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More "Ruffle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out of pure simplicity. I fancied again that she might have breakfasted late, or that she might have a wish to eat alone, and more at liberty. These considerations prevented me from saying more to her then, to ruffle her temper, by shewing any sign of dissatisfaction. After dinner I left her, but not with an air that shewed ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... and men continuing still obstinate to their own wayes, prove happy, while these accord together: and as they disagree, prove unhappy: and I think it true, that it is better to be heady than wary; because Fortune is a mistresse; and it is necessary, to keep her in obedience to ruffle and force her: and we see, that she suffers her self rather to be masterd by those, than by others that proceed coldly. And therefore, as a mistresse, shee is a friend to young men, because they are lesse respective, more rough, and command ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... edge of a rebellious ruffle inside his embroidered waistcoat and with a quiet laugh said: "St. George is attending ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... his tailor's bill,) is above suspicion; and benefit of clergy is nothing to the privilege and virtue of a handsome exterior. That the skin is nearer than the shirt, is a most false and mistaken idea. The smoothest skin in Christendom would not weigh with a jury like a cambric ruffle; and moreover, there is not a poor devil in town striving to keep up appearances in spite of fortune, who would not far rather tear his flesh than his unmentionables; which can only arise from their being so much more important a part ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... the children's voices near made the air gladder. As for Master Udal himself, when he opened the door, I could have laughed to see the change in him. His hair was kempt, and the rents in his garments were mended; there was a peep of ruffle at his wrists, and his stockings, which had ever lagged down at his heels, now held up bravely by the buckle at his knee. More than that, he looked scared and jaded, like a man undergoing some penance, and doubtful what will be ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... said, "perhaps you have—still I don't see them;" and I handed him the paper without additional remark, not wishing to ruffle his temper; but I was much surprised at the turn affairs had taken; his ill humor puzzled me—and, as for the drawing of the beetle, there were positively no antenn visible, and the whole did bear a very close resemblance to the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... more. He did not wish to ruffle his friend's temper, to be sent to the devil and told that his advice was not wanted. A little tact was necessary. But Corley's brow was soon smooth again. His ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... away!" exclaimed the landlord, with some vehemence of tone, striking his fist upon the table by which he sat. "He MUST stay away! There is scarcely an evening that he does not ruffle my temper, and mar good feelings in all the company. Just see what he provoked me to do this evening. I might have killed the child. It makes my blood run cold to think of it! Yes, sir—he must stay away. If no better can be done, I'll hire a man to stand ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... requires a strong fish to stem and progress against the stream. A man, to brave obloquy and public scorn, requires strong moral courage; but when his judgment convinces him that he is right, and when he feels that his intentions are pure, conscientious, and sincere, this may ruffle him for a time, but never permanently disturbs his peace or injures his reputation. The truly great are only known by nobly resisting every temptation to wrong, and braving the world's condemnation in pursuing and sustaining the right. ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... they lay stress on the utility of a French alliance for England, in order to thwart the aims of a greedy Coalition and to ensure her own internal tranquillity, which, it is hinted, France can easily ruffle. Talleyrand is also charged to offer to cede the small but valuable island, Tobago, which we lost in 1783, provided that the British Government guaranteed a French loan of L3,000,000 or L4,000,000, to be raised in London; and he is to suggest that, if the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... go thy ways; go, give that changing piece To him that flourish'd for her with his sword; A valiant son-in-law thou shalt enjoy; One fit to bandy with thy lawless sons, To ruffle in ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... the old crone, leaping from her seat and dancing about the room, "the dhrame's come true at last! Och, hullybaloo! didn't I know that the pretty Paudeen wasn't born for the pig-stye! Bedad, but he'll ruffle the gentles! Wont you, darlint?" and the old woman fell upon her son's neck, smothering him with kisses, while the poor youth could hardly keep his legs under the vigor of her ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... while the earth, immensely old, had a youth of its own, something which Francis would never have again. But perhaps, because he was essentially simple, he would have fitted in well enough if he had been less ready to voice his grievances and ruffle the calm which she so carefully preserved, which he called coldness and for which ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... were a Robin, A Robin or a little Wren, everywhere to go; Through forest, field, or garden, And ask no leave or pardon, Till winter comes with icy thumbs To ruffle up our wing! ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... direktilo. Rude malgxentila. Rudeness malrespekto. Ruddiness rugxeco. Ruddy rugxa. Rudiment (embryo) embrio. Rudiment (elements) elementajxo. Rue (botan.) ruto. Rue (to grieve) bedauxregi. Ruff krispo. Ruffian malbonulo. Ruffle (agitate) malkvietigi. Rug tapisxeto. Rugged sxtonplena, malebena. Ruin (remains) restajxo, ruinajxo. Ruin ruino, ruinoj. Ruin ruinigi. Ruinous ruina. Rule (to govern) regi. Rule, or ruler liniilo. Rule (to regulate) reguligi. Rule regulo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... that youthful mind, Which flattery fooled not, baseness could not blind, Deceit infect not, nor contagion soil, Indulgence weaken, or example spoil, Nor mastered science tempt her to look down On humbler talent with a pitying frown, Nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain, Nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain.' ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a ruffle of tante-gra'mere's nightcap and whispered in her ear. She stirred, and struck out with one hand, encountering the candle flame. That brought her upright, staring with indignant ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... exile, overrun the whole place with unseemly excesses, as if scoffing at the laws, for that they know the executors thereof to be either dead or sick; whilst the dregs of our city, fattened with our blood, style themselves pickmen and ruffle it everywhere in mockery of us, riding and running all about and flouting us with our distresses in ribald songs. We hear nothing here but 'Such an one is dead' or 'Such an one is at the point of death'; and were there any to make them, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... peculiar devil-may-care recklessness about the self-satisfied swagger of his gait, and the free and easy glance of his sharp black eye, united with a temper that nothing could ruffle, and a courage nothing could daunt. With such qualities as these, he had been the prime favourite of his mess, to which he never came without some droll story to relate, or some choice expedient for future amusement. Such had Tom once been; now he was much altered, and though the quiet ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... the room, cool, dignified, and austere, but his manner was not calculated to ruffle his superior officer. It seemed rather to indicate a confidence that the Governor General would punish as was fitting the impertinence of the intruders from Kaintock. He bestowed only a single glance upon them, as if his victory over such insignificant ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... dropped her eyes upon the ruffle she was pleating for Kitty's dress, while Tom Duffan accompanied the new-born thought with his ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... attacks us at sundry times and places. It is in vain that we lengthen our limbs into an awakening stretch—that we yawn with the expressive suavity of yawning no more—that we dislocate our knuckle bones, and ruffle the symmetry of our visage, with a manual application; like the cleft blaze of a candle, drowsiness returns again. Well, then, what manner of reader is he that hath never sinned by drowsing in church time? Let him read on; and I'll ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... brook the harsh confinement of the cage. Oft, when returning with her loaded bill, The astonished mother finds a vacant nest, By the rude hands of unrelenting clowns Robbed: to the ground the vain provision falls. Her pinions ruffle, and low drooping, scarce Can bear the mourner to the poplar shade; Where all abandoned to despair, she sings Her sorrows ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... the floor above, partly detached by his movement through the structure. It scratched the top of his head, already tender from rough usage, and thereby vexed and angered him, as slight accidents often ruffle even great minds. With a gesture of impatience, and a petulant word not in good taste for a drawing-room, he seized the projecting board, and gave it a ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... the fierce bashaw, whose loved favourite in The combat late he slew; yet had not been In that so much unhappy, had not he That honoured then his sword with victory, Half-brother to Janusa been, a bright But cruel lady, whose refined delight Her slave (though husband), Ammurat, durst not Ruffle with discontent; wherefore, to cool that hot Contention of her blood, which he foresaw That heavy news would from her anger draw, To quench with the brave Christian's death, he sent Him living to her, that her anger, spent In flaming torments, might not settle in The dregs of discontent. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... remained very slim and lean in his threadbare coat, and his face began to turn yellow amidst all the drudgery and worry of teaching; but Quenu grew up plump and merry, a little dense, indeed, and scarce able to read or write, but endowed with high spirits which nothing could ruffle, and which filled the big gloomy room in the Rue Royer ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... ring-streaked horse and ride scores of miles to Simlatown to confer with the lieutenant-governor on matters of state, or assure the viceroy that his sword was at the service of the queen-empress. Then the viceroy would cause a ruffle of drums to be sounded and the ring-streaked horse and the cavalry of the state—two men in tatters—and the herald who bore the Silver Stick before the king would trot back to their own place, which was between the tail of a heaven-climbing glacier ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... prosperous circumstances had his bands made entirely of point lace, or of fine lawn edged with point lace; and as he wore them in society as well as in court, he was constantly requiring a fresh supply of them. Few accidents were more likely to ruffle a Templar's equanimity than a mishap to his band occurring through his own inadvertence or carelessness on the part of a servant. At table the pieces of delicate lace-work were exposed to many dangers. Continually were they stained with wine or soiled with gravy, and the young ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... verandah are hung two little AEolian harps, which at the least ruffle of the breeze running through their blades of grass, emit a gentle tinkling sound, like the harmonious murmur of a brook; outside, to the very furthest limits of the distance, the cicalas continue their great and everlasting concert; over our heads, on the black ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... "Ruffle his hair, Turkey. Now you get down, too. 'The bleatin' of the kid excites the tiger.' You two are in such a sweatin' wax with me that you only curse. 'Member that. I'll tickle you up with a stump. You'll have ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... go about my private meditations, Ha, but such companions as you must ruffle me? you had best go ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... side the moment she had finished a hurried toilet. She got herself impatiently into a wrapper of dark red cashmere, which fastened at the waist with cords and heavy tassels. A little ruffle of lace bound her throat, and her feet were thrust into dainty slippers, her beautiful hair hung in two long braids down her back, making a perfect picture of her en deshabille. She walked stealthily to the door of the sick room, and seeing the dim eyes of her loved invalid ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... his feet; his face was white under the tan, and the ruffle round his wrist trembled as he leaned heavily with his fingers ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... no Miracles, and who can no where, and upon no Occasion, quit one Grain of his refin'd Foppery, unless in a Duel, or a Battle, if ever his Stars should be so severe and ill-manner'd, to reduce him to the Necessity of either: Fear then would ruffle that fine Form he had so long preserv'd in nicest Order, with Grief considering, that an unlucky Chance-wound in his Face, if such a dire Misfortune should befal him, would spoil the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... room. He led Helen to the bedside, and turning back the sheet, exposed the venerable features composed into everlasting repose. Helen did not recoil or tremble as she gazed. She even hushed her sobs, as if fearing to ruffle the inexpressible placidity of that dreamless rest. Every trace of harshness was removed from the countenance, and a serene melancholy reigned in its stead. A smile far more gentle than she ever wore in life, lingered on the ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Henderson, approvingly. "Now then, the first thing to do is to make the mother go back into the coop. Here, Mrs. Biddy, take a bit of this nice corn." He flung out a kernel or two to the hen, whose feathers that had started up in a ruffle and fluff, at sight of Joel, now drooped, and her excited ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... Beaton's cookery-book with a bang, rose from her seat at the table, and opening the window sat down where the wind could ruffle her hair and cool her ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... which gave way to fanciful "keys" running up the sides of the dress (where they seemed to have no possible right); and those vanished when double skirts commenced their brief reign; to be dethroned by a severe-looking quilted ruffle marching around the hem of the dress and up the centre to the throat; and this grave adornment suddenly found its place usurped by an inundation of fantastic trimmings, jet, bugles, passementerie, velvet or lace. So ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... absorbing, but we can all sit hard on him and perhaps put him in his place," responded Letitia Cockrell, as she drew a fine thread through a ruffle she was making to adorn some part of the person of one of Nell's progeny. "I do not believe in ever allowing a man to take more than his share of ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... virtues launched that one little word, and were clearly expressed in it. The graces, too, for once in a way went hand in hand with the virtues. Never was a "Yes" so sweetly spoken since the earth rose out of the sea. In a word, there was no ruffle of the great passion which these two, man and woman, had trodden beneath their feet. She did not hint of Iphigenia; he borrowed no plumes from Don Quixote. Nor need one fancy that their contentment was all counterfeit. ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... plain-featured lad, uninteresting except to the parental eye; the younger a beauty, a bewitching, plump, curly-headed cherub of four years, with widely-opened grey eyes and a Cupid's bow of a mouth. Margot let Jim pass by with a nod, but her hand stretched out involuntarily to stroke Pat's cheek, and ruffle his ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... [legal terms] disorderly person; disorderly persons offence; misdemeanor. [moral disorder] slattern, slut (libertine) 962. V. be disorderly &c adj.; ferment, play at cross-purposes. put out of order; derange &c 61; ravel &c 219; ruffle, rumple. Adj. disorderly, orderless; out of order, out of place, out of gear; irregular, desultory; anomalous &c (unconformable) 83; acephalous^, deranged; aimless; disorganized; straggling; unmethodical, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... finished. I planned so much. Life runs, Francesco, while one sits and thinks. Nothing finished. My manuscripts—do with them what you will. I could not even write like other men—this poor left hand." He lifted the filmy lace ruffle falling across his hand. He smiled ironically at the costly folds, as they fluttered from his fingers. "A man is poor who has few wants. Then I have not been poor. But there is nothing left. It will be ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... wi' sic a bonnie bird? I fear me its plumes ye will ruffle sairly; Or bring it low down to the lane kirkyard, Where blossoms o' grace ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... mustered Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon: But the flock sat on, divinely flustered, Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon With such content in every snuffle, As the devil inside us loves to ruffle. My old fat woman purred with pleasure, And thumb round thumb went twirling faster, While she, to his periods keeping measure, Maternally devoured the pastor. The man with the handkerchief untied it, Showed us a horrible wen inside it, Gave his eyelids yet another ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... my youth are crost, My health is flown, my vigour lost; My soothing friends augment my pain, And cheerless is my native plain; Dark o'er my spirit hangs the gloom, And thy disdain has fix'd my doom. But light gales ruffle o'er the sea, Which soon shall bear me far from thee; And wherefoe'er our course is cast, I know will bear me to my rest. Full deep beneath the briny wave, Where rest the venturous and brave, A place may ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... wind that swept down from the City of the Great King that night to ruffle the bosom of distant Galilee, tarried in the forest awhile to say that it had seen that day a cross upraised on Calvary,—the tree on which was stretched the body of ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... circumstances have conspired to disturb the quiet of my mind, however, they could only ruffle the surface. Through Christ, I enjoy settled peace.—In the course of discussion in the Leaders' Meeting I was given to see the amiableness of the meekness of wisdom, which was exhibited by one of our leaders. I came home praying for more of it, feeling greater love for the ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... attire for a token: Mark, then, the stomacher's scarlet, that sets off the arch of her bosom, Prettily laced, and the bodice of black fitting close to her figure; Neatly the edge of her kerchief is plaited into a ruffle, Which with a simple grace her chin's rounded outline encircles; Freely and lightly rises above it the head's dainty oval; And her luxuriant hair over silver bodkins is braided; Down from under her bodice, the full, blue petticoat falling, Wraps itself, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... it should be about all the distractions and petty annoyances that disturb human life and harass our hearts. A very little breath of wind will ruffle all the surface of a shallow pond, though it would sweep across the deep sea and produce no effect. Deepen your natures by close union with Christ, and absolute submission to Him, and there will be a great calm in them, and cares and sorrows, and all the external ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... him a careful slave, but Katy enjoyed teasing him and made him ruffle up his feathers angrily a ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... preferred to his brother, he never recognized duty as duty. This young life was innocent of anything which suggested routine; order for him was a happen-so or an of-course result of his mother's or John's efforts; the details necessary for neatness were never allowed to ruffle his ease nor to interfere with his impulses. The Stoneleighs' home was a generous pile, locally magnificent, but our young scion's fine, front room was perennially a clutter. From his birth up, Henry was never taught the rudiments of responsibility. His boyhood, however, was not unattractive. ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... looking men wandering around our campus at night," said Rose, lazily straightening a ruffle on ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... malice, pride, cruelty, revenge, undutifulness in their words and actions? Are they seduced to lewdness or scandalous marriages? It is all by our servants. Nay, the very mistakes, follies, blunders, and absurdities of those in our service, are able to ruffle and discompose the mildest nature, and are often of such consequence, as to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... Saturday night no play, and no work except such as is immediately preparatory to the Sabbath, were deemed becoming in good Christians. The clothes had been laid out the night before. Nothing was forgotten. The best frock was ready; the hose and shoes were waiting. Every article of linen, every ruffle and ribbon, were selected on Saturday night. Every one in the house walked mildly. Every one spoke in a low tone. Yet all were cheerful. The mother had on her kindest face, and nobody laughed, but everybody made it up in smiling. The nurse smiled, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... downhill, and the children felt one soft puff after another slip and sidle down the slope in fragrant breaths that baffed on their eyelids. The little whisper of the sea by the cliffs joined with the whisper of the wind over the grass, the hum of insects in the thyme, the ruffle and rustle of the flock below, and a thickish mutter deep in the very chalk beneath them. Mr Dudeney stopped explaining, and went on with his knitting. They were roused by voices. The shadow had crept halfway down the steep side of Norton Pit, and on the edge of it, his back to them, Puck sat beside ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... youth, were need of it to come: a slight, dark-skinned man, clean-featured, lean-cheeked, full-lipped, with restless dark eyes, thin, olive-tinted hands, black hair, worn overlong, parted in the manner of a maid and falling upon his brow in glossy waves, which he would ruffle into disorder, with the air of knowing what he was about. He was clad all in black, for the reason, he said, that he aspired to holy orders: well-kept black, edged with linen of the whitest, and not ill cut, according ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... ruffle. The handkerchief was bad enough, but a lace ruffle with that gown would have ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... already. Fortu, shall we sail there together And see from the sides 210 Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts Where the siren abides? Shall we sail round and round them, close over The rocks, tho' unseen, That ruffle the grey glassy water To glorious green? Then scramble from splinter to splinter, Reach land and explore, On the largest, the strange square black turret With never a door, 220 Just a loop to admit the quick ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... his right ruffle. "'Gad so, Morton, you're a brave fellow," said he; "but I wish you were less of a hero and more of a scholar. I wish you could beat him in Greek as well as in boxing. I will tell you what Old Rowley said," and my uncle occupied the next quarter of an hour with a story. The story opened ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to work house-cleaning. I wanted to go and spend the day with the hens, singing over that little dozy ca-a-a-a they do, in the sun, and stretch one leg and one wing till they most broke off, and ruffle up all my feathers and let 'em settle back very slow, and ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... for the bandy-legged man! He could not ruffle and swagger it off as Gaston Carew had done of old; a London apprentice was harder nuts than his cowardly ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... suit, with the coat tails falling to his knees behind, the body cut square to the hips, and the collar raised high upon his stock of white enamelled English leather. His low-buttoned vest exposed his shirt-buttons of crystal and gilt, and a ruffle, ironed by Roxy's slender hands with nimble touches, parted down the middle like sea foam on shell, and similar ruffles at the wrists were clasped by chain buttons of pearl and silver. His vest was of figured Marseilles stuff, and gaiters of the same material partly covered his shoes; ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... her little silver handbell for the hall. There, of course, Master Page had been engulfed in the galimafre, and not only forming one of the swarm around the pedlar, but was actually aping courtly grimaces as he tried a delicate lace ruffle on the hand of a silly little smirking maiden, no older than himself! But this little episode was, like many others, overlooked by Madame de Quinet, as her eye fell upon the little figure of Rayonette standing ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... flushed and her eyes dropped a little in the face of my appearance of sternness, but she answered with the same ineffable sweetness, as though she were seeking to impress upon me that persecution could not ruffle the temper of one of her faith. "I should have to give up the plan, of course. But," she murmured, "I should still be a Christian Scientist. I could not ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... I pity so much, for the poor child dislikes her cousin, and she is said to have consented against her will. We shall see if she really does marry him. Altogether, it is most annoying, and must ruffle our happy intercourse with the French family for ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... slept And could not hear him; but I heard him say, "Poor child, poor child": and as he turned away Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept. He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold That hid my face, or take my hand in his, Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head: He did not love me living; but once dead He pitied me; and very sweet it is To know he still is ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... embrace, taking a singularly long ramble with no other companion than a young gentleman, whom he did not exactly expect to see; all these are circumstances, individually perhaps slight, and yet, encountered collectively, it may be doubted they would not a little ruffle even the sweetest temper. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Army or Navy officers hadn't been doing any hard work that would ruffle the neatness of their uniforms," finished Tom triumphantly, "and there you are! I can dress up on Sundays or holidays, but on the work days, when I'm a civil engineer, I want to wear clothes that show that I'm not afraid to tackle the rough and ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... was the first conclusion. "She is quite too handsome; she cannot have those looks without knowing it. Better have brought a plain face to Fiji, than a spirit of vanity. Hair done as if she was just come out of a hair-dresser's!—hum—ruffle all down the neck of her dress—flowing sleeves too, and ruffles round them. And a buckle in her belt—a gold buckle, I do believe. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... his clear, high voice could easily be heard by Tom, for there was no wind, or at least only a little, to ruffle the water of the lake. Tom heard, and he knew what Bunny meant. Very carefully he sat down on one of the ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest-A-While • Laura Lee Hope
