled Cossack in buff and bright green. Mrs. Britling was dignified and beautiful in a purple djibbah, and her stepson had become a handsome still figure of black and crimson. Teddy had contrived something elaborate and effective in the Egyptian style, ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... dandified-looking coachman, with elegant black whiskers, shining boots with fancy tops; buff breeches, and a yellow waistcoat ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... men and maids, very nearly all in buff, Came and swore in their lives they never met with such a light; And each of the family by turns had a puff At the little farthing rushlight. But none of the family could ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... afternoon another of those marine monsters, not very familiar in those waters, hove in sight, following the fateful Idalia—a graceful steam yacht, painted a light buff, clean-cut as a steel engraving. The beautiful vessel hovered off shore, see-sawing the waves as lightly as a duck in a rain barrel. A swift boat manned by a crew in uniform came ashore, and a stocky-built man ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... all things ought to be delivered unto him, and the rest were but his servants and followers. A day or two after this we fell to trading with them, exchanging some things that we had for chamois, buff, and deer skins. When we shewed him all our packet of merchandise, of all things that he saw a bright tin dish most pleased him, which he presently took up and clapped it before his breast, and after making a hole ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... King probably found it harder to forgive the Whig than the profligate. The Prince cared no more for Whig principles than he did for his marriage-vows, but affected them as a means of annoying his father, whose Toryism was of proof. He, as a man, toasted the buff and blue, when that meant support of Washington and his associates, for the same reason that, as a boy, he had cheered for Wilkes and Liberty,—because it was the readiest way of annoying his father; but he ever deserted the Whigs when his aid and countenance ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various |