... enraptured Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, who saw not, neither heard, and who longed for no further taste of heaven than this stupendous triumph which she had won for herself and the girl. Her heavy, unshapely form was squeezed into a marvelous costume of gold brocade. A double ballet ruffle of stiff white tulle encircled it about the hips as a drapery. The bodice was of heavy gold net. A pleated band of pale moire, in a delicate shade of pink, crossed the left shoulder and was caught at the waist ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... was caught up around her in airy draperies—nothing stiff or frilled about her: all was soft and flowing, from the falling sleeve that showed the fair curve of her arm to the fold of her dress, the ruffle under which her little foot was tapping, impatiently now. A little white hat with a curling blue feather shaded her face—a face I won't trust myself to describe, save by saying that it was the brightest and truest, as I then ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... pulled through the pocket-hole of the petticoat. At that time, ladies of all ages wore their dresses low and square at the neck, edged with a tucker of nett or lace; the sleeves ended at the elbows with a little white ruffle of similar material to the tucker. In London, the low head-dress was coming into fashion; but country ladies still wore the high commode, a superb erection of lace and muslin, from one to three feet in height. Long black silk mittens were drawn up to meet the sleeves. The shoes reached ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... pains to make her letters interesting to the receiver. She writes, "I shall live for the purpose of loving you. I abandon my life to that occupation." It is affecting to note the agitation of the mother at every ruffle on the life of the daughter. In tracing the thoughts, feelings, events, that vibrated across the relation between them, one can hardly escape the conviction, that the soul of the younger friend was ideally superimposed on the self-abnegating soul of the elder friend, and governed it, as the ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... encountered other patrols and exchanged with them the agreed countersign. They came to the hills on the river banks and through a long pass reached the Nile. The people and the camels embarked upon wide and flat "dahabeahs," and soon the heavy oars began with measured movements to break and ruffle the smooth river's depth, strewn with ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... impression on a beholder. The sky was hazy; the air thick and oppressive, from the heat of the sun acting upon the dense medium of a mist that hung on the water; there was not a breath of wind to ruffle the surface of the calm deep; the only sound heard was the whizzing of the air-pump, and the clang of the apparatus by which it was worked. There was nothing seen of the bell; it was far down in the bosom of the deep. The chain, by which it was suspended, dipped into the sea and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... Lucy Lee. She's changed to an afternoon costume, sort of an old blue effect with not a frill or a ruffle in sight but with everything toned in, from the spider-webby hat to the suede slippers. And all she has to do to bring Peyton alongside is to ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... immaculate young person, with eyes half-closed, lying back in the arm-chair— one which he had brought from his own room—was "Ruffle-shirt" Tomlins. He was the only member who dressed every day for dinner, whether he was going out afterward or not—spike-tailed coat, white tie and all. Tomlins not only knew intimately a lady of high degree who owned a box at the Academy of Music, in Fourteenth Street, and who invited him ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... "Rambler" shook out her snowy sails and flitted away to Bermuda, there was nothing left to ruffle the still waters of oblivion which had closed over Randall Clayton. Only upon the face of Robert Wade, Esq., lingered now an anxious ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... and began whittling at a fragment of board. Then she tore several yards of ruffle from her white petticoat, cut his trouser leg off below the knee, cut the lacings of his boot, and bandaged his broken leg to the splint she had made. All that was against a series of most courteous protests, made in a ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... my ruffle stained With grease from my new telescope! Ach, to-morrow How Caroline will be vexed, although she grows Almost as bad as I, who cannot leave My work-shop for one evening. I must give One last recital ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... again tried to smother that tiresome little yawn, which seemed most distressing, when he desired to be most polite. Then he flicked off a grain of dust from his immaculate lace ruffle and buried his long, slender hands in the capacious pockets of his white satin breeches; finally he said with ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... what is evil in you, that it may be conquered. Do not understand me to mean that you should ever seek those who may harm you. But a day can hardly pass over our heads, that we do not meet with persons who ruffle that harmony of soul we so labour after. It is keenly felt when one is as young in a better life as you are. You need strength, and then you will be calm and even. Time, patience, combating, prayer, good-will to man, must bring your soul to order, ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... train, lest it should chance to trip up her heels, or incommode her, as she walks to and fro upon the stage. It is, in my opinion, a very odd spectacle to see a queen venting her passion in a disordered motion, and a little boy taking care all the while that they do not ruffle the tail of her gown. The parts that the two persons act on the stage at the same time are very different. The princess is afraid lest she should incur the displeasure of the king her father, or lose the hero, her lover, whilst her attendant is ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... is another thing that equally puzzles me. There is not the slightest rolling or pitching. How is it that Pamlico Sound is so extraordinarily calm? The varying currents continuously ruffle the surface of the Sound, even if nothing ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... own musical laugh; even the imputation of dependency and helplessness which is apt to ruffle most people fell back harmlessly from his impenetrable good-humor. "I dare say it does look very absurd. But you ought to have lived with him as long as I have done to understand how naturally Royston gains his influence, and makes us ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... will unblushingly thrust itself into companionship with a handsome English horse, whose owner is graced by the most unexceptionable habit and other appliances. Even the very donkeys walk along with dignified resolution, as if determined to ruffle it with the best, and not yield an inch of their prerogative. In fact, they evidently know their own value, and remember that not one of the hills around—not the giant tree on the heights of Lugliano, nor the tempting ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... except for the parallel stripes. It has but one foot webbed; so it swims in a circle and can be easy shot by the sportsman, who first baits it with snuff that it will go miles to get. Another wild beast they had him hunting was the filo, which is like the ruffle snake, except that it has a thing like a table leg in its ear. It gets up on a hill and peeks over at you, but will never come in to lunch. The boys said they nearly had one over on Grizzly Peak one time, but it swallowed its tail and become invisible to the human eye, though they ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... in each other's footsteps. The hare's track when running is two holes abreast and then two single ones. The fox runs rather like a dog. The squirrel hops two feet at a time, often leaving a slight ruffle on the snow as he swishes his tail. Among the cembra trees in the Engadine the snow may be sprinkled with the nuts out of the cones. They are delicious eating, being very like the Italian stone pine nut, or pinelli, and they attract the squirrels as ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... not broken to public life and he doesn't ruffle well, that's all; and, after all, it isn't every man who enjoys being called a liar to his face and before ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... dancing to the god of laughter; mylady of the pink-tea circle, in her huffing, puffing gasoline-car, fleeing the monster of ennui; the bride and bridegroom at the altar or before the mayor putting on their already heavy-ruffled garments the sacred ruffle of law or religion; the babe brought to church by his mother and kindred to have the priest-tailor sew on his new garment the ruffle of baptism; the soldier in his gaudy uniform; the king in his ermine with a crown and sceptre appended; the Nabob of Ind ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... if you please, Nod your heads and ruffle your wings, Marching in order or standing at ease, Frolicsome fairies are dear little things! Golden the grain and silver the rice, Pleasant the crumbs from Mama's own bread, Currants pick'd out of the pudding are nice— Fairies, fairies, come and ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... us again this morning. It seems exceedingly difficult to tell one night before what the tide is going to do the next morning. At ten o'clock we walked to the same place we were yesterday. It was a bright, warm day, with just enough breeze to ruffle the water and make fishing pleasant, and we certainly expected to have good luck. But we fished for about three hours without any sign of a fish. This was discouraging and we could not account ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... jumped hand in hand over the sword, the drum beating a ruffle; and the parties were ever after considered as man ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... is evenness of temper. In the wooing days everyone is a lamb, and only becomes the howling wolf after marriage. Circumstances that ruffle the temper in the presence of the intended are but like the harmless squib, but would become like the explosive torpedo in his or her absence or in after-marriage. Quarreling caused by matrimonial differences is the most ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... slippery passageway between the two lines of counters. Head down, the smaller woman rushed full tilt into her taller and sturdier antagonist. It was a shock of nerve on muscle. Dolores was scarcely stirred, and the blows Rosario rained on her did not seem even to ruffle her temper. Answering in kind, she began to deliver the most merciless slaps upon the pale, bony cheeks of her assailant, which grew red under ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... in an album of Lilly much as she must have looked that night. Her white organdie frock out charmingly around her, a fluted ruffle at the low neck forming fitting calyx for the fine upward flow of her high white chest into firm, smooth throat; the enormous puff sleeves of the period ending above the elbow where her arm was roundest; ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... her— (She did so ruffle her hair; If ever she plays that trick again She'll have to be left ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... of honor over the "on dits" of the court and city. During the hours devoted to her toilet, Maria Theresa gave herself up unreservedly to enjoyment. But she was so impetuous, that her ladies of honor were never quite secure that some little annoyance would not ruffle the serenity of her temper. The young girl whose duty it was to read aloud to the empress and dress her hair, used to declare that she would sooner wade through three hours' worth of Latin dispatches from Hungary, than spend one half ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... would ruffle up wrothily with blame for my harping on that incident, as if it were a crime to hint at any weakness in ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... wholly wanting; and even when, as in 1770, such proofs abound, there is generally no lack of evidence on the other side. The Bengali bears existence with a composure that neither accident nor chance can ruffle. He becomes silently rich or uncomplainingly poor. The emotional part of his nature is in strict subjection, his resentment enduring but unspoken, his gratitude of the sort that silently descends from generation to generation. The passion for privacy reaches its climax ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... Tracts," or "Tracks," as it was usually pronounced—an epithet first given in scorn, but afterwards generally used without any unkindly feeling. Indeed, he was rather proud of it than otherwise; nor could the taunts and gibes which not unfrequently accompanied it ever ruffle in the least ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... Among the passions which ruffle the heart of man, there is one of a hot and impetuous nature, which renders the sexes necessary to each other; a terrible passion which despises all dangers, bears down all obstacles, and to which in its transports it seems proper to destroy the human ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... affinities may well show groping and contradictory tendencies. When, however, these embryonic disorders are once righted, each possible life knows its natural paradise, and what some unintelligent outsider might say in dispraise of that ideal will never wound or ruffle the self-justified creature whose ideal it is, any more than a cat's aversion to water will disturb ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... the landscape slowly faded into sombre neutral, the castle stood out black as ebony against the dying flush in the sky, the water blushed crimson for a moment, then paled to a cold greyish purple as a faint breeze began to ruffle its surface, the azure of the sky became momentarily deeper and richer and more purple in tone, and presently, out from the clear cerulean depths started into view the planet Venus, beaming down upon us with a soft, silvery, lambent radiance, and ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... thy Breath, thou breeze of night! Oh! ruffle not those lids of Snow; For only Morning's cheering light May wake ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... plans," I acknowledged with a lack of cordiality that failed to ruffle him. He had hung up his overcoat and installed himself facing me, and was now making preparations ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... dark-blue velvet, came to his knees, and were held together at the waist by a blue silk sash, whose lace- tipped ends fell at his left side. He wore a blue velvet jacket, with a tastefully embroidered lace ruffle around the neck. The round, rosy face, with the ruby lips, the dimple in the chin, the large blue eyes, shaded by long, dark lashes, and crowned by the broad, lofty brow, was rimmed around with a profusion of golden hair, which fell in long, heavy locks upon his shoulders and over his ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... Catherine added to Frieda's gloom. They went into the dining-car to breakfast, where Frieda was so unfortunate as to be shot from her seat as the train dashed around a curve, a glass of milk following her, anointing her hair and face in a manner calculated to ruffle the serenest temper. Hannah and the too friendly waiter helped her up with an effort at self-control, but Frieda had ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... been fairly tested," admitted Sir Manuel, "since the sea was serene, the sky brilliant, and the breeze insufficient to ruffle the water." ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... great drops fell upon my paper and upon my hat, and a rush of dark wind almost swept me from the log upon which I sat. Then again all was a perfect calm, and the young leaves over the stream hung heavily on their tender foot-stalks, and the points of the breeze-swept grass turned back, and the ruffle of all things smoothed itself. But there seemed to be a sense of fear in the waiting silence ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... the lane that led out from the park gate into the country. Claybrook turned and asked her how she liked the car. His low, direct tone and intent gaze made her uncomfortable, made her nerves ruffle up in a most irritating manner. But she controlled herself and answered lightly, "Oh, ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... curtains with applique borders cut from flowered cretonne; sometimes the cretonne is applique on net which is let into the curtain with a four-inch hem at the bottom and sides. A simpler style has a band of flowered muslin sewed on the white muslin, or used as a ruffle. It is also added to the valance. There are many kinds of net and lace curtains ready for use that will harmonize with any kind of room. Some of the expensive ones are really beautiful examples of needlecraft, with lace medallions ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... down the throats of certain persons who drank wine contrary to his commands. He was manifestly sincere in thinking himself humane, and when speaking of the most atrocious cruelties perpetrated by himself, it does not seem to ruffle in the least the self-complacency with which he regards his own humanity and piety. In one place he says, "I never undertook anything but I commenced it placing my faith on God"—and he adds soon after, "the people of Shiraz took part with Shah Mansur, and put my governor ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... noted again his snowy, waving hair, thin only on his pink crown. It shone like silk. He still kept a soft flush of unimpaired health and an air of inner cleanness equal to that which showed outwardly from gaitered shoes to the bell-crowned beaver in his hand. She observed the wide cambric ruffle that ran down his much-displayed, much-pleated shirt-front. His stiff, high stock was tied with a limp white bow-knot. His standing collar covered half of either cheek. He wore a jewelled breastpin and a heavy gold fob-chain ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... that the whole atmosphere seemed to tremble and quiver, while everything else was motionless. Not a breath of air was stirring to wave the grass or to ruffle the surface of the great land-drains, whose waters shone like molten silver; while the road was powdered into an almost impalpable dust, which rose in clouds as the horse's hoofs beat and the wheels ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... mouth, like that belonging to Hookbeak, the hawk, who sometimes passed over the garden, and such bright yellow and black piercing eyes, that as soon as Bluescrags felt their glance meet his, he turned all of a shiver, and his feathers began to ruffle up as though he were wet. But there was no time to shiver or shake, for the great bird was coming after him at a terrible rate, every beat of his pointed wings sending him dashing through the air, and in another moment ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... Volpone whom we have all seen—at least such of us as be old Boys—in Ben Jonson's play of the Fox. He Money-grubbed, and Money-clutched, and Money-wrung, ay, and in a manner Money-stole, that he might live largely, and ruffle it among his brother Cits in surpassing state and splendour. He had been Lord Mayor; and on his Show-day the Equipments of chivalry had been more Sumptuous, the Banners more varied, the Entertainment ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... that which had brought the housekeeper to Orham, was now seldom mentioned. In fact, Captain Eri had almost entirely ceased to ruffle Jerry's feelings with reference to it. Mrs. Snow, of course, said nothing about it. But, for that matter, she said very little about herself or ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... you'd listen with soul and with heart, You never would ruffle a feather Of the dear little birds that make our glad world a part, For all are ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... "surely the malady of your friend has somewhat affected your understanding. We can have no right to interfere with the actions of my father, particularly as I have already told you some accidents have occurred lately to ruffle his temper." ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... with your composure, that the rugged cares and disturbance that public affairs brings with it, which does so vexatiously affect the heads of other great men of business, &c. does scarce ever ruffle your unclouded brow so much as with a frown. And what above all is praiseworthy, you are so far from thinking yourself better than others, that a flourishing and opulent fortune, which by a certain natural corruption ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, 220 To stir men's blood: I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know; Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor poor dumb mouths, And bid them speak for me: but were I Brutus, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 225 Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue In every wound of Caesar, that should move The stones of ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... back into his face. Nor would he enjoy being beaten. Greater than any value he would set on the ownership of the March Hare would loom the consciousness that he had been defeated, balked by a lot of schoolboys, by one boy in particular. The incident would ruffle his vanity ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... rays reappeared on the summit of every wave, as if the god of fire had just sunk upon the bosom of Amphitrite, who in vain endeavored to hide her lover beneath her azure mantle. The yacht moved rapidly on, though there did not appear to be sufficient wind to ruffle the curls on the head of a young girl. Standing on the prow was a tall man, of a dark complexion, who saw with dilating eyes that they were approaching a dark mass of land in the shape of a cone, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with misrepresentations of the President's course, but they failed to ruffle him. On his asking if I was taking any part in the campaign, I referred to a speech that I had made on the Fourth of July in Leipsic, and another to the Cornell University students just before my departure, with the remark that I felt that a foreign diplomatic ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... the opinion that, clad in a new suit of fashionable make, he could ruffle it with the best of the young bloods about town. He was now all in a fever to be off. He selected for his attendant a young groom, with whom he had long been more intimate than his father approved. His mother in vain besought him to take faithful old John, or ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... chests, wherein to meet the knights. The fair women made haste enow. Their cheeks needed little false colour. They wore fillets of bright gold on their heads, fashioned like rich wreaths, that the wind might not ruffle their beautiful hair. They ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... difficulties. The Chinese derive such strength from their four hundred millions, the toughness of their national customs, their power of passive resistance, and their unrivalled national cohesiveness—in spite of the civil wars, which merely ruffle the surface—that they can afford to despise military methods, and to wait till the feverish energy of their oppressors shall have exhausted itself ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... their mother was not with them. They went and returned under Martin's convoy, and till about half way on their way home again all went satisfactorily. Then unfortunately occurred the first ruffle. Maudie had been walking on in front with little Duke, Hoodie and Hec, each with a hand of Martin, behind, ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... ne'er surrender; unstrap thy trunks, Excuse this scalding tear. Still be Yale's best defender! Linger, oh, linger, Heffelfinger. Princeton and Harvard, there is cause to fear Will dance joy's double shuffle when of thy Western flight they come to hear. Stay and their tempers ruffle. Linger, ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... patrols and exchanged with them the agreed countersign. They came to the hills on the river banks and through a long pass reached the Nile. The people and the camels embarked upon wide and flat "dahabeahs," and soon the heavy oars began with measured movements to break and ruffle the smooth river's ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... rather short, but broad-shouldered and well knit, with an expressive hand, which looked slender and delicate below the fine lace ruffle. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... are hung two little AEolian harps, which at the least ruffle of the breeze running through their blades of grass, emit a gentle tinkling sound, like the harmonious murmur of a brook; outside, to the very furthest limits of the distance, the cicalas continue their great and everlasting concert; over our heads, on the black roof, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... covered and drawn up in what are called festoons, with light wreaths of beautiful flowers; the sleeves white crape, drawn over silk, with a row of lace round the sleeve near the shoulder, another half way down the arm, and a third upon the top of the ruffle, a little flower stuck between; a kind of hat-cap, with three large feathers, and a bunch of flowers; a wreath ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... uninteresting except to the parental eye; the younger a beauty, a bewitching, plump, curly-headed cherub of four years, with widely-opened grey eyes and a Cupid's bow of a mouth. Margot let Jim pass by with a nod, but her hand stretched out involuntarily to stroke Pat's cheek, and ruffle his ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... bursting of projectiles, and a horrid rattle of musketry from different quarters which are appalling. A more lovely day it would be impossible to imagine, a sky of unusual brightness, blue as the clearest ever seen, a sun of surpassing brilliancy even for Paris, scarcely a breath of wind to ruffle the Seine. Such of the great buildings as the spreading conflagration has not reached stand in the clearest relief as they are seen for probably the last time; but in a dozen spots, at both sides of the bridges, sheets of flame and awful volumes of smoke rise to the sky and ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... destroying the higher life in all. The Chancellors of the Exchequer gaily repeat the significant figures which give the revenue from alcohol; the optimist says that times are mending; the comfortable gentry who mount the pulpits do not generally care to ruffle the fine dames by talking about unpleasant things—and all the while the curse is gaining, and the betting, scoffing, degraded crew of drinkers are sliding merrily to destruction. Some are able to keep on the ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... converse opinion of the birds in regard to the young Herr Strauss: from whom, notwithstanding his training in the care of their kind, they always flew away, and whose mere presence in the shop sufficed to make every bird ruffle himself and to chirp angrily in his cage. Yet Herr Strauss was most agreeable in his manners, and was a very personable young man. As for his riches, they spoke for themselves in his fine attire ...
— An Idyl Of The East Side - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... homestead and farm, and laid by enough for a comfortable old age? Not one! She therefore was justified in respecting herself and exacting respect from others, and it pleased me that she should have satisfaction as well in my advancement. But she did ruffle me sometimes by seeking to manage my business for me—she never for a moment doubting that it was within her ability to make a much better major than I was—and by ever and anon selecting some Valley maiden for me to marry. This last became a veritable infliction, so that I finally ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... is steeply inclined, but it is perfectly unbroken. There are no lateral waves, no ripples with their breaking bubbles to raise a murmur; while the depth is here too great to allow the inequality of the bed to ruffle the surface. Nothing can be more beautiful than this sloping liquid mirror formed by the Niagara, in sliding from ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... appearance and manners, ensured me a welcome in the best houses of Seville. Here I took that share of our business which my master could not take, for now he never mixed among the fashion of the city. Money I was supplied with in abundance so that I could ruffle it with the best, but soon it became known that I looked to business as well as to pleasure. Often and often during some gay ball or carnival, a lady would glide up to me and ask beneath her breath if Don Andres de Fonseca would consent to see ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... is prepared for further losses; he has adjusted himself to the fact of death. At first, we cannot believe that it can happen to us and to our love; or, if the thought comes to us, it is an event too far in the future to ruffle the calm surface of our heart. And yet, it must come; from it none can escape. Most can remember a night of waiting, too stricken for prayer, too numb of heart even for feeling, vaguely expecting the blow to strike us out of the dark. A strange sense of the unreality ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... Swum halfway already. Fortu, shall we sail there together And see from the sides 210 Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts Where the siren abides? Shall we sail round and round them, close over The rocks, tho' unseen, That ruffle the grey glassy water To glorious green? Then scramble from splinter to splinter, Reach land and explore, On the largest, the strange square black turret With never a door, 220 Just a loop to admit the quick lizards; Then, stand there and hear The birds' quiet ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... was sentenced the other day," he said humbly, as if fearing to ruffle the temper of the officer, who seemed to be interested ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... two little AEolian harps, which, at the least ruffle of the breeze running through their blades of grass, emit a gentle tinkling sound, like the harmonious murmur of a brook; outside, to the very farthest limits of the distance, the cicalas continue their sonorous and never-ending concert; over our heads, on the black roof, is heard passing, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... such old-world superstitions. As you say, they couldn't get through the ice now if they would, without cutting a hole; and when the ice grows weak, will be time enough for you to worry. Take another ruffle to your night-cap, Tom, and you youngsters had better get to bed, and prepare to take to the ice at six o'clock, after a cup of hot coffee and a lunch of sandwiches. Here's luck all ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... or state you please, for all that I will keep my soul content. Is any misadventure big enough to ruffle my peace, or to make my mind mean, craving and servile? What is there that can ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... by west half west to north-east half east. At six o'clock we were nearly midway between them and about 6 leagues distant from each shore when we fell in with a coral bank, on which we had only four feet water, without the least break on it or ruffle of the sea to give us warning. I could see that it extended about a mile on each side of us, but as it is probable that it may extend much further I have laid it ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... concluding the whole matter, "I am going to do it." And, having thus "consulted" me, Polly goes away; and I put in the turnip-seeds quite thick, determined to raise enough to sell. But not even this mercenary thought can ruffle my mind as I rake off the loamy bed. I notice, however, that the spring smell has gone out of the dirt. That went into the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... A neck-ruffle originally worn by QUEEN ELIZABETH has been stolen from a house in Manchester and has not yet been recovered. Any reader noticing a suspicious-looking person wearing such an article over her decollete should immediately communicate with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... best cloth suit, with the coat tails falling to his knees behind, the body cut square to the hips, and the collar raised high upon his stock of white enamelled English leather. His low-buttoned vest exposed his shirt-buttons of crystal and gilt, and a ruffle, ironed by Roxy's slender hands with nimble touches, parted down the middle like sea foam on shell, and similar ruffles at the wrists were clasped by chain buttons of pearl and silver. His vest was of figured Marseilles stuff, and gaiters of ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... you're such a dear little innocent baby. Of course, I can quite understand. And does she suppose I'll ruffle her pretty little feathers? No, not I. I'd rather invent a new cradle song ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... you'll leave my father nothin' to say. You're keepin' all the black prophecies to yourself. Why don't you rise up, man alive," she added, turning to him, "and let her hear how much of the divil's lingo you can give?—It's hard, if you can't prophesy as much evil as she can. Shake yourself, ruffle your feathers, or clap your wings three times, in the divil's name, an' tell her she'll be hanged; or, if you wish to soften it, say she'll go to Heaven in a string. ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... procession the lighter missiles from their war engines had sung up through the air, and split against a building, and thrown splinters which wounded those who thronged the streets. Still there had been nothing to ruffle the nerves of any one at all used to the haps of warfare, or in any way to hinder our courtship. But presently, it seems, they stopped hurling stones from their war engines, and took to loading them with carcases of wood lined ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... usually run in each other's footsteps. The hare's track when running is two holes abreast and then two single ones. The fox runs rather like a dog. The squirrel hops two feet at a time, often leaving a slight ruffle on the snow as he swishes his tail. Among the cembra trees in the Engadine the snow may be sprinkled with the nuts out of the cones. They are delicious eating, being very like the Italian stone pine nut, or pinelli, and they attract the squirrels as much as ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... covered with fringed, drooping eyelashes. She had braids of dark hair wreathed around her head, a soft pink color in her cheeks, and a rosebud mouth, womanly, fresh, and lovely. Kate was clad in a pink muslin dress, with a tiny white ruffle around her white throat. She was armed with four steely needles, which were so many bright arrows that pierced my heart through and through. Over her fingers glided a small blue thread, which proceeded from the ball of yarn I ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... on his pink crown. It shone like silk. He still kept a soft flush of unimpaired health and an air of inner cleanness equal to that which showed outwardly from gaitered shoes to the bell-crowned beaver in his hand. She observed the wide cambric ruffle that ran down his much-displayed, much-pleated shirt-front. His stiff, high stock was tied with a limp white bow-knot. His standing collar covered half of either cheek. He wore a jewelled breastpin and a heavy gold fob-chain and seal. In his too delicate hand, along ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... am not skilful enough, and that my fingers wander in unnecessary places; she gets fidgety, leaves me, tears the breeches, and manages in her own way. Then I help her to put her shoes on, and I pass the shirt over her head, but as I am disposing the ruffle and the neck-band, she complains of my hands being too curious; and in truth, her bosom was rather scanty. She calls me a knave and rascal, but I take no notice of her. I was not going to be duped, and I thought that a woman who had ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... hard, persistent sort, that interferes with sight and respiration, and makes the eyes sore. Even such winds as these have their own merit in proper time and place. It is pleasant to see them brandish great masses of shadow. And what a power they have over the colour of the world! How they ruffle the solid woodlands in their passage, and make them shudder and whiten like a single willow! There is nothing more vertiginous than a wind like this among the woods, with all its sights and noises; and the effect gets between some painters and their sober eyesight, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... leisure and joyous comraderie that Grant had seen; indeed the only leisurely person whom Kenyon saw in his life until he was—Heaven knows how old—was Rhoda Kollander. The hum and bustle of Harvey did not ruffle the calm waters of her soul. She of all the women in Harvey held to the early custom of the town of going out to ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... insincerity, or disrespect. Thus he continued to the last, not owing his virtues to the happiness of his constitution, but the frame of his mind, insomuch, that during a long sickness, which is apt to ruffle the smoothest temper; he never betrayed any discontent or uneasiness, the integrity of his life still preserving the chearfulness of his spirits; and if his friends had measured their hopes of his life, only by his unconcern in his sickness, they could not but conclude, that either his date ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... Autumn! Who rush by, who shake The window, and ruffle The gleam-lighted lake; Who cross to the hill-side Thin-sprinkled with farms, Where the high woods strip sadly Their yellowing arms— Ye are bound for the mountains! Ah! with you let me go Where your cold, distant barrier, The vast range of snow, Through the ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... were the ruffle of a passing breeze upon deep water. "So you think that I swagger to meet opportunity? Well, if I do, I get but little out of it. Sometimes I push myself near enough to pluck at the sleeve of the dame; ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... said Mary Bell, crimping a pink ruffle with careful finger-tips. "I was working on this when he came, and after he'd gone I crumpled it all up and cried all over it! Well, I guess I didn't sleep much, and finally, I got up early, and wrote a letter to Aunt Matty, in Sacramento, and ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... to rise above his nature where the odds were equal, and all men his rivals. What he did in Galway City, that bizarre, half-foreign town of the west, how long he tarried there, and whither he went afterwards, in the vain search for a place where a man could swagger without courage and ruffle it without consequences, it matters not to inquire. A time came when his kin knew not whether he ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... matter—by the ears, a wealth of long silky golden hair, which persisted in twisting itself into a most distracting conglomeration of wavy curls, and a temper which nothing—not even her mother's querulousness—could ruffle. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... on each side, watching for the grasshoppers and other insects that are frightened up as the cattle feed. On this morning there were several of them on the top of a shed. Every now and then one would ruffle out its feathers, open its wings a little, give a step or two forward towards another, stretch out its neck, open its bill, and then give rather a long squeak-like whistle. As soon as it had done this, it would hurriedly close its feathers and wings, and hold its head straight up, with its bill ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... He did not wish to ruffle his friend's temper, to be sent to the devil and told that his advice was not wanted. A little tact was necessary. But Corley's brow was soon smooth again. His thoughts ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... discovered your ruffle with Sir Willmott Burrell after the funeral," interrupted the other; "but be not afraid of meeting him: he left Cecil Place some days ago, to arrange some business. Nay, now, do not crow loudly your defiance, because I ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... in which he could have told Farnese that he cared nothing for the rank of either, and of reminding his excellency that Pagliano, being an Imperial fief, was not a place where the Duke of Parma might ruffle it unchecked. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... speech of his. A man not to be turned or trifled with. A man (I should say) who must be killed to be got out of the way. His manners, perfectly composed. We looked at one another pretty hard. There was an air of chronic anxiety upon him. But not a crease or a ruffle in his dress, and his papers were as composed as himself. (Mr. Thornton was going in to ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... Frieda's gloom. They went into the dining-car to breakfast, where Frieda was so unfortunate as to be shot from her seat as the train dashed around a curve, a glass of milk following her, anointing her hair and face in a manner calculated to ruffle the serenest temper. Hannah and the too friendly waiter helped her up with an effort at self-control, but Frieda had mislaid ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... hamperings of library authorities, and the frequently unfounded criticisms of the press, he should arm himself with a patience and equanimity that are unfailing. When he knows he is right, he should never be disturbed at complaint, nor suffer a too sensitive mood to ruffle his feelings. When there is any foundation for censure, however slight, he should learn by it and apply the remedy. The many and varied characters who come within the comprehensive sphere of the librarian ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... plainly, unbroken by any conspicuous lines. If bands must be used to remedy the deficiencies of ungenerous Nature, let them be at the neck and waist; and if the back is unconscionably long, a band, or fold, or ruffle across the ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... dark-green velvet, handsomely worked, and not meeting in front, in order to reveal a smart silk stomacher beneath; full white linen sleeves, trimmed at the elbow with broad somewhat coarse Bohemian lace; and a square collar, with a ruffle of the same to match. The cloth dress is, however, completely concealed, except a few inches at the bottom, by the huge apron, which is on all occasions considered an indispensable addition, no Tyrolese woman feeling modest without it. The dainty white knitted cotton stockings, with the large fancy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... healed the sick; and hard by he erected a little church, and round about it, at intervals, five small hermitages, wherein, with his companions, he renewed the austere and exalted life of the old anchorites, and advanced greatly in spirituality. And in order that no care or worldly thought might ruffle the sublime tranquillity of this contemplative life, the convent had charge of daily supplying the holy solitary ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... matter in praying to God, not to go too far, nor come too short in that duty. I mean in the duty of prayer, and a man is very apt to do one or the other. The Pharisee went so far, he was too bold, he came into the temple making such a ruffle with his own excellences, there was in his thoughts no need of a Mediator. He also went up so nigh to God, that he took up the room and place of the Mediator himself; but this poor Publican, he knows his distance, and kept it, and leaves room for the High Priest to come and intercede for him with ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... begin to suspect something; and 'twou'd anger us vilely to be truss'd up for a Rape upon a Maid of Quality, when we only believe we ruffle a Harlot. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... said William, her chin on her hand, as she leaned forward among the wine-glasses. Her cheeks had fallen in, and the scar on her forehead was more prominent than ever, but the well-turned neck rose roundly as a column from the ruffle of the blouse which was the accepted evening-dress ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... herself slept. It was a little place, bare enough, but very neat and clean, as all things belonging to Wealthy were sure to be. Then, she washed Eyebright's face and hands, and brushed her hair, retying the brown bow, crimping with her fingers the ruffle round Eyebright's neck, and putting on a fresh white apron to conceal the ravages of play in the school frock. Eyebright was quite able to wash her own face, but Wealthy was not willing yet to think so; she liked to do it ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... Mr. Frothingham were already at chess in the drawing-room awaiting dinner. St. George heard a snatch of distant laughter, in quick little lilts like a song, and it occurred to him that its echo there was as if one were to pin a ruffle of lace to the grim stones. Some one answered the laugh, and he heard the murmurous touching of soft skirts entering the corridor as he dived down the ancient dark of one of the musty passages. There the silence was resumed. In the palace ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... ringstraked horse and ride scores of miles to Simla-town to confer with the Lieutenant-Governor on matters of state, or to assure the Viceroy that his sword was at the service of the Queen-Empress. Then the Viceroy would cause a ruffle of drums to be sounded, and the ringstraked horse and the cavalry of the State—-two men in tatters—and the herald who bore the silver stick before the King would trot back to their own place, which lay between the tail ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... and concertos for public performance. But all the leisure that could be made or stolen was occupied in labours which proved their own reward. Straight from the concert-platform rushed the musician to his workshop, and many a lace ruffle was torn by nails or bespattered by molten pitch; to say nothing of the positive danger to which Herschel continually exposed himself by the precipitancy of his movements. For example: one Saturday evening, when the two brothers returned ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... moment a vulture appeared, with its hideous naked head and neck outstretched, making the humming-birds ruffle up again and resume their attack till they literally drove ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... the window to greet him as she generally did. She sat still, by the fire, her knitting on her knee. Her black dress was very black, with the plainest white ruffle at her throat. She looked very small and pitiful. Perhaps she meant to look it! The weak in dealing with the strong have always that ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... made his nest—the owl that used to come and sit on our school-room windowsill and hoot at night. You know, the sun-dial where the screaming peacock used to perch and spread his tail; the dove-cote, where the silver-necks and fan-tails used to coo and ruffle their feathers. You know, too, all the quaint plannings and accidents of the old house; how the fiery creeper ran riot through the ivy on the dark walls, dangling its burning wreaths over the windows; how the hall ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... 'Can you ruffle your fur when you are angry, or purr when you are pleased?' said she. And again the duckling had to admit that he could do nothing but swim, which did not seem of ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... quiet that prevails. Outward, palpable proofs of suffering are often wholly wanting; and even when, as in 1770, such proofs abound, there is generally no lack of evidence on the other side. The Bengali bears existence with a composure that neither accident nor chance can ruffle. He becomes silently rich or uncomplainingly poor. The emotional part of his nature is in strict subjection, his resentment enduring but unspoken, his gratitude of the sort that silently descends from generation to generation. The passion ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... he rendered China an invaluable service. In his earnest advocacy he appears to have used such emphatic language that the interpreter dared not repeat it, so Gordon seized a dictionary, looked up the word "idiotcy," and pointed it out to them. Far better was it, in Gordon's opinion, to ruffle the self-esteem of a few bigwigs, than to allow two great nations to drift into a war which, after an enormous sacrifice of life and much suffering, must have ended fatally for the Chinese, who were quite unable to meet ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... have guessed, none the less, that her ladyship's purse might be the real figure of the object extracted from the rustling covert at her rear—this suspicion gave on the spot to the child's eyes a direction carefully distant. It added moreover to the optimism that for an hour could ruffle the surface of her deep diplomacy, ruffle it to the point of making her forget that she had never been safe unless she had also been stupid. She in short forgot her habitual caution in her impulse to adopt her ladyship's practical interests and show her ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... harmless, and will perch on the telegraph wires or poles over the steam of the roaring locomotive. Observation has given them confidence. Thunder of wheels and immense weight in motion, the open furnace and glaring light, the faces at the long tier of windows—all these terrors do not ruffle a feather. A little boy with a wooden clapper can set a flock in retreat immediately. Now the rooks could not have acquired this confidence in the course of innumerable generations; it is not hereditary; it is purely what we understand by intelligence. Why are the rooks afraid of the little boy ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... resolution not to be offended, Captain Wragge's exasperating insensibility to every stroke she aimed at him began to ruffle her. She was conscious of some little difficulty in securing her self-possession before she ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... elation. For that day, if I survived, though the down upon my lip was as yet imperceptible, I could take my place as a man among men. No longer would my boyish face keep me out of the councils of my elders, but I would have the right to take my stand and ruffle it with the best of them all. I was there to win my spurs as a man and a duellist, and to show to all the world that I had the courage of my race. For then, as it has ever been in the fair province of ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... common people." Cardinal Wolsey to terrify the citizens of London into the general loan exacted in 1525, told them plainly, that it were better that some should suffer indigence than that the king at this time should lack, and therefore beware and resist not, nor ruffle not in the case, for it may fortune to cost some people their heads. And says Hume, when Henry VIII. heard that the commons made a great difficulty of granting the required supply, he was so provoked that he sent for Edward Montague, one ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... breath of wind to ruffle the surface of the glassy sea, as the captain of the sandal-wood trader reached the shore and uttered a low cry like the hoot of an owl. The cry was instantly replied to, and in a few minutes a boat ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... themselves in a very extraordinary way—a mere puppet, pulled by wires in the hands of another. The master showman, fully as extraordinary in his own way as his puppet, kept, while I was by, as much as possible behind the scenes. The hand and ruffle of the French petit-maitre, and the prompter's voice, however, were visible and audible enough for me. In plain English, I suppose it is no news to you to hear that Mdlle. O'Faley is a fool, and Monsieur de Connal, Captain O'Connal, Black Connal, or by whatever other alias he is ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... lying in this port, one morning at daylight we heard firing at a distance. I took a spy-glass, and from aloft could clearly see three gunboats engaged with a large ship. It was a fine, clear morning, with scarcely wind enough to ruffle the glass-like surface of the water. During the first hour or two of this engagement the gunboats had an immense advantage; being propelled both by sails and oars, they were enabled to choose their own position. While the ship lay becalmed and unmanageable they poured ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... I was likely to bring him a great deal of custom. In a little time, however, things became serious; for they, who came to see me, always started the abolition of the Slave Trade as the subject for conversation. Many entered into the justification of this trade with great warmth, as if to ruffle my temper, or at any rate to provoke me to talk. Others threw out, with the same view, that men were going about to abolish it, who would have done much better if they had stayed at home. Others said they had heard of a person turned mad, who had conceived the thought ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... stand aside, at least, and let a poor devil fight his own troubles, if not assist them in their attack. Here you might have seen a brother physician of the grim Doctor's greatly tickled at his plight: or a decorous, powdered, ruffle-shirted dignitary, one of the weighty men of the town, standing at a neighbor's corner to see what ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... been so extremely Jealous of the least Ruffle offer'd to their Beard, that they seem to have fixed the Point of Honour principally in that Part. The Spaniards were wonderfully tender in ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... be. Of cloud and of change is the form of the fashion that man may behold of it wrought: Of iron and truth is the mystic mid altar, where worship is none but of thought. No prayer may go up to it, climbing as incense of gladness or sorrow may climb: No rapture of music may ruffle the silence that guards it, and hears not of time. As the winds of the wild blind ages alternate in passion of light and of cloud, So changes the shape of the veil that enshrouds it with darkness and light for a shroud. And the winds and the clouds and the suns fall ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... been practising a shot or two on the carpet after lunch before Lord Ashiel's arrival. Still it was true that he had made business a pretext for getting rid of her, and this made the injustice of the widow's further inference ruffle him more than it might have if she had been entirely in the wrong. He was the most courteous of men, and that anyone should suspect him of unnecessary ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... was wrong to let him ruffle me; He is not worth the spending anger on! I prithee, Master Modus, use despatch, And presently make ready for our ride. You, Helen, to my Julia look—a change Of dresses will suffice. She must have new ones, Matches ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... while he was amusing himself in the circle of his playmates, the most trifling contradiction would ruffle his temper, and fill him with the highest degree of rage and fury, little short of a ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... to see many abuses in the clergy, many in the laity? What is done in the Arches? Nothing to be amended? What do they there? Do they evermore rid the people's business and matters, or cumber and ruffle them? Do they evermore correct vice, or else defend it, sometime being well corrected in other places? How many sentences be given there in time, as they ought to be? If men say truth, how many without bribes? Or if all things be well done there, what do men in bishops' ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... the hard dawn pale tardily; lived to watch the kind gardener—under strict orders assuredly, or he would never have done it—sweep a space clear on the lawn and spread food for the birds; lived to ruffle his feathers and fly down; and lived to see the thaw which came that afternoon, when the warm sou'-wester came romping over the land, and winter's last stand was overcome by the forces of spring, and all the wild breathed a sigh of relief and went ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... may possibly be called imperturbableness—is necessary to influence. Mrs. Flutter Budget always talks in a hurry, and talks of a thousand things, and is easily excited. Her neighbor, carefully avoiding the causes which ruffle her, and preserving the poise of her faculties, insists on her point quietly, and carries it. The repose of equanimity is a charm which dissolves all opposition. The mind which shows itself open to influences from every quarter, and is swayed by them, is not its ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... not make even a mile an hour; and when the watch was changed, at four o'clock, there was not a breath of air to ruffle the glassy waves. The ship rolled and pitched on the swells, and the sails slapped against the masts and rigging under the effect of her motion. The young seamen on deck, without being in a hurry, were annoyed and vexed, as all sailors are in a calm. They partook ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... obstinate to their own wayes, prove happy, while these accord together: and as they disagree, prove unhappy: and I think it true, that it is better to be heady than wary; because Fortune is a mistresse; and it is necessary, to keep her in obedience to ruffle and force her: and we see, that she suffers her self rather to be masterd by those, than by others that proceed coldly. And therefore, as a mistresse, shee is a friend to young men, because they are lesse respective, more rough, and ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... the island stood clear of the coast, and I could make it out, low and green and fuzzy, with a rim of white sand running back to the fringe of the jungle and a ruffle of combers on the shingle. We could hear the boom of the waves ashore, beating at the base of the barren brown hills of ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... hopped down into his glass tub and began to ruffle and splash, but Benjamin Wright did not notice him. Dr. Lavendar beamed. "You ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... long ramble with no other companion than a young gentleman, whom he did not exactly expect to see; all these are circumstances, individually perhaps slight, and yet, encountered collectively, it may be doubted they would not a little ruffle even ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... youth are crost, My health is flown, my vigour lost; My soothing friends augment my pain, And cheerless is my native plain; Dark o'er my spirit hangs the gloom, And thy disdain has fix'd my doom. But light gales ruffle o'er the sea, Which soon shall bear me far from thee; And wherefoe'er our course is cast, I know will bear me to my rest. Full deep beneath the briny wave, Where rest the venturous and brave, A place may be decreed for me; And should no ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... its indiscreet rays reappeared on the summit of every wave, as if the god of fire had just sunk upon the bosom of Amphitrite, who in vain endeavored to hide her lover beneath her azure mantle. The yacht moved rapidly on, though there did not appear to be sufficient wind to ruffle the curls on the head of a young girl. Standing on the prow was a tall man, of a dark complexion, who saw with dilating eyes that they were approaching a dark mass of land in the shape of a cone, which rose from the midst ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... who am thus in a comfortable sort of not unwelcome, though, indeed, ashy enough way, reminded of the ultimate exhaustion even of the most fiery life; judge how to me this unwarrantable vitality in my wife must come, sometimes, it is true, with a moral and a calm, but oftener with a breeze and a ruffle. ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... secure and happy and calm now with such a man to lean upon as Sasha Roumovski. Nothing need ruffle or frighten her ever any more. And then she read the love sentences again and thrilled and quivered there in the warm, soft night. Sasha Roumovski's influence over her had grown so strong that not a questioning speculation as to the step she meant to ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... saw him come paddlin' out of the brush—a big grizzly, almost black, with a frosty back. He was a silvertip all right. Niels an' I began to shoot. An' thet bear began to hump himself. He was mad, too. His fur stood up like a ruffle on his neck. Niels got four shots an' I got three. Reckon one of us stung him a little. Lordy, how he run! An' his last jump off the slide was a header into the brush. He crossed the canyon, an' climbed thet ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... could but once summon the courage to laugh at all the sins that ever were, and do as he damned well pleased. An ancient phrase that—damned well. It went clear back to the Elizabethan Age, and Moonson had tried picturing himself as an Elizabethan man with a ruffle at his throat and a rapier in his clasp, ...
— The Man from Time • Frank Belknap Long
... warrant. There they made an affidavit of the several circumstances attending their discovery, and Sir William upon the examination also of a lady (who produced a piece of lace before she had seen the ruffle, and declared that if it were Mr. Darby's it must tally therewith, which on a comparison it did exactly) granted a warrant. It appeared also at the same time, upon the oath of Mr. Willoughby, that the day Mr. Darby was murdered, Fisher borrowed ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... but she has it just where it should be,—on the bottom of her gown, which is edged with black,—in the flowered border of her kerchief,—on the edge of her bonnet, where there is a narrow line of yellow,—and in the lace or muslin ruffle of the cape which falls from it If she were a queen, or the wife of a Russian prince who owned thousands of girls like her, she might have trimming of greater cost and beauty, but not a shred more without deterioration of her costume, which, if she were court-lady to Eugenie and had the court-painter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... "Oh, I'm not mad," he answered cheerfully. "I make it a rule in all my business dealings not to get mad, or, more especially, not to let the other fellow know that I'm getting that way. My temper hasn't a ruffle in it just now, and I am leaving merely because I want it to remain smooth. I judge that you and I aren't going to agree. All right, then we'll differ, but we'll differ without a fight, that's all. ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... cried, in a moment. "I'll give you a piece of my petticoat. It's an old one, and the ruffle ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... old ninny, does that ruffle you?" asked Tonsard, attracted by the idea of damages. "If they had broken twenty crowns' worth of my mother's bones we could turn it into good account; we might make a fine fuss for three hundred francs; Monsieur Gourdon would go to Les Aigues and ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... foreigners and their equipment. One of these, being quick-witted, slipped past the sentries, pertinaciously made his way up, and took away the shield, which Amleth had chanced to set at his head before he slept, so gently that he did not ruffle his slumbers, though he was lying upon it, nor awaken one man of all that troop; for he wished to assure his mistress not only by report but by some token. With equal address he filched the letter entrusted to Amleth from the coffer in which it was kept. When these things were brought to the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... petticoat, with a hand-wrought ruffle a foot deep, then an old-fashioned chemise the neck and sleeve work of which was elaborate and perfectly wrought. On the breast was pinned a ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... bed last night, as I have indicated, the most contented of created beings. I awoke this morning with no greater ruffle on my consciousness than the appointment with my lawyers. The sun shone. A thrush sang lustily in the big elm opposite my bedroom windows. The tree, laughed and shook out its finery at me like a woman, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... to restrain every irregular inclination, to subdue every rebellious passion, to purify the motives of our conduct, to form ourselves to that temperance which no pleasure can seduce, to that meekness which no provocation can ruffle, to that patience which no affliction can overwhelm, and that integrity which no interest can shake; this is the task which is assigned to us,—a task which can not be performed without ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... trying to get the better of them and shut their minds so close to the idea that they are trying to get the better of you, but as Major Jackman says to me, "I know the ways of this circular world Mrs. Lirriper, and that's one of 'em all round it" and many is the little ruffle in my mind that the Major has smoothed, for he is a clever man who has seen much. Dear dear, thirteen years have passed though it seems but yesterday since I was sitting with my glasses on at the open front ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... sorrowfully down at her lap, where lay in pathetic pose a white rabbit and a snowy pigeon,—both dead, quite stark and cold,—laid out in state upon the spotless linen apron, around which a fluted ruffle ran crisp and smooth. One tiny waxen hand held a broken lily, and the other was vainly pressed upon the lids of the rabbit's eyes, trying to close lovingly the pink orbs that now stared so distressingly through glazing film. The first passionate ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... that your nerves gave way—your illness rushed on you. Wait, not only till you are stronger, but till we know each other better. This subject is one that it becomes us to treat with all the strength of our reason—with all the calm which either can impose upon the feelings that ruffle judgment. At present, talk we of all matters except that, which I promise you shall be fairly ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the living by their study the end of their purposes, which is a lamentable hearing. Beside this, being for the most part either gentlemen or rich men's sons, they often bring the universities into much slander. For, standing upon their reputation and liberty, they ruffle and roist it out, exceeding in apparel, and banting riotous company (which draweth them from their books unto another trade), and for excuse, when they are charged with breach of all good order, think it sufficient to say that they be ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... shouted: "Endure a little while, brave friends, the worst is surely past; for I can see the pure west wind ruffle the water, and hear the roar of ocean on the sands. So raise up the mast, and set the sail, and face what ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... character." The Legion he considered a matter of immediate necessity, and he added, "The winged warrior of the air perches upon the pole of American liberty, and the beast that has the temerity to ruffle her feathers should be made to feel the ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... in a row gesticulating, and anger, vengeance, jealousy, terror, and stupefaction breathed forth at once from their half-opened mouths. The outraged lover brandished his naked sword; his guipure ruffle rose with jerks to the movements of his chest, and he walked from right to left with long strides, clanking against the boards the silver-gilt spurs of his soft boots, widening out at the ankles. He, she thought must have an inexhaustible love ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... turn yellow amidst all the drudgery and worry of teaching; but Quenu grew up plump and merry, a little dense, indeed, and scarce able to read or write, but endowed with high spirits which nothing could ruffle, and which filled the big gloomy room in the ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... the little girl's roller-skates don't run over the pussy's tail and ruffle it all up so she can't go to the moving picture party, I'll tell you next of ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis
... sleeping somewhat disturbed the poetry of the night. On the whole, however, he preferred them sleeping to waking. He sent his thoughts, on tiptoe, as it were, across the room. How exquisite she was, with her slim bare feet, and the hint of a chaste little ruffle showing at throat and wrist! Those drowsy, dewy eyes—the fluttering pulse in her soft throat—her clinging lips, which kissed as unconsciously as a child's until suddenly they were ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... ways; go, give that changing piece To him that flourish'd for her with his sword; A valiant son-in-law thou shalt enjoy; One fit to bandy with thy lawless sons, To ruffle in the commonwealth ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... being fastens himself or herself on our memory, and remains there like the first volume of a novel the end of which is lost. We are tempted to question this unknown person, and say, "Who are you?" "Why are you lounging here?" "By what right do you wear that pleated ruffle, that faded waistcoat, and carry that cane with an ivory top; why those blue spectacles; for what reason do you cling to that cravat of a dead and gone fashion?" Among these wandering creations some belong to the species of the Greek Hermae; they say nothing to the ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... truth concerning us might not, owing to some peculiarity of my organization, be clearly and perfectly revealed to me, and me alone; so that the truth being but dimly and vaguely foreshadowed to her mind, the effect could not be as permanent and living as in mine. I did not ruffle my soul's serenity with dark forebodings ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... for Florence to wear. They were all girlish and simple. The frock she chose to-night was of a very pale pink. It was made of the simplest stuff, and was not trimmed at all. It gave grace to her figure and added to her height. A little ruffle of lace surrounded her girlish throat, and on her arm she slipped a gold bangle, Mrs. Aylmer's latest present. She then ran downstairs to the drawing-room. In her pretty shoes and silk stockings and well-fitting dress Florence made quite a graceful figure. She dropped ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... a playful assault upon him, tried to ruffle his prison-clipped, slightly gray hair, which had been curly and fair when last it had done so, and penetrated gently to his bare body like a soft, cool hand. "Welcome, Pelle!" said the sun, as it peeped into his distended pupils in which the darkness of the prison-cell still ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... kitchen gardens) almost disappears under a growth of stunted, but sturdy trees; dwarf alders and squat firs that shake their white-backed leaves, and swing their needle clusters, merrily if the breeze is mild, obstinately if the gale is rousing and seem to proclaim: "Here are we, well and secure. Ruffle and toss, and lash, O winds, the faithless waters, we shall ever cling to this hospitable footing, the only kindly soil amid this dreariness; here you once wafted our seed; here shall we live and perpetuate ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the dress and looked at it in reverent silence. Oh, how pretty it was—a lovely soft brown gloria with all the gloss of silk; a skirt with dainty frills and shirrings; a waist elaborately pin-tucked in the most fashionable way, with a little ruffle of filmy lace at the neck. But the sleeves—they were the crowning glory! Long elbow cuffs, and above them two beautiful puffs divided by rows of shirring and bows of ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a certain set of people, and then to present him at last in their houses as a man of rare and exquisite conversation; and, there, just as a musician sings or a lute-player touches his lute before the people who have engaged him, Cydias, after having coughed, and lifted the ruffle from his wrist, stretched out his hand and opened his fingers, begins to retail his quintessential thoughts and his sophistical arguments.... He opens his mouth only to contradict. 'It seems to me,' he gracefully says, 'that the ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... his appearance. Cheerfulness and alertness seemed to return to him, and a quietness which no insult or injury could ruffle seemed ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... presentation. I know I was in quite a flutter of excitement for days before I was presented, and was quite bewildered with agitation at the time; but Evadne displayed no emotion whatever. I never knew anyone so equable as she is; in fact, nothing seems to ruffle her wonderful calm; it is almost provoking sometimes! On the way home she would not have made a remark, I think, if I had not spoken to her. 'Don't you think it was a very pretty sight?' I said at last. 'Yes,' she answered doubtfully; and then she ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... nearly reached the caves when a roll of thunder like the ruffle of muffled drums came over the water, but they got under shelter before the rain began to fall, just a few heavy drops, at first, and then ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... all the preliminary passport business, without which no one, either of high or low degree, subject or foreigner, can move from one city to another in the empire of the Czar. There is no great difficulty in this passport business, and no great annoyance; but still it is apt to ruffle the temper of the most mild and patient men, to have to spend the whole of one day, during their stay in each place, in performing a task which might well be dispensed with, not to speak of having to disburse several roubles ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... loyal class of men, but their loyalty will probably be shaken when they realise that the Lord has spoiled their crops to provide Queen's weather for the Jubilee. An occasional shower might wet the Queen's parasol or ruffle the plumage of the princes and princelings in her train. Occasional showers, however, are just what the farmers want. The Lord was therefore in a fix. Though the Bible says that with him nothing is impossible, he was unable to please both sides; so he favored the ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... Still it's just as well she's gone back to school, I think myself. She's been repressed and held back so long, that when she did let loose, it was just like cutting the puckering string of a bunched-up ruffle—she flew in all directions, and there was no holding her back anywhere; and I suppose she has been a bit foolish and extravagant in the things she's asked for. Poor dear, though, she did get ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... took no chances. He rarely employed this sort of man, preferring to do his own dirty work, but when he did, he knew it was policy to be liberal. Pedro served him well as a rule, consequently the Mexican was enabled to ruffle it with the best in the settlement, whilst people wondered where he got his money from. Somehow they never thought of Lablache being the source of this man's means; the money-lender was ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... uniformly grey of late, with no wind to ruffle its surface or to speed the barges dropping slowly and sullenly down with the tide through a blurring haze. I watched one yesterday, its useless sails half-furled and no sign of life save the man at the helm. It drifted stealthily past, and a little behind, ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... marshalling the scattered rays into a methodical and highly suggestive array. They followed the direction of the magnetic lines of force, and, forsaking the polar collar of the magnetised sphere, surrounded it like a ruffle. The obvious analogy with the aurora polaris and the solar corona was insisted upon by Ebert himself, and has been further developed by Bigelow.[593] According to a recent modification of his hypothesis, ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... rides down and stabs at his ease, and with perfect safety, the naked Welshmen?—or is it to his nephew, the beardless Damian?—or must thy possessions go to mend a breach in the fortunes of that other cousin, Randal Lacy, the decayed reveller, who, they say, can no longer ruffle it among the debauched crusaders ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... complexion of Entrails with that Signor Volpone whom we have all seen—at least such of us as be old Boys—in Ben Jonson's play of the Fox. He Money-grubbed, and Money-clutched, and Money-wrung, ay, and in a manner Money-stole, that he might live largely, and ruffle it among his brother Cits in surpassing state and splendour. He had been Lord Mayor; and on his Show-day the Equipments of chivalry had been more Sumptuous, the Banners more varied, the Entertainment at Saddlers' Hall,—where the Lord Mayor ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... sonatas and concertos for public performance. But all the leisure that could be made or stolen was occupied in labours which proved their own reward. Straight from the concert-platform rushed the musician to his workshop, and many a lace ruffle was torn by nails or bespattered by molten pitch; to say nothing of the positive danger to which Herschel continually exposed himself by the precipitancy of his movements. For example: one Saturday evening, when the two brothers returned from a concert between ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... halls of the capitol, save the cautious tread and whispered inquiry of anxious questioners. The soul of a sage, a patriot, a Christian, is preparing to depart from the world!—no sound is heard to ruffle its sweet serenity!—a calmness and peace, fitting ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... sitting in the kitchen of the Poorhouse, mending stockings. She was not in the pleasantest humor, for one of the paupers had managed to break a plate at tea-table (if that can be called tea where no tea is provided), and trifles were sufficient to ruffle Mrs. Mudge's temper. ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... not to go this morning and let your writing wait. We shall be certain to have something worth listening to; it is a strange time to select for absence." This was Ruth's quiet answer, as she pinned her lace ruffle ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... suspicion either of undutifulness, insincerity, or disrespect. Thus he continued to the last, not owing his virtues to the happiness of his constitution, but the frame of his mind, insomuch, that during a long sickness, which is apt to ruffle the smoothest temper; he never betrayed any discontent or uneasiness, the integrity of his life still preserving the chearfulness of his spirits; and if his friends had measured their hopes of his life, only by his unconcern in his sickness, they could not but conclude, that either his date ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... all the chief Orders ruffle their feathers when angry or frightened. Every one must have seen two cocks, even quite young birds, preparing to fight with erected neck-hackles; nor can these feathers when erected serve as a means of defence, ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... for Dish Closet.—A pretty effect for the dish closet may be found in crepe paper. Some prefer white, but a tint harmonizing well with the china is pretty too. Have it to fall about three inches below the edge of the shelves and ruffle the edge of the paper by stretching it lightly between ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... forth, to be drowned in the boom and ruffle of the drums as the band began to play. There is little time in a circus, where act follows act so ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... might only feel the general effect of clear, well-matched colors, of harmonious proportions, of the cut which makes everything cling like a bather's sleeve where a natural outline is to be kept, and ruffle itself up like the hackle of a pitted fighting-cock where art has a right to luxuriate in silken exuberance. How this citybred and city-dressed girl came to be in Rockland Mr. Bernard did not know, but he knew at any rate that she was his next neighbor ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... as some people would call it, to the scraps. When you want a rag or a bone or a hank of hair in our house, all you will have to do is to pull out an easy sliding drawer without opening a door that sticks, or crawling into a dark corner, or having to light a candle, or doing anything to ruffle your temper or your hair. A flood of brilliant sunlight or moonlight will pour into my rag-drawer, and a few pawings of your unoccupied hand will bring everything to the ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... gentleman. Kate had large, lustrous dark eyes, which just then were covered with fringed, drooping eyelashes. She had braids of dark hair wreathed around her head, a soft pink color in her cheeks, and a rosebud mouth, womanly, fresh, and lovely. Kate was clad in a pink muslin dress, with a tiny white ruffle around her white throat. She was armed with four steely needles, which were so many bright arrows that pierced my heart through and through. Over her fingers glided a small blue thread, which proceeded from the ball of yarn I ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... although their knowledge of white men had been small, yet those they had been accustomed to see were fine specimens. Mr. Fildes, Mr. Cockshut, M. Jacot, Dr. Pelessier, Pere Lejeune, M. Gacon, Mr. Whittaker, and that vivacious French official, were not men any man, black or white, would willingly ruffle; and in addition there was the memory among the black traders of "that white man MacTaggart," whom an enterprising trading tribe near Fernan Vaz had had the hardihood to tackle, shooting him, and then towing him ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... out of a very full pattern I had got of a peddler, and wanted it all put in, so's it would fade all alike, for I mistrusted it wouldn't wash. It wuz gethered-in full round the waist, and the sleeves wuz set in full, and the waist wuz kinder full before, and it had a deep high ruffle gathered-in full round the neck. It wuz a very full dress, though I haint proud, and never wuz called so. Yet anybody duz take a modest pleasure in bein' equal to any occasion and comin' up nobly to a emergency. And ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... us lengthwise through the wonderful Santa Clara country, straight up a wide box plait of valley tucked in between an ornamental double ruffle of mountains. I suppose if we passed one ranch we passed a thousand—cattle ranches, fruit ranches, hen ranches, chicken ranches, bee ranches—all the known ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... sentenced the other day," he said humbly, as if fearing to ruffle the temper of the officer, who seemed to be ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... advantage throw away the long growth of good-will nurtured by wise and patient men and who cannot see the lasting and far greater future evil they do. Of all the years since 1776 this great war-year is the worst to break the 100 years of our peace, or even to ruffle it. I pray you, good friend, get us out of these ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... there could be a white dress it would have to have ruffles on it; all the other girls' white dresses had ruffles on them somewhere. Carrie's had two ruffles on the skirt, and Mamie Cole's had three. Bertha Dean's had only one ruffle around the shoulders and the skirt was tucked, but it was very pretty; and if Tabitha could not have ruffles on the skirt, she would want at least a shoulder ruffle with lace around it. Well, there was no ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... good or true anywhere is founded on the faith he is preparing to preach, that the historical evidences of its truth are irrefragable, that it is logically perfect and spiritually all-sufficing. These convictions, which no breath from the outside is allowed to ruffle, are deepened in the case of pensive and studious minds, like those of the leading modernists, by their own religious experience. They understand in what they are taught more, perhaps, than their teachers intend. They understand how those ideas originated, they can trace ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... are bad and peevish folks swear, Remember to ruffle thy brows, friend, ne'er; And let not the fancies of women so fair E'er serve thy pleasure in life ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... temper you would best not ruffle. I do not know what Bilby's scheme was, or how he got you into it. But take my advice and keep out of any further association ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... be that as I write, your blessed spirit, at rest in Paradise, may know me more truly than ever you did on earth; and yet the sorrow of knowing how bitter it is within may never be permitted to ruffle ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tribulation prosperity is not interrupted, let him cast in his mind if he himself come upon a fervent longing for something which he cannot get (as a good man will not), as perchance his pleasure of some certain good woman who will not be caught. And then let him tell me whether the ruffle of his desire shall not so torment his mind that all the pleasures that he can take beside shall, for lack of that one, not please him a pin! And I dare be bold to warrant him that the pain in resisting, and the great fear of falling, that many a good man hath ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... the skirt so as not to ruffle her hair, and she was buttoning the bodice when little ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... what is truly excellent and noble, though under a despised and degraded form; and to cultivate within ourselves that true magnanimity, which can make us rise superior to the smiles or frowns of this world; that dignified composure of soul which no earthly incidents can destroy or ruffle. Instead of repining at any of the little occasional inconveniences we may meet with in our passage through life; we are almost ashamed of the multiplied comforts and enjoyments of our condition, when we think of him, who, though "the Lord of glory," "had not where to lay his head." And if it ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... of Police," pinned to his suspender, he may be seen at any point where trouble is least likely to break out. He is the only man on the town site whom we are afraid to tease, because he is our chief source of news; for if we ruffle his temper he sees to it that our paper misses the details of the next chicken-raid that comes under his notice. He can bring us to time ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... all on the part of Mac, who, trusting to the bottom of blood, apparently endeavoured to ruffle Tacony's temper and weary him out a little. How futile were the efforts the sequel plainly showed. At length a start was effected, and away they went, Tacony with his hind legs as far apart as the centre arch of Westminster Bridge, and with strides that would almost clear the Bridgewater Canal. ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... cuckoo is ready and almost impatient for a start, her ladyship has all at once discovered some important matter that ought to be finished before leaving the country, some adjustment of her dress, some tiresome feather that will ruffle itself up in spite of every effort to keep it smooth, I know not, but the fact remains, that my Lord and Lady Cuckoo do not travel together. Let us suppose that both sexes have arrived in this country, we will say about the 23rd of April. It is natural they want a little time to ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... earnest advocacy he appears to have used such emphatic language that the interpreter dared not repeat it, so Gordon seized a dictionary, looked up the word "idiotcy," and pointed it out to them. Far better was it, in Gordon's opinion, to ruffle the self-esteem of a few bigwigs, than to allow two great nations to drift into a war which, after an enormous sacrifice of life and much suffering, must have ended fatally for the Chinese, who were quite unable to meet the trained ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... pair of shoes. The round pocket left in the middle will serve to hold stockings. Have a bit of thin wood cut to fit the seat of the chair; fasten on this a cushion covered with cretonne, with a deep frill all around (or a narrow frill, provided you prefer to fasten the deep ruffle around the chair itself, as shown in the picture), and a little loop in front by which the seat can be raised like the lid of a box, when the shoes are wanted. This chair is really a most convenient piece ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... disorderly person; disorderly persons offence; misdemeanor. [moral disorder] slattern, slut (libertine) 962. V. be disorderly &c adj.; ferment, play at cross-purposes. put out of order; derange &c 61; ravel &c 219; ruffle, rumple. Adj. disorderly, orderless; out of order, out of place, out of gear; irregular, desultory; anomalous &c (unconformable) 83; acephalous^, deranged; aimless; disorganized; straggling; unmethodical, immethodical^; unsymmetric^, unsystematic; untidy, slovenly; dislocated; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... telling. When I talked French, he told me it was capital: 'It came down like a sledge-hammer.' His little satirical remarks were such as these: It was March and I took a bunch of violets to Rosa; notched white paper was wound around them, and Mr. Hawthorne said, 'They have on a cambric ruffle." ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... Scotch tea the centerpiece is an oblong piece of satin in any preferred color edged with a ruffle of white lace. In the center of this is a tall vase holding a miscellaneous bouquet, and at the corners of the centerpiece are small vases of similar design holding similar bouquets. All edibles are on the table at once, there ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... turned tailoress and helped her out of her trouble. I sot the sleeves in proper, and fixed the collar. She had got it sot on as a ruffle. I drawed it down smooth where it ort to be and pinned it—and she ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... hour after hour alongside. She was, however, moving; but it was round and round, though very slowly indeed, as a glance at the compass would have shown. The sea was as smooth as glass, for there was not a breath of air to ruffle it; there was, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... with a wit Lambent yet bland, like summer lightning; Venomless rapier-point, whose "hit" Was palpable, yet painless. Brightening E'en, party conflict with a touch Of old-world grace fight could not ruffle! Faith, GRANVILLE, we shall miss thee much Where kites and crows of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... and hard by he erected a little church, and round about it, at intervals, five small hermitages, wherein, with his companions, he renewed the austere and exalted life of the old anchorites, and advanced greatly in spirituality. And in order that no care or worldly thought might ruffle the sublime tranquillity of this contemplative life, the convent had charge of daily supplying the holy solitary ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... bill,) is above suspicion; and benefit of clergy is nothing to the privilege and virtue of a handsome exterior. That the skin is nearer than the shirt, is a most false and mistaken idea. The smoothest skin in Christendom would not weigh with a jury like a cambric ruffle; and moreover, there is not a poor devil in town striving to keep up appearances in spite of fortune, who would not far rather tear his flesh than his unmentionables; which can only arise from their being so much more important a part ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... on the brown gingham. It had a little ruffle basted round the neck. Candace tried the effect of a large blue bow, and then of a muslin one, very broad, with worked ends; but neither pleased her exactly. She recollected that Georgie and Gertrude had worn ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... little head aside for a backward look over her shoulder, she made him, somehow, think of a hollyhock, by the tilt of her tall, slim, young figure, and by the colors of her hat from which her face flowered; no doubt the deep-crimson silk waist she wore, with its petal-edged ruffle flying free down her breast, had something to do with his fantastic notion. She was a brunette, with the lightness and delicacy that commonly go with the beauty of a blonde. She could not have been more than fifteen; her ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... arrayed herself in immaculate calling attire—with a rustle of silk and a softness of ruffle, and a daintiness of glove that none but the wealthy can assume, and, in short, with that unmistakable air about every thing pertaining to her that marks the lady of fashion. These things were as much a part of Ruth Erskine as her hair and eyes were. Once ready, her dress, ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... his walk, and, leaning upon the table with the tips of two fingers and the thumb of his left hand, he thrust the right hand into his waistcoat, by the side of the ruffle of his shirt, as if he were about to address the house upon ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... one lady, when talking over what she would need for her first baby, and for herself, at the time of its birth, if she had not something short and plain that she could wear. She looked very thoughtful for a moment and then said that she thought she did have one night-dress that did not have a ruffle or embroidery around the bottom. She could wear that. It certainly is not from motives of economy that our wealthy patients do not have these most sensible of garments. I think they know nothing about them, and they should have their virtues explained to them. A pocket could be added ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... would not be worthy, tricked out for show, fitted only to drive out fading majesty in a stage coach; exquisite in every personal appendage, too fine for the common usages of society; point-device, not only in every curl and ruffle, but in every attitude and step; men with full satin roses on their shining shoes; diamond tablet rings on their forefingers; with snuff-boxes, the worth of which might almost purchase a farm; lace worked by the delicate fingers of some religious ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... repelled us by some frigid formal figure, a complimentary critic of this school should propose to place it as a frontispiece to a new edition of Potter or of Adam—applauding you the while for having faithfully preserved the classic costume. I tell you that the classic costume must ruffle and stir with passions kindred to our own, or it had better be left hanging against the wall. And what a deception it is that the scholastic imagination is perpetually imposing on itself in this matter! Accustomed to dwell on the points of difference between ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... Roche-Cobon, and the certain storehouses of good stories, which storehouses are the upper stories of old canons and wise dames, who remember the good old days when they could enjoy a hearty laugh without looking to see if their hilarity disturbed the sit of your ruffle, as do the young women of the present day, who wish to take their pleasure gravely—a custom which suits our Gay France as much as a water jug would the head of a queen. Since laughter is a privilege granted to man alone, and he has sufficient causes for tears ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... hospitable folks, and act the part of Gaius in apostolic times. . . . Our trunks came this morning. Father stood and saw them all brought into Dr. Skinner's entry, and then he swung his hat and gave a 'hurrah,' as any man would whose wife had not had a clean cap or ruffle for a week. Father does not succeed very well in opening purses here. Mr. Eastman says, however, that this is not of much consequence. I saw to-day a notice in the 'Philadelphian' about father, setting forth how ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... Clarence Bulbul's ballads,)—to hear her, I say, sing these, was to be in a sort of small Elysium. Dear, dear little Fanny Dixon! she was like a little chirping bird of Paradise. It was a shame that storms should ever ruffle ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Still be Yale's best defender! Linger, oh, linger, Heffelfinger. Princeton and Harvard, there is cause to fear Will dance joy's double shuffle when of thy Western flight they come to hear. Stay and their tempers ruffle. ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... a great matter in praying to God, not to go too far, nor come too short in that duty. I mean in the duty of prayer, and a man is very apt to do one or the other. The Pharisee went so far, he was too bold, he came into the temple making such a ruffle with his own excellences, there was in his thoughts no need of a Mediator. He also went up so nigh to God, that he took up the room and place of the Mediator himself; but this poor Publican, he knows his ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... naturalists. At first sight it looks like a lizard, but its movements are those of a fish. The head, lower part of the body, and tail resemble an eel, but it has no fins, and its breathing organs are quite unlike those of fishes. Round its neck is a ruffle, which seems to help it to breathe, although it has perfect lungs and can breathe, as well as move, equally comfortably on land and in water. The front feet are like hands, and each has three fingers, whilst the back limbs have only two. The eyes are very ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... answered; "he would take very good care of that. Just look at the chap. . . . And I—I did not ruffle a hair of your head. He is very good at picking violets; but, take my word for it, in a case of danger, don't make ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... or boisterous gangs. And the isolation of the moment weighed upon him like an omen and an emblem of his destiny in life. Bred up in unbroken fear himself, among trembling servants, and in a house which (at the least ruffle in the master's voice) shuddered into silence, he saw himself on the brink of the red valley of war, and measured the danger and length of it with awe. He made a detour in the glimmer and shadow of the streets, came into the back stable lane, and watched for a long while the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Lord Chesterfield said of him, that "though nobody spoke and wrote better upon philosophy than Lord Bolingbroke, no man in the world had less share of philosophy than himself. The least trifle, such as the overroasting of a leg of mutton, would strangely disturb and ruffle his temper." On the other hand, a glance from a pretty woman, or a glimpse of her ankle, would send all Bolingbroke's political combinations and philosophical speculations flying into the air, and convert him in a moment from the statesman ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... wonder that he survived when so many others went down? What wonder that he persevered? What wonder that his patient soul, comparing the eternity of love's happiness with the paltry years of love's waiting, saw nothing in the condition of affairs to ruffle its peaceful serenity? And yet to most the time would have seemed very, very long. Men may blunder against rich pockets or leads and wealthy say farewell to a day which they greeted as the poorest of the poor. So may men win fortunes on a turn of the wheat market. But ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... at her own dress; at her rounded arms shining white under the little ruffle of fine lace. Her dress was pretty, the prettiest she'd ever had, and gratitude toward the woman at her side overcame for the moment her embarrassment. Presently Waldstricker came to them with the request for a song, and Deforrest Young ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... which his race had been involved, had run its course, and had spent itself in the conflict with a woman's love. Beyond that there was nothing but the smooth haven of rest, which no blast of evil could ruffle, and into which no overwhelming wave of calamity ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... to take this as a humorous smoothing of their first unpleasant ruffle, but if she did she shrewdly deceived him, for she looked at him with the soberest of inquiry ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... charmeuse ears, marvellous thick rich satin they were, and tiny dark rims to his eyes—a setting of pencilled shadow. How am I to describe his spots? The wonderful distribution of black and white, the ruffle at the side of his arched neck made by the meeting of two competitive rhythms of hairs, the looseness of his skin, his long lithe legs that would tie themselves into a tangled heap of ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... will not be angry. No, you can not be angry. You never are. The most trying and provoking things, I observe, can not ruffle you. So I will venture to say, that I think you don't play fair by me. We are both here chiefly to make ourselves agreeable, I believe; and I sometimes wish I had a little more assistance in that duty from one who, I am sure, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... same time thought she carried it too far out of pure simplicity. I fancied again that she might have breakfasted late, or that she might have a wish to eat alone, and more at liberty. These considerations prevented me from saying more to her then, to ruffle her temper, by shewing any sign of dissatisfaction. After dinner I left her, but not with an air that ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... Ruffle Shirts: This recipe comes down from the epoch of knee buckles and ruffled shirts, and is warranted to more than hold its own with any other—even the so-famous "Artillery punch," beloved of army and navy. To make it, scrub clean and pare thinly the yellow peel of two dozen oranges and one dozen ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... this fashion! Of course, when it came to the last, he was simply afraid of her, and of the scene she would make him. Bravery has as little room in his soul as honesty or manliness. He would always prefer a back-door exit. Such things excite a man, don't you know?—and ruffle the necessary artistic composure." She laughed scornfully. "However, I'm glad to say, he didn't escape scot-free after all. Everything went well till yesterday afternoon, when Louise, who was as unsuspecting as a child, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... of Messina, in Sicily, under certain circumstances. The spectator must stand with his back to the east, on an elevated place behind the city, commanding a view of the bay, and having the mountains, like a wall, opposite to him, to darken the back ground of the picture; no wind must be abroad to ruffle the surface of the sea; and the waters must be pressed up by currents, as they sometimes are, to a considerable height in the middle of the strait, and present a slight convex surface. When all these circumstances occur, as soon as the sun rises over the heights of the Calabrian shore, and makes ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... to go to work house-cleaning. I wanted to go and spend the day with the hens, singing over that little dozy ca-a-a-a they do, in the sun, and stretch one leg and one wing till they most broke off, and ruffle up all my feathers and let 'em settle back very slow, and then ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... because the wind through the window-chinks made it flicker and run; and she sat singing to herself as she watched the cakes. They lay at one end of the wide hearth on a bed of coals, and at the other end a fire burnt up steadily, casting its amber glow over Em's light hair and black dress, with the ruffle of crepe about the neck, and over the white curls of the sheepskin on which ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... lifted into her lap for a little patting and cuddling before she must run back again to the aunts. This cat had been known to Betty as a young kitten, and she and Becky had sometimes dressed her with a neat white ruffle about her neck to which they added a doll's dress. She was one of the limp obliging kittens which make such capital playmates, and the two girls laughed a great deal now as they reminded each other of certain frolics that had taken place. ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... at the chemist's will make him late at the office! etc. etc. But then his skilled, efficient brain intervenes: 'What peculiarly interesting material this mean and petty circumstance yields for the practice of philosophy and right living!' And again: 'Is this to ruffle you, O my soul? Will it serve any end whatever that I should buzz nervously round this circumstance instead of attending to my ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... his words any day if he could roll them in a piece of fudge," he called. Slim only smiled sweetly as he watched the experimental spoonful being dropped into the cup of water. Nothing could ruffle him now. ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... never looked prettier than that Sunday night, as she tripped into church, a soft ruffle of fur setting off the delicate fair face, a large velvet hat resting on the golden hair. Dixon, with a proud air of possession, walked in behind her, and, seating himself at her side, proved his proprietorship ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... into the room, cool, dignified, and austere, but his manner was not calculated to ruffle his superior officer. It seemed rather to indicate a confidence that the Governor General would punish as was fitting the impertinence of the intruders from Kaintock. He bestowed only a single glance upon them, ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... kindly rescued her— (She did so ruffle her hair; If ever she plays that trick again She'll have to be ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... time finding that for which she was searching among the clothes hanging on a row of nails, and Susie, rolling her eyes in that direction, was sure, very sure, that she saw Teacher dab at her lashes with the frilly ruffle of a petticoat before ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... left arm in the air, the forearm gracefully bent, the ruffle drooping, and my wrist curved, while my right arm, half extended, securely covered my wrist with the elbow, and my breast with ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... heaven in its gladness, interpreting all intense passion through the soft spring nights, bursting into acclaim and rapture of choir at daybreak, or lisping and twittering among the boughs and hedges through heat of day, like little winds that only make the cowslip bells shake, and ruffle the ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... injury on the farmers. They are, as a rule, a loyal class of men, but their loyalty will probably be shaken when they realise that the Lord has spoiled their crops to provide Queen's weather for the Jubilee. An occasional shower might wet the Queen's parasol or ruffle the plumage of the princes and princelings in her train. Occasional showers, however, are just what the farmers want. The Lord was therefore in a fix. Though the Bible says that with him nothing is impossible, he was unable to please both sides; ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... hung two little AEolian harps, which at the least ruffle of the breeze running through their blades of grass, emit a gentle tinkling sound, like the harmonious murmur of a brook; outside, to the very furthest limits of the distance, the cicalas continue their great and ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... over her little face, with its softly scalloping profile, as she spoke. Her hair was crimped in even waves. She wore nice white ruching in her neck and sleeves, and flat satin folds crossed each other exactly over her flat chest. Her nervous self-consciousness did not ruffle her fine order, and she did not smile as ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... head of some native near by. The cars were before us, and native women passed about with their waiters of fruit and cakes. They were dressed in white or light-colored muslin or calico skirts, flounced, torn, and dirty; a white chemise, with a ruffle round the neck trimmed with lace, and a bandanna handkerchief tied round the head completed their toilet. In a picture it would look very well; as it was, one dreaded too close a contact, they were so dirty. Some of their attitudes were very ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... smooth hair and a fresh ruffle which Prudy had basted in the neck of her dress. She looked very neat and prim, and, as Percy had predicted, carried her ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... quietly and serenely. But, by and by, the cows came sauntering down to the barn-yard bars as if they thought it was milking-time, and the sheep huddled together under the great elms. Grandpa and his big man commenced raking the hay together vigorously, and a sudden, cool, puffy breeze began to ruffle the little rings of hair on Lily-toes' head, and send the small chickens careening over the knot-grass in such fashion that the careful mother-hen put her head out of her little house and called them in. And still in the cool, pleasant sitting-room, with its cheerful ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... that attacks us at sundry times and places. It is in vain that we lengthen our limbs into an awakening stretch—that we yawn with the expressive suavity of yawning no more—that we dislocate our knuckle bones, and ruffle the symmetry of our visage, with a manual application; like the cleft blaze of a candle, drowsiness returns again. Well, then, what manner of reader is he that hath never sinned by drowsing in church time? Let him read on; and I'll realize by description what ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... corner there was a candy and notion store, kept by an old woman with a queer wrinkled face framed in with a wide cap-ruffle. She had a funny turned-up nose, as if it had hardly known which way to grow, and such round red-apple cheeks. When it was pleasant, she sat in the doorway, regardless of the fate of the heroic young woman ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... you. Climate, transportation, good water, variety of landscape, opportunity of independence. Given these conditions, everything else can be added. Now, our climate—of course it is misunderstood in the South and East, but misunderstanding doesn't ruffle it. You and I know what it is. This is a white man's climate. Follow our latitude into Europe if you want to find the seats of power and success. London and Berlin are north of us; Paris ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... the sofa; I think most clearly in what appears to the hasty observer to be an attitude of rest. But I am not sure that Celia really understands this yet. Accordingly, when a knock comes at the door I jump to my feet, ruffle my hair, and stride up and down the room with one hand on my brow. "Come in," I call impatiently, and Celia finds me absolutely in the throes. If there should chance to be a second knock later on, ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... her neck from side to side as though she was suffocating—throwing back the light ruffle that ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... l in the following terminations: ble, cle, dle, fle, gle, kle, ple, tle, zle; as in able, manacle, cradle, ruffle, mangle, wrinkle, supple, rattle, puzzle, which are pronounced a'bl, mana'cl, cra'dl, ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... folks over at our house have gone crazy, and I wish you would come over and help Cousin James with 'em," Henrietta demanded, as I sat on my side porch, calmly hemming a ruffle on a dress for the Kitten. Everybody sews for the twins and, as much as I hate it, I can't help ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... hall. There, of course, Master Page had been engulfed in the galimafre, and not only forming one of the swarm around the pedlar, but was actually aping courtly grimaces as he tried a delicate lace ruffle on the hand of a silly little smirking maiden, no older than himself! But this little episode was, like many others, overlooked by Madame de Quinet, as her eye fell upon the little figure of Rayonette standing on the table, with her mother and two or three ladies ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... into what climate or state you please, for all that I will keep my soul content. Is any misadventure big enough to ruffle my peace, or to make my mind mean, craving and servile? What is there ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... your Army or Navy officers hadn't been doing any hard work that would ruffle the neatness of their uniforms," finished Tom triumphantly, "and there you are! I can dress up on Sundays or holidays, but on the work days, when I'm a civil engineer, I want to wear clothes that show that I'm not afraid to tackle the rough ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... you, Mr. Pratt," says Mrs. Sampson, "to take up the curmudgeons in your friend's behalf; but it don't alter the fact that he has made proposals to me sufficiently obnoxious to ruffle the ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, To stir men's blood: I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know; Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths, 230 And bid them speak for me: but were I Brutus, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue In every wound of Caesar, that should move The stones of ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... spite of Fairfax's efforts, with two cents extra to pay, which item was the first event of the evening to ruffle Strong's temper. ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Castle in the midst of the ruffle, but old Bridgenorth has carried him down prisoner to the hall," answered Cisly. "There was never faith nor courtesy in an old Puritan who never had pipe and tabor in his house ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... the younger a beauty, a bewitching, plump, curly-headed cherub of four years, with widely-opened grey eyes and a Cupid's bow of a mouth. Margot let Jim pass by with a nod, but her hand stretched out involuntarily to stroke Pat's cheek, and ruffle his ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... however—as, for instance, about her presentation. I know I was in quite a flutter of excitement for days before I was presented, and was quite bewildered with agitation at the time; but Evadne displayed no emotion whatever. I never knew anyone so equable as she is; in fact, nothing seems to ruffle her wonderful calm; it is almost provoking sometimes! On the way home she would not have made a remark, I think, if I had not spoken to her. 'Don't you think it was a very pretty sight?' I said at last. 'Yes,' she answered doubtfully; and then ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... black dress, very short and narrow, made after some peculiar fashion of her own, and over it a queerer little cape of the same stuff. Her cap on the other hand was singularly large and white, and the ruffle around her face was very wide and very stiff. The snapping black eyes under the ruffle were never still, and the clawlike little hands were never at rest. David in his idle way used to wonder what she worried about and fidgeted over in her sleep. But it was hard to think of her asleep; ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... worried, and Lydia would be cross; and to Penelope it seemed a pity to be made so uncomfortable for the sake of sixpence or a shilling. She could not bear jars and discords. These, though, were troubles that occurred but seldom to ruffle the surface of her usually happy life. As a rule, like the butterflies, she saw only the sunshine, and the green things growing, and nothing of the sordidness and neglect of everything about her. If she did, if things jarred or fretted her, she just walked ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... this ruffle put the town in great disorder, Some knaves (in office) smiled, expecting 'twould go furder; But at the last, "My life on't! George is no Rumper," said the Recorder, "For there never was either honest man or monk of that order." From a ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... more than by the disdain of the Lady Bonville, and enraged to find that no taunt of his own, however galling, could ruffle a dignity which was an insult both to memory and to self-love, Hastings had exerted more than usual, both at the banquet and in the revel, those general powers of pleasing, which, even in an age when personal qualifications ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... drudge for the dregs of men, And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen, And mingle among the jostling crowd, Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud— I often come to this quiet place, To breathe the airs that ruffle thy face, And gaze upon thee in silent dream, For in thy lonely and lovely stream An image of that calm life appears That won my heart in my ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... easiest to go downhill, and the children felt one soft puff after another slip and sidle down the slope in fragrant breaths that baffed on their eyelids. The little whisper of the sea by the cliffs joined with the whisper of the wind over the grass, the hum of insects in the thyme, the ruffle and rustle of the flock below, and a thickish mutter deep in the very chalk beneath them. Mr Dudeney stopped explaining, and went on with his knitting. They were roused by voices. The shadow had crept halfway down the steep ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... wouldst make of me should wear a book at his girdle instead of a poniard, and might just be suspected of manhood enough to squire a proud dame-citizen to the lecture at Saint Antonlin's, and quarrel in her cause with any flat-capped threadmaker that would take the wall of her. He must ruffle it in another sort that would walk to ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... little figure. She wore a queer little black dress, very short and narrow, made after some peculiar fashion of her own, and over it a queerer little cape of the same stuff. Her cap on the other hand was singularly large and white, and the ruffle around her face was very wide and very stiff. The snapping black eyes under the ruffle were never still, and the clawlike little hands were never at rest. David in his idle way used to wonder what she worried ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... operation during a short time, for the greater conveniency of sharpening the picks and irons, and for purposes connected with the preparations for fixing the railways on the rock. The weather towards the evening became thick and foggy, and there was hardly a breath of wind to ruffle the surface of the water. Had it not, therefore, been for the noise from the anvils of the smiths who had been left on the beacon throughout the day, which afforded a guide for the boats, a landing could ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the idea that you are trying to get the better of them and shut their minds so close to the idea that they are trying to get the better of you, but as Major Jackman says to me, "I know the ways of this circular world Mrs. Lirriper, and that's one of 'em all round it" and many is the little ruffle in my mind that the Major has smoothed, for he is a clever man who has seen much. Dear dear, thirteen years have passed though it seems but yesterday since I was sitting with my glasses on at the open front parlour window one evening in August (the parlours being then vacant) reading yesterday's ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... my left arm in the air, the forearm gracefully bent, the ruffle drooping, and my wrist curved, while my right arm, half extended, securely covered my wrist with the elbow, and my ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sleeping and dead was felt by both husband and wife. Only the upper part of the sleeper's face was visible above the bedclothes, held in position by a thin white nervous hand that was encircled at the wrist by a ruffle. Seth stared. Short brown curls were tumbled over a forehead damp with the dews of sleep and exhaustion. But what appeared more singular, the closed eyes of this vessel of wrath and recklessness were fringed with lashes as long and silky as a woman's. Then Mrs. Rivers gently ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... She might even have told him something, at least a part of the truth, but for that other standing watching her from the drawing-room door. With Clara, there was nothing for it but to ignore her disordered hair, her hat in her hand, her ruffle torn and trailing on ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... it may ruffle human feeling to compel a man to do harm to his own Fatherland, and indirectly to fight his own troops, none the less no army operating in an enemy's country will altogether ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... fond of music, and it was never any task to me to practice," Mona remarked. Then she added, to change the topic: "Shall I baste this ruffle in the full width, or shall I set it ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... him home to those that mourn In vain; a favourable speed Ruffle thy mirror'd mast, and lead Thro' prosperous ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... certain peculiar devil-may-care recklessness about the self-satisfied swagger of his gait, and the free and easy glance of his sharp black eye, united with a temper that nothing could ruffle, and a courage nothing could daunt. With such qualities as these, he had been the prime favourite of his mess, to which he never came without some droll story to relate, or some choice expedient for future amusement. Such had Tom once been; ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... was hanging from the floor above, partly detached by his movement through the structure. It scratched the top of his head, already tender from rough usage, and thereby vexed and angered him, as slight accidents often ruffle even great minds. With a gesture of impatience, and a petulant word not in good taste for a drawing-room, he seized the projecting board, and gave it ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... lingering impulse of childhood; but she matched the scrolls and flowers with the utmost care. If a sudden shock of rebellion made her straighten up for an instant, the next instant she was bending to adjust a ruffle to the best advantage. And when the momentous day arrived, and the little sister and I stood up to be arrayed, it was Frieda herself who patted and smoothed my stiff new calico; who made me turn round and round, to see that I was perfect; who stooped ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... dark line which nights of dissipation pencil too infallibly, seemed larger, more liquid than ever. His face, a little elongated, had gained in calm dignity what it had lost in feverish excitement. His hand, always wonderfully beautiful and strong, was set off by a ruffle of lace, like certain hands by Titian and Vandyck. He was less stiff than formerly. His long, dark hair, softly powdered here and there with silver tendrils, fell elegantly over his shoulders in wavy curls; his voice was still youthful, ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... flask of Green Chartreuse and a liqueur-glass on the table, drop one drip of the liquid into the glass, burn a stinking pastille of incense, place a Birmingham "god" or an opening lily before him, ruffle his hair, and sprawl on the sofa with a wicked French novel he could not read—hoping for visitors and ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... upon meeting a priest took off his hat, knelt on the ground, and kissed the priest's hand. "But now," he added, "you only take off your salakot or your felt hat, which you have placed on the side of your head in order not to ruffle your nicely combed hair! You content yourself with saying, 'good day, among,' and there are proud dabblers in a little Latin who, from having studied in Manila or in Europe, believe that they have the right to shake a priest's hand instead of kissing it. Ah, the day of judgment will ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... the fashion that man may behold of it wrought: Of iron and truth is the mystic mid altar, where worship is none but of thought. No prayer may go up to it, climbing as incense of gladness or sorrow may climb: No rapture of music may ruffle the silence that guards it, and hears not of time. As the winds of the wild blind ages alternate in passion of light and of cloud, So changes the shape of the veil that enshrouds it with darkness and light for a shroud. And the ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and no work except such as is immediately preparatory to the Sabbath, were deemed becoming in good Christians. The clothes had been laid out the night before. Nothing was forgotten. The best frock was ready; the hose and shoes were waiting. Every article of linen, every ruffle and ribbon, were selected on Saturday night. Every one in the house walked mildly. Every one spoke in a low tone. Yet all were cheerful. The mother had on her kindest face, and nobody laughed, but everybody ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... accepted my essay? And wasn't it to be in the very first number? At Oxford I was still in statu pupillari. In London I regarded myself as very much indeed a graduate now—one whom no Soames could ruffle. Partly to show off, partly in sheer good-will, I told Soames he ought to contribute to 'The Yellow Book.' He uttered from the throat a sound of scorn for ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... out the candle. "I'm not afraid of the dark." Moreover, it was not the general policy of the household to ruffle Grandmother's temper unnecessarily. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... what want ye wi' sic a bonnie bird? I fear me its plumes ye will ruffle sairly; Or bring it low down to the lane kirkyard, Where blossoms o' grace ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... ruined care, too delicately framed To brook the harsh confinement of the cage. Oft, when returning with her loaded bill, The astonished mother finds a vacant nest, By the rude hands of unrelenting clowns Robbed: to the ground the vain provision falls. Her pinions ruffle, and low drooping, scarce Can bear the mourner to the poplar shade; Where all abandoned to despair, she sings Her ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... pre-eminence, and disdain of the adversary; and that, in reason, 'tis rather for the weaker to take in good part the oppositions that correct him and set him right. In earnest, I rather choose the company of those who ruffle me than of those who fear me; 'tis a dull and hurtful pleasure to have to do with people who admire us and approve of all we say. Antisthenes commanded his children never to take it kindly or for a favour, when any man commended them. I find I am much prouder of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... high bed, with the posts and tester and muslin ruffle, I remember Aunt Betsy put a little Bible in my hand as soon as I was born, and shut my fingers down tight on it, because she wanted me to love the Bible ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... damages and transferring the wounded to the lighter craft. All day the only shots fired were discharged by a couple of brass toy cannon mounted on a pleasure yacht which Rupert had brought with him. Taking advantage of a mere ruffle of wind, so light that it could not move the big ships, the Cavalier Prince ran his yacht under the stern of the huge flagship of De Ruyter, and fired into him. The Dutchman had no guns bearing dead aft, and the Prince ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... "He's not broken to public life and he doesn't ruffle well, that's all; and, after all, it isn't every man who enjoys being called a liar to his face and before ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... dear little innocent baby. Of course, I can quite understand. And does she suppose I'll ruffle her pretty little feathers? No, not I. I'd rather invent a new cradle song for you, ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... into his glass tub and began to ruffle and splash, but Benjamin Wright did not notice him. Dr. Lavendar beamed. "You mean ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... Sylvia could not remember, even when she was asked later to repeat as much as she could of what she had heard. She was resolving when she was grown-up to have a ruffle of creamy lace falling away from her neck and wrists as Aunt Victoria did. She had not only forgotten Arnold's story, she had forgotten that such a boy existed. She was living in a world all made up of radiance and bloom, lace and sunshine and velvet, and bright hair and gleaming ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... however, boast of its native wild turkey—one of the most magnificent game-birds in existence. There is also the pinnated or Cupid Grouse. The Barren Grounds of Kentucky, and a few other districts, are inhabited by the ruffle grouse, which is also often called the pheasant. It ranges to a considerable distance northward, and Dr Richardson found it even on the borders of the Polar regions. There is likewise a small-sized partridge, which is improperly called ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... changeable green water, moving silently and shadow-like along, in strong contrast with the surrounding dark, marked the places where the monsters were gliding below. When their broad, blackish backs were above the waves, there was frequently a ring or ruffle of snowy surf, formed by the breaking of the swell around the edges of the fish. The review of whales, the only review we had witnessed in Her Majesty's dominions, was, on the whole, an imposing spectacle. We turned from it to witness another ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... he said, "we are not living in a poetry book bound with gilt edges. We are living in a paper-backed volume of prose. Be sensible. Don't ruffle yourself on account of other people. Don't even trouble to criticize them; it is only a nuisance to yourself. All this simply points back to my first suggestion: fill up your time with some hobby, cheese-mites or the influenza bacillus, and then you will be quite ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... party dress also: therefore, to Arethusa's mind, they were similarly arrayed for an Occasion. She could admire whole-heartedly the soft sweep of the folds of Elinor's gown without one iota of unhappiness because her own frock hung in straight thick gathers with but a ruffle edged with lace at the bottom of the skirt for ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... island stood clear of the coast, and I could make it out, low and green and fuzzy, with a rim of white sand running back to the fringe of the jungle and a ruffle of combers on the shingle. We could hear the boom of the waves ashore, beating at the base of the barren brown ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... what reproachfull words are these? Sat. But goe thy wayes, goe giue that changing peece, To him that flourisht for her with his Sword: A Valliant sonne in-law thou shalt enioy: One, fit to bandy with thy lawlesse Sonnes, To ruffle in the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... hard-fisted himself as any, and as ready for trouble, but the man of the mountain-desert has a peculiar dread for the practiced, known gun-fighter. In the days of the rapier when the art of fence grew so complicated that half a life was needed for its mastery, men would as soon commit suicide as ruffle it with an assured duellist; and the man of the mountain-desert has a similar respect for those who are born, it might be said, gun in hand. There was ample reason for the prickling in his scalp, Vic felt, for here he sat on an errand of consummate danger with three of these deadly fighters. Two ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... halfway already. Fortu, shall we sail there together And see from the sides 210 Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts Where the siren abides? Shall we sail round and round them, close over The rocks, tho' unseen, That ruffle the grey glassy water To glorious green? Then scramble from splinter to splinter, Reach land and explore, On the largest, the strange square black turret With never a door, 220 Just a loop to admit the ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know; Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths, 230 And bid them speak for me: but were I Brutus, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue In every wound of Caesar, that should move The stones of ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... my good Master Tyrrel," said the Captain, pulling down the sleeves of his coat, adjusting his handkerchief and breast-ruffle, and endeavouring to recover the composure of manner becoming his mission, but still adverting indignantly to the usage he had received—"By Cot! if she had but been a man, if it were the King himself—However, Mr. Tyrrel, I am come on a civil errand—and very civilly ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Along the street there comes A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums, A flash of colour beneath the sky: Hats off! The flag is ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... no pen worthy to write of Lyddy. Her joy lay deep in her heart like a jewel at the bottom of a clear pool; so deep that no ripple or ruffle on the surface could disturb the hidden treasure. If God had smitten these two with one hand, he had held out the other in ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of clergy is nothing to the privilege and virtue of a handsome exterior. That the skin is nearer than the shirt, is a most false and mistaken idea. The smoothest skin in Christendom would not weigh with a jury like a cambric ruffle; and moreover, there is not a poor devil in town striving to keep up appearances in spite of fortune, who would not far rather tear his flesh than his unmentionables; which can only arise from their being so much more important a part of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... set off from beneath the sweet-scented shade, and now no doubt remained that I was the object of very hostile evolutions. Sometimes these smooth-hooved battalions would advance, cloudlike, to within fifty yards of us, and, snorting, ruffle their manes and wheel swiftly away; only once more in turn to advance, and stand, with heads exalted, gazing wildly on us till we were passed on a little. But my guide gave them very little heed. Did they pause a moment too long in our path, or gallop ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... genius that had palpably spent its last breath back to life again, but that he was satisfied that vigorous effort was a cure for a great many ills that seemed far gone. "Don't heed your mood," he said, "and don't believe there is any calm so dead that your own lungs can't ruffle it with a breeze. If you have work to do, don't wait to feel like it; set to work and you ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... last night, as I have indicated, the most contented of created beings. I awoke this morning with no greater ruffle on my consciousness than the appointment with my lawyers. The sun shone. A thrush sang lustily in the big elm opposite my bedroom windows. The tree, laughed and shook out its finery at me like a woman, saying: "See how green ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... so? What a remarkable occurrence!" exclaims Cecil. "Now, what can have happened to ruffle so ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... great matter in praying to God, not to go too far, nor come too short in that duty. I mean in the duty of prayer, and a man is very apt to do one or the other. The Pharisee went so far, he was too bold, he came into the temple making such a ruffle with his own excellences, there was in his thoughts no need of a Mediator. He also went up so nigh to God, that he took up the room and place of the Mediator himself; but this poor Publican, he knows his distance, and kept it, and leaves room ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... did not wish to ruffle his friend's temper, to be sent to the devil and told that his advice was not wanted. A little tact was necessary. But Corley's brow was soon smooth again. His thoughts were ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... person in surprise, "I guess that's the petticoat Miss Florence basted a ruffle on. I must have ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... clouds were breaking before the wind, which was rising steadily, and some stars shone out, giving a little light. The dike lay deep between its banks and was not more than twenty feet in width, so that the air did not ruffle it; moreover, as any observer of nature will have noticed, the surface of still water is never quite dark, even on ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... He'll live in the Town, nay, in the Street where you live; nay, in the House; nay, in the very Bed, by George; I've heard him a thousand times swear it. Swear it now, Sirrah: look, look, how he stands now! Why, dear Charles, good Boy, swear a little, ruffle her, and swear, damn it, she shall have none but thee. [Aside to him.] Why, you little think, Madam, that this Nephew of mine is one of the maddest Fellows ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... talking over what she would need for her first baby, and for herself, at the time of its birth, if she had not something short and plain that she could wear. She looked very thoughtful for a moment and then said that she thought she did have one night-dress that did not have a ruffle or embroidery around the bottom. She could wear that. It certainly is not from motives of economy that our wealthy patients do not have these most sensible of garments. I think they know nothing about them, and they should have their ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... Roberts from the light-house, whence he saw the topsail taken in; then the vessel freighted with such precious life was seen no more in the mist of the storm. For a time the sea seemed solidified and appeared as of lead, with an oily scum; the wind did not ruffle it. Then sounds of thunder, wind, and rain filled the air; these lasted with fury for twenty minutes; then a lull, and anxious looks among the boats which had rushed into the harbour for Shelley's hark. No glass could find it on the horizon. Trelawny landed ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... ingenuity to the study of essentials. To do common things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than to do uncommon things respectably. We Americans in many things as yet have been a little inclined to begin making our shirt at the ruffle; but nevertheless, when we set about it, we can make the shirt as nicely as anybody,—it needs only that we turn our attention to it, resolved that, ruffle or no ruffle, the shirt we ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... children discover folly, malice, pride, cruelty, revenge, undutifulness in their words and actions? Are they seduced to lewdness or scandalous marriages? It is all by our servants. Nay, the very mistakes, follies, blunders, and absurdities of those in our service, are able to ruffle and discompose the mildest nature, and are often of such consequence, as to put whole families ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... is thy Breath, thou breeze of night! Oh! ruffle not those lids of Snow; For only Morning's cheering light May wake ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... stepped into a soft rose cashmere frock and buttoned up the long, close-fitting bodice, settled the little ruffle at the throat, and adjusted with deft fingers the perky folds of the bustle. "Making-up makes one look so much better that it makes one feel better," she reflected. She took a final look at herself ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... go, give that changing piece To him that flourish'd for her with his sword; A valiant son-in-law thou shalt enjoy; One fit to bandy with thy lawless sons, To ruffle in the ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... public performance. But all the leisure that could be made or stolen was occupied in labours which proved their own reward. Straight from the concert-platform rushed the musician to his workshop, and many a lace ruffle was torn by nails or bespattered by molten pitch; to say nothing of the positive danger to which Herschel continually exposed himself by the precipitancy of his movements. For example: one Saturday evening, when the two brothers returned from a concert ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... this thought allow; The heat, the dust upon our brow, Signs of the contest, we may wear; Yet thus we shall appear more fair In our Almighty Master's eye, Than if in fear to lose the bloom, Or ruffle the soul's lightest plume, We from the strife ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... were other impressions, too, which the learned Tarsus probably made upon him: its university was famous for those petty disputes and rivalries which sometimes ruffle the calm of academical retreats; and it is possible that the murmur of these, with which the air was often filled, may have given the first impulse to that scorn for the tricks of the rhetorician and the windy disputations of the sophist ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... search of a mate, and you will see that he is every inch a game bird—a king of game birds too. In early May this Grouse mounts a fallen tree, or the rail of an old fence, and swells his breast proudly till the long feathers on each side of his neck rise into a beautiful shining black ruffle or tippet, such as you can see in some old-fashioned portraits of the times when Elizabeth was queen of England. He droops his wings and spreads his tail to a brown and gray banded fan, which he holds straight up as a Turkey does his when he is strutting and gobbling. Next ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... this as a humorous smoothing of their first unpleasant ruffle, but if she did she shrewdly deceived him, for she looked at him with the soberest of ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... and opened the door so gently that they were not heard by a soul, and they were not such fools when they had gained the outworks as not to close the door after them and take out the key, and then, without more ado, each picked out a bed-fellow, and began to ruffle her as ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... without anything having occurred to ruffle the tranquil existence of the island families. Every morning the elite of the sea and land forces continued to divide themselves into three squadrons of observation; one of which remained at Rockhouse on some pretext or other, whilst the other two were occupied in exploring ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... shoes. The round pocket left in the middle will serve to hold stockings. Have a bit of thin wood cut to fit the seat of the chair; fasten on this a cushion covered with cretonne, with a deep frill all around (or a narrow frill, provided you prefer to fasten the deep ruffle around the chair itself, as shown in the picture), and a little loop in front by which the seat can be raised like the lid of a box, when the shoes are wanted. This chair is really a most convenient piece of furniture for ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... soon returned from the audience? Did aught transpire to ruffle thy temper? Or, mayhap," he continued with a laugh, "His Majesty did read thee an essay on How to Take Snuff Without a Nose, or some other learned subject ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... exalted devotion where his people can but faintly gaze after him; he tells them of the victory that overcometh the world, of an unmoved faith that fears no evil, of a serenity of love that no outward event can ruffle; and all look after him and wonder, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... violent temper, or a man possessed of a desire to get to a particular spot not favoured by Jane, or by a wish to reach any spot by a certain hour,—I can understand how such a man, carried away by helpless wrath, might possibly ruffle Jane's sad-coloured hair with ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Hookbeak, the hawk, who sometimes passed over the garden, and such bright yellow and black piercing eyes, that as soon as Bluescrags felt their glance meet his, he turned all of a shiver, and his feathers began to ruffle up as though he were wet. But there was no time to shiver or shake, for the great bird was coming after him at a terrible rate, every beat of his pointed wings sending him dashing through the air, and in another moment the strange, ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... which had lately sprung into favour. Opposite her sat Ronnie, confronting the ruins of what had been a dish of prawns in aspic. Cool and clean and fresh-coloured, he was good to look on in the eyes of his companion, and yet, perhaps, there was a ruffle in her soul that called for some answering disturbance on the part of that superbly tranquil young man, and certainly called in vain. Cicely had set up for herself a fetish of onyx with eyes of jade, and doubtless hungered at times with an unreasonable but perfectly natural hunger ...
— When William Came • Saki
... askew, my ruffle stained With grease from my new telescope! Ach, to-morrow How Caroline will be vexed, although she grows Almost as bad as I, who cannot leave My work-shop for one evening. I must give One last recital at St. Margaret's, And then—farewell to music. Who can lead Two lives ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... down at her own dress; at her rounded arms shining white under the little ruffle of fine lace. Her dress was pretty, the prettiest she'd ever had, and gratitude toward the woman at her side overcame for the moment her embarrassment. Presently Waldstricker came to them with the request for a song, and Deforrest Young escorted Tess to the piano. He pitied her from the bottom ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... the declaration of a State of War, the Guard of the Grenadier Regiment Kaiser Alexander, under the command of a Lieutenant with four drummers, took its place before the monument of Frederick the Great in the middle of the Unter den Linden. The drummers sounded a ruffle on their drums and the Lieutenant read an order beginning with the words "By all highest order: A State of War is proclaimed in Berlin and in the Province of Brandenburg." This order was signed by General von Kessel as Over-Commander of the Mark of Brandenburg; and stated ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... bent her beautiful head, observing him closely. Following her eyes, Ronnie saw a ruffle of old lace falling from the 'cellist's throat, a broad crimson ribbon crossing his breast, on ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... the devil he is! trust him, and hang him. Why, he cannot speak a good word on him to my old master; and he does so ruffle before my mistress with his barbarian eloquence,[153] and strut before her in a pair of Polonian legs, as if he were a gentleman-usher to the great Turk or to the devil of Dowgate. And if my mistress would be ruled by him, Sophos might go snick-up: but ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... to be sixteen years old, but no one would have given her credit for such dignity who had seen the incongruous little figure perched upon the slippery haircloth sofa, twinkling with delight at Miss Becky's encomiums. She wore a voluminous nightgown, from under the hem of which a pink gingham ruffle insisted upon poking itself out; her long black hair hung over her shoulders in sufficiently tragic strands; her cheeks, liberally powdered with flour, gleamed treacherously pink through a chance break ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... we left the cave that day, and put off from the shore, ere cat's-paws began to ruffle the water. They came in from the west, and before we had got half-way to the distant headland a steady breeze was blowing. We had hoisted our sail, and were running before it with the speed of ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... He also did a father's share of work with the children. I think he hated hatching them. He would settle upon the roof above the nest, and chirp in a crabbed, imposed-upon tone until his wife came out. As she flew briskly away, he would look disconsolately around at the bright busy world, ruffle his feathers, scold to himself, and then crawl dutifully in ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... hands from the cup of life. George Eliot, George Meredith, Louis Stevenson, Howells, James, look on life from a private box. We see their kid gloves and their opera-glass and we know that nothing could ever take them on to the stage and ruffle it with the world of the day, like men of the world who mean to taste life. There is no known instance of a great novelist who lived obscure in a solitary retreat or who became famous only after ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... during this fortnight one or two little matters, just sufficiently laden with care to ruffle the rose-leaves of our hero's couch. Lady Eardham thought that both the dining-room and drawing-room should be re-furnished, that a bow-window should be thrown out to the breakfast-parlour, and that a raised conservatory should be constructed into ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... face. Nor would he enjoy being beaten. Greater than any value he would set on the ownership of the March Hare would loom the consciousness that he had been defeated, balked by a lot of schoolboys, by one boy in particular. The incident would ruffle his vanity and ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... sight it looks like a lizard, but its movements are those of a fish. The head, lower part of the body, and tail resemble an eel, but it has no fins, and its breathing organs are quite unlike those of fishes. Round its neck is a ruffle, which seems to help it to breathe, although it has perfect lungs and can breathe, as well as move, equally comfortably on land and in water. The front feet are like hands, and each has three fingers, whilst the ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... life and the mighty joy of it, they found the going unusually easy that day. The water was like the kiss of new life, crisp, tonic, vitalising. There was no more than a breath of wind, no more than a ruffle on the backs of the long blue rollers that came sweeping slowly in out ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... apparel from their chests, wherein to meet the knights. The fair women made haste enow. Their cheeks needed little false colour. They wore fillets of bright gold on their heads, fashioned like rich wreaths, that the wind might not ruffle their beautiful hair. They ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... family group, besides myself, were Mrs. Wilson and the Wilson girls. The candidate himself indeed seemed to take only perfunctory interest in what was happening at Baltimore. He never allowed a single ballot or the changes those ballots reflected to ruffle or disturb him. Never before was the equable disposition of the man better manifested than during these trying days. Only once did he show evidences of irritation. It was upon the receipt of word from ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... faithful. Thou shalt be rewarded. Aye, ruffle up thy feathers, good goose, for they shall never be plucked from thee, nor shalt thou be cooked for food. Thou art my friend from to-day. No pen shall hold thee, but thou shalt follow me ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... shining in the cloud-flecked heavens and the little winds blowing up from the south to ruffle the hair at the girl's temples, these two sat by the Silver Hollow and talked of a thousand things, after the manner of the young, for Kenset found himself reverting to the things of youth in the light of ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... of the President's course, but they failed to ruffle him. On his asking if I was taking any part in the campaign, I referred to a speech that I had made on the Fourth of July in Leipsic, and another to the Cornell University students just before my departure, with the remark that I felt that a foreign diplomatic representative coming ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... moon into the glorious blue. Her perfect image went off in the opposite direction, for there was not the ghost of a zephyr to ruffle the deep. Presently the sun followed in her wake, and scattered the battalions of cloudland with artillery of molten gold. Little white gulls, with red legs and beaks, came dipping over the water, solemnly wondering at the intruders. The morning mists rolling along before the resistless monarch ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... pleasant little branch, is there regard in you for the last words of the dead woman?" The old cailleach had come again to ruffle the grave silence about young ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... instructions issued to Chauvelin contain ideas similar to those outlined above; but they lay stress on the utility of a French alliance for England, in order to thwart the aims of a greedy Coalition and to ensure her own internal tranquillity, which, it is hinted, France can easily ruffle. Talleyrand is also charged to offer to cede the small but valuable island, Tobago, which we lost in 1783, provided that the British Government guaranteed a French loan of L3,000,000 or L4,000,000, to be raised ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... white even teeth were bared. They looked like a couple of belligerent puppies. Another moment and they would have forgotten the sacred traditions of their class and flown at each other's hair. But Miss Bascom interposed. Even the loss of her uninsured million did not ruffle her, for she had another in Government and railroad bonds, and full confidence in her brother, who was an admirable business man, and not ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... article of wearing apparel was of outing flannel, roomy where amplitude was most needed, gathered at the waist with a drawstring, confined at the ankle by a deep ruffle—a garment of ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... disappears under a growth of stunted, but sturdy trees; dwarf alders and squat firs that shake their white-backed leaves, and swing their needle clusters, merrily if the breeze is mild, obstinately if the gale is rousing and seem to proclaim: "Here are we, well and secure. Ruffle and toss, and lash, O winds, the faithless waters, we shall ever cling to this hospitable footing, the only kindly soil amid this dreariness; here you once wafted our seed; here shall we live ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... bunches of the flowers, and running from clump to clump with thrills of delight. Surely even Freckles's "Limberlost" could not be more beautiful than this. A persistent cuckoo was calling in the meadow close by; a thrush with his brown throat all a-ruffle trilled in a birch tree overhead, and a blackbird warbled his heart out among the hazel bushes by the fence. The girls went peeping here and there and everywhere in quest of birds' nests, and their diligent search was amply rewarded. In the hollow of a decaying stump a robin was feeding five little ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... shapely a back she can afford to allow her waist to fit smoothly and plainly, unbroken by any conspicuous lines. If bands must be used to remedy the deficiencies of ungenerous Nature, let them be at the neck and waist; and if the back is unconscionably long, a band, or fold, or ruffle across the shoulders is to ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... been placed under an air-pump. Miss Pew had a horror of draughts, so the upper sashes were only lowered a couple of inches, to let out the used atmosphere. There was no chance of a gentle west wind blowing in to ruffle the loose hair upon the foreheads of ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... angels could. They bring forth what is evil in you, that it may be conquered. Do not understand me to mean that you should ever seek those who may harm you. But a day can hardly pass over our heads, that we do not meet with persons who ruffle that harmony of soul we so labour after. It is keenly felt when one is as young in a better life as you are. You need strength, and then you will be calm and even. Time, patience, combating, prayer, good-will to man, must bring your soul to order, then you will bear upon ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... him for music or anything aesthetic to ruffle the deeper springs. Wait until he has storms and whirlwinds to withstand." Mr. Bovyer ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... green gingham, and that was just tucked! If there could be a white dress it would have to have ruffles on it; all the other girls' white dresses had ruffles on them somewhere. Carrie's had two ruffles on the skirt, and Mamie Cole's had three. Bertha Dean's had only one ruffle around the shoulders and the skirt was tucked, but it was very pretty; and if Tabitha could not have ruffles on the skirt, she would want at least a shoulder ruffle with lace around it. Well, there ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... fallen from my bosom during our ruffle. I can ill afford to leave it, for I travel light in such matters. Eight hundred men, quoth the major, and three thousand to follow. Should I meet this same Oglethorpe or Ogilvy when the little business is over, I shall read him a lesson on thinking ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with eyes half-closed, lying back in the arm-chair— one which he had brought from his own room—was "Ruffle-shirt" Tomlins. He was the only member who dressed every day for dinner, whether he was going out afterward or not—spike-tailed coat, white tie and all. Tomlins not only knew intimately a lady of high degree who owned a box at the Academy of Music, in Fourteenth Street, and ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... numerous, proud of her bright cheery eye, proud of her short jaunty step, and very proud of the neat, precise, small feet with which those steps were taken. She was proud also, ay, very proud, of the rich brocaded silk in which it was her custom to ruffle ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... rather of the same complexion of Entrails with that Signor Volpone whom we have all seen—at least such of us as be old Boys—in Ben Jonson's play of the Fox. He Money-grubbed, and Money-clutched, and Money-wrung, ay, and in a manner Money-stole, that he might live largely, and ruffle it among his brother Cits in surpassing state and splendour. He had been Lord Mayor; and on his Show-day the Equipments of chivalry had been more Sumptuous, the Banners more varied, the Entertainment at ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... often repellent. EYES—Very bright and deeply set, full of determination, and with a very steady expression. The look of the Foxhound is very remarkable. NECK—Should be perfectly clean, no skin ruffle whatever, or neck cloth, as huntsmen call it. The length of neck is of importance, both for stooping and giving an air of majesty. SHOULDERS—The blades should be well into the back, and should slant, otherwise be wide and strong, to meet the arms, that should be long and powerful. ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... Madam, love a stiff Ruffle, for shou'd the Wind blow it aside, your Ladyship's Elbow might catch cold, but I'll slacken my Hand i'the next.—Does your Ladyship want ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... and those birds which make us but a passing visit depart, the woods become silent again, and but few feathers ruffle the drowsy air. But the solitary rambler may still find a response and expression for every mood in the depths ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... sprung into favour. Opposite her sat Ronnie, confronting the ruins of what had been a dish of prawns in aspic. Cool and clean and fresh-coloured, he was good to look on in the eyes of his companion, and yet, perhaps, there was a ruffle in her soul that called for some answering disturbance on the part of that superbly tranquil young man, and certainly called in vain. Cicely had set up for herself a fetish of onyx with eyes of jade, and doubtless hungered at times with an unreasonable but perfectly natural ...
— When William Came • Saki
... of Autumn! Who rush by, who shake The window, and ruffle The gleam-lighted lake; Who cross to the hill-side Thin-sprinkled with farms, Where the high woods strip sadly Their yellowing arms— Ye are bound for the mountains! Ah! with you let me go Where your cold, distant barrier, The vast range of snow, Through the ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... of dark wind almost swept me from the log upon which I sat. Then again all was a perfect calm, and the young leaves over the stream hung heavily on their tender foot-stalks, and the points of the breeze-swept grass turned back, and the ruffle of all things smoothed itself. But there seemed to be a sense of fear in the waiting silence ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... that glowing mirror spread The splendour of its heaven-reflecting gleams, A level wealth of tints, calm as the sky That broods above our own mortality: The temporal seas had fled, And ah, what hopes, what fears, what mystic dreams Could ruffle it now from any deeper deep? Content in its own bounds it ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... bend the killing bow Of that nice neck-tie, "rich, but neat," Nor put a ruffle in your shirt, Nor break the white plaits ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... last youth and nature began to rebel, and secretly to crave some little change or incident to ruffle the stagnant pool. Yet she would not go into society, and would only receive two or three dull people at the villa; so she made the very monotony which was beginning to tire her, and nursed a sacred grief she had no need to nurse, it was so ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... left this post—let that be thine answer to thy kinsman and comrades—and, hark thee, to bind the recollection on thy memory, I give thee this gold chain" (flinging on his arm one of considerable value). "If I go not brave myself, those whom I trust have ever the means to ruffle it with the best. But when such chains as these bind not the tongue from wagging too freely, my gossip, L'Hermite, hath an amulet for the throat, which never fails to work a certain cure. And now attend.—No ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... the minds of her visitors. Her skin was very dark, and her head closely wrapped in a dark bandana, from which this gray hair peeped at intervals forming a frame for her face. She was clad in a black and white flowered print dress and a dark gray sweater, from which a white ruffle was apparent at the neck. Only two buttons of the sweater were fastened and it fell away at the waist displaying her green striped apron. From beneath the long dress, her feet were visible encased in men's black shoes laced with white strings. Her ornaments consisted ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... house, which I never loved but for thy sake!—Adieu then, my dearest CLARISSA!—Thou art happy, I doubt not, as thou assuredst me in thy last letter!—O may we meet, and rejoice together, where no villanous Lovelaces, no hard-hearted relations, will ever shock our innocence, or ruffle our felicity! ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... utterance, nor the power of speech, 220 To stir men's blood: I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know; Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor poor dumb mouths, And bid them speak for me: but were I Brutus, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 225 Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue In every wound of Caesar, that should move The stones of Rome to rise ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... a pink parasol for that Elegant Ella. Not a silk one, you know, Uncle, but a sateen one, with a little ruffle around it, and a white handle. She'd be so delighted, she'd just ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... sort, that interferes with sight and respiration, and makes the eyes sore. Even such winds as these have their own merit in proper time and place. It is pleasant to see them brandish great masses of shadow. And what a power they have over the colour of the world! How they ruffle the solid woodlands in their passage, and make them shudder and whiten like a single willow! There is nothing more vertiginous than a wind like this among the woods, with all its sights and noises; and the effect gets between some painters and their sober eyesight, so that, even when ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... O monstrous, what reproachfull words are these? Sat. But goe thy wayes, goe giue that changing peece, To him that flourisht for her with his Sword: A Valliant sonne in-law thou shalt enioy: One, fit to bandy with thy lawlesse Sonnes, To ruffle in ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... light-house, whence he saw the topsail taken in; then the vessel freighted with such precious life was seen no more in the mist of the storm. For a time the sea seemed solidified and appeared as of lead, with an oily scum; the wind did not ruffle it. Then sounds of thunder, wind, and rain filled the air; these lasted with fury for twenty minutes; then a lull, and anxious looks among the boats which had rushed into the harbour for Shelley's hark. No glass could find it on the horizon. Trelawny landed at eight o'clock; inquiries were useless. ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... also a kind of impetuosity, which one of her governesses had called defiance. When she grew up she showed, therefore, the stronger nature of the two, and her father, as was his wont, gave way. He laughed at his little tyrant, whose great delight was to ruffle his thick curling hair. When, in his half-abstracted way, the old gentleman would tell her stones which threatened to end unpleasantly, she would scold him well; but when, from some cause or other, ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... tricks of affectation, a delightful contrast to so many of the eminent authors of our own time. Those troublesome doubts, doubts of all kinds, which since the great upheaval of the French Revolution have harassed mankind, had scarcely begun to ruffle the waters of their life. Even Johnson's troubled mind enjoyed vast levels of repose. The unknown world alone was wrapped in stormy gloom; of this world 'all the complaints which were made were unjust[1].' Though I ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... exclaimed that small person in surprise, "I guess that's the petticoat Miss Florence basted a ruffle on. I must have forgotten ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... where she herself slept. It was a little place, bare enough, but very neat and clean, as all things belonging to Wealthy were sure to be. Then, she washed Eyebright's face and hands, and brushed her hair, retying the brown bow, crimping with her fingers the ruffle round Eyebright's neck, and putting on a fresh white apron to conceal the ravages of play in the school frock. Eyebright was quite able to wash her own face, but Wealthy was not willing yet to think so; she liked to do it herself, and Eyebright ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... life," she thought. "Why, Kathleen is like a fairy godmother. And how well it fits! And what a perfect cut about the neck! And, oh! these darling little cuffs at the end of the sleeves, and this sweet pink embroidery and this little ruffle of lace round the neck. Oh! there never, never was anything made so beautifully before. I am in ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... whether to laugh or to cry. And when at last she had made an end of all her deprecations and drawings back, and summoned up heart enough to straddle over the rope, one leg at a time, it was a sight to see her ruffle herself up like a peacock and go away down the lane with her damaged nose, seeming to think discretion the better part of valour, and rather uneasy lest they should ask her to repeat the exploit. Much as I had enjoyed the grace of the older girls, it was now just as it had been before in France, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a bit," remonstrated Pat, "before yer ruffle yer feathers clane over yer head and blinds yer eyes. Wud a man loike Boss Arnot send me, if I was dhrunk, wid a letther at this toime o' night? and wud he send a letther to the superintindent o' the perlice at this toime o' the night to ax him the toime ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... opposite each other, rather silent, through lunch, her eyes and mind were busy trying to read the secret of Dick's manner. The girl had impressed him strongly, that was evident, but why should she have occasioned this gloom in Dick who so very rarely allowed anything or anybody to ruffle his cheery ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... observer it would have seemed that the chief characteristic of this pale, still day, was extreme and settled calm. There was not a breath of wind to ruffle the surface of the sea; but there was a slight, glassy swell, and that only served to show curious opalescent tints under the suffused light of the sun. There were no clouds; there was only a thin veil of faint and sultry mist all across the sky; ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... I wish I were a Robin,— A Robin, or a little Wren, everywhere to go, Through forest, field, or garden, And ask no leave or pardon, Till winter comes with icy thumbs To ruffle up ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... is! trust him, and hang him. Why, he cannot speak a good word on him to my old master; and he does so ruffle before my mistress with his barbarian eloquence,[153] and strut before her in a pair of Polonian legs, as if he were a gentleman-usher to the great Turk or to the devil of Dowgate. And if my mistress would be ruled by him, Sophos might ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... Outward, palpable proofs of suffering are often wholly wanting; and even when, as in 1770, such proofs abound, there is generally no lack of evidence on the other side. The Bengali bears existence with a composure that neither accident nor chance can ruffle. He becomes silently rich or uncomplainingly poor. The emotional part of his nature is in strict subjection, his resentment enduring but unspoken, his gratitude of the sort that silently descends from generation to ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... The surface is steeply inclined, but it is perfectly unbroken. There are no lateral waves, no ripples with their breaking bubbles to raise a murmur; while the depth is here too great to allow the inequality of the bed to ruffle the surface. Nothing can be more beautiful than this sloping liquid mirror formed by the Niagara, in ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... school should propose to place it as a frontispiece to a new edition of Potter or of Adam—applauding you the while for having faithfully preserved the classic costume. I tell you that the classic costume must ruffle and stir with passions kindred to our own, or it had better be left hanging against the wall. And what a deception it is that the scholastic imagination is perpetually imposing on itself in this matter! Accustomed to dwell on the points of difference between the men of one age and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... dress in imitation of the moneyed ones whom she served. The other girls were wont to wear severely tailored shirts, mannish ties, stocks, flat-heeled shoes, rough tweed skirts. Not so Myra. That delicate cup-like hollow at the base of her white throat was fittingly framed in a ruffle of frilly georgette. She did her hair in soft undulations that flowed away from forehead and temple, and she powdered her nose a hundred times a day. Her little shoes were high-heeled and her hands were miraculously white, and if you prefer ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... to Bendigo, where the tour finished. There, says a pressman, "she lived on terms of the most cordial amity with the entire populace, and without a single disturbing incident to ruffle the serenity ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... for a little self-excuse,—nothing more. In general they are as easy and careless, and dispute as seldom, as any common acquaintances may; for it is neither worth their while to put each other out of the way, nor to ruffle themselves. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... straw-bonnet, with a shawl pinned across the saddle, will unblushingly thrust itself into companionship with a handsome English horse, whose owner is graced by the most unexceptionable habit and other appliances. Even the very donkeys walk along with dignified resolution, as if determined to ruffle it with the best, and not yield an inch of their prerogative. In fact, they evidently know their own value, and remember that not one of the hills around—not the giant tree on the heights of Lugliano, nor the tempting strawberry-gardens on the mountain of Benabbio—could ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... margin of the basin, leaving it open from shore to shore for the first time, thousands of years after its conception beneath the glacier that excavated its basin. The landscape, cold and bare, is reflected in its pure depths; the winds ruffle its glassy surface, and the sun fills it with throbbing spangles, while its waves begin to lap and murmur around its leafless shores,—sun-spangles during the day and reflected stars at night its only flowers, the winds and the snow its only visitors. Meanwhile, the ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... but his success was indifferent, as evidenced in many a moan from reverend ministers and deacons. John Eliot, one of the sweetest and most saintly spirits among them, wrote that it was a "luxurious feminine prolixity for men to wear their hair long and to ... ruffle their heads in excesses of this kind," but in later years, with many another wearied antagonist of this abomination, added hopelessly—"the lust is insuperable." Tobacco was fulminated against with equal energy, but no decree of court ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... the cave that day, and put off from the shore, ere cat's-paws began to ruffle the water. They came in from the west, and before we had got half-way to the distant headland a steady breeze was blowing. We had hoisted our sail, and were running before it with the speed of a ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... webbed; so it swims in a circle and can be easy shot by the sportsman, who first baits it with snuff that it will go miles to get. Another wild beast they had him hunting was the filo, which is like the ruffle snake, except that it has a thing like a table leg in its ear. It gets up on a hill and peeks over at you, but will never come in to lunch. The boys said they nearly had one over on Grizzly Peak one time, but it swallowed its tail and become invisible to the human eye, though they could ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... the Viscount led Barnabas across the yard to a certain wing or off-shoot of the inn, where beneath a deep, shadowy gable was a door. Yet here he must needs pause a moment to glance down at himself to settle a ruffle and adjust his hat ere, lifting the latch, he ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... feminine attractions. Her eyes were bright; but then, also, they were mischievous. She could talk fluently enough; but then, also, she could scold. She could assume sometimes the plumage of a dove; but then again she could occasionally ruffle her feathers like an angry kite. I am quite prepared to acknowledge that John Eames should have kept himself clear of Amelia Roper; but then young men so frequently do those things ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... climate or state you please, for all that I will keep my soul content. Is any misadventure big enough to ruffle my peace, or to make my mind mean, craving and servile? What is there that can justify ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... that which you yourselves do know; Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths, And bid them speak for me; but were I Brutus, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue In every wound of Caesar, that would move The stones of ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... together with my own appearance and manners, ensured me a welcome in the best houses of Seville. Here I took that share of our business which my master could not take, for now he never mixed among the fashion of the city. Money I was supplied with in abundance so that I could ruffle it with the best, but soon it became known that I looked to business as well as to pleasure. Often and often during some gay ball or carnival, a lady would glide up to me and ask beneath her breath if Don Andres ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... dogs are described by Darwin: Mr. Colquhoun winged two wild ducks, which fell on the farther side of a stream; his retriever tried to bring over both at once, but could not succeed; she then, though never before known to ruffle a feather, deliberately killed one, brought over the other, and returned for the dead bird. Colonel Hutchinson relates that two partridges were shot at once—one being killed, the other wounded; the latter ran away, and was caught by the retriever, who, on her ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... and the certain storehouses of good stories, which storehouses are the upper stories of old canons and wise dames, who remember the good old days when they could enjoy a hearty laugh without looking to see if their hilarity disturbed the sit of your ruffle, as do the young women of the present day, who wish to take their pleasure gravely—a custom which suits our Gay France as much as a water jug would the head of a queen. Since laughter is a privilege granted to man alone, and he has sufficient causes for tears within his reach, without adding ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... dark-skinned man, clean-featured, lean-cheeked, full-lipped, with restless dark eyes, thin, olive-tinted hands, black hair, worn overlong, parted in the manner of a maid and falling upon his brow in glossy waves, which he would ruffle into disorder, with the air of knowing what he was about. He was clad all in black, for the reason, he said, that he aspired to holy orders: well-kept black, edged with linen of the whitest, and not ill cut, according to my uncle's fashion-plates, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... can understand why women immediately become "ruffled" when a mere man suggests that, if marriage be a serious business, the least a girl can do is to learn the business side of that business before she enters into partnership. But "ruffle" they do. Also they think that you have insulted the sex, rather as if you had accosted a goddess with a "tickler," or stood before the Sphynx and, regarding her mysterious smile, said, "Give it up, old Bean!" For, after all, if the man has to pay the piper, it's up to the woman to know how ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... apparel was of outing flannel, roomy where amplitude was most needed, gathered at the waist with a drawstring, confined at the ankle by a deep ruffle—a ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... want ye wi' sic a bonnie bird? I fear me its plumes ye will ruffle sairly; Or bring it low down to the lane kirkyard, Where blossoms o' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... satin ribbon half an inch wide laid in box pleats, chain-stitch it on the foundation along the inner edges with gold thread. Underlay the velvet with wadding, and line it with satin; join the two pieces of satin designed for the bottom over wadding, and edge the bottom with a ruffle of Bordeaux satin ribbon seven-eighths of an inch wide. The case is joined with narrow white satin ribbon. Bows of olive and Bordeaux satin ribbon trim the case as shown by the illustration. A full-sized design of the embroidery was given on page 120 of Harper's Bazar, No. 8, ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... it is profoundly enjoyable, to sit on the margin of the sea during the dead calm that not unfrequently succeeds a wild storm, and watch the gentle undulations of the glass-like surface, which the very gulls seem to be disinclined to ruffle with their wings as they descend to hover above their ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the bay the houses began to dwindle, giving place to open fields, brown and sear under the scudding sea-fog, for now a wind was building up from out the east, and the surface of the bay had begun to ruffle. ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... mother was not with them. They went and returned under Martin's convoy, and till about half way on their way home again all went satisfactorily. Then unfortunately occurred the first ruffle. Maudie had been walking on in front with little Duke, Hoodie and Hec, each with a hand of ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... Corpus drew near without anything occurring to ruffle the quiet life of the Cathedral. Sometimes in the upper cloister they spoke of His Eminence's health. His serious quarrels with the Chapter had obliged him to keep his bed, and he had just had an attack which made them ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was another matter. Perhaps she had considered her sister's going there to be enough; at any rate, she had not been party to the surrender, and this gave me whimsical satisfaction. Moreover, it had evidently occasioned no ruffle in the affectionate relations between herself ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... cool, dignified, and austere, but his manner was not calculated to ruffle his superior officer. It seemed rather to indicate a confidence that the Governor General would punish as was fitting the impertinence of the intruders from Kaintock. He bestowed only a single glance upon them, as if his victory over such insignificant ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Leonor, "surely the malady of your friend has somewhat affected your understanding. We can have no right to interfere with the actions of my father, particularly as I have already told you some accidents have occurred lately to ruffle his temper." ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... sharp-winged bird, with a cruel-looking mouth, like that belonging to Hookbeak, the hawk, who sometimes passed over the garden, and such bright yellow and black piercing eyes, that as soon as Bluescrags felt their glance meet his, he turned all of a shiver, and his feathers began to ruffle up as though he were wet. But there was no time to shiver or shake, for the great bird was coming after him at a terrible rate, every beat of his pointed wings sending him dashing through the air, and in another moment the strange, fierce ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... answered Rosemary, blowing out the candle. "I'm not afraid of the dark." Moreover, it was not the general policy of the household to ruffle Grandmother's ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Crumbling—fading—nothing finished. I planned so much. Life runs, Francesco, while one sits and thinks. Nothing finished. My manuscripts—do with them what you will. I could not even write like other men—this poor left hand." He lifted the filmy lace ruffle falling across his hand. He smiled ironically at the costly folds, as they fluttered from his fingers. "A man is poor who has few wants. Then I have not been poor. But there is nothing left. It will be ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... engages one—a lake lifting itself up by its own strength out of the earth, always, night and day, inexhaustible, hardly varying in volume, coming no one knows whence, deep and green, with no visible bottom, without a bubble, without a ruffle—it is indeed wonderful. I have seen the spring of the Danube at Donaueschingen: it is nothing to this; the fountain of Vaucluse one can understand—it breaks out from a cave in the mountainside, like scores of others; this is otherwise—a river rising with no fuss, no ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... against the Confederacy, when overwhelming forces from all sides pressed back her defenders, Lee for a year held his ground with a constantly-diminishing army, fighting battle after battle in the forests and swamps around Richmond. No reverses seemed to dispirit him, no misfortune appeared to ruffle his calm, brave temperament. Only at last, when he saw the remnants of his noble army about to be ridden down by Sheridan's cavalry, when eight thousand men, half-starved and broken with fatigue, were surrounded by the net which ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... feared no one else. Todd's chief private moan was that he never had any money. His father was a rich man, but had some ideas which were rather rough on his weak-kneed son. He tipped poor Gus as though he were some thrifty hairdresser's son, and Todd had to try to ruffle it with young Amorians on as many shillings as they had crowns. Not a lad who ever had naturally any large amount of self-respect, the little he had soon went, and he became, while still a fag, a hewer of ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... was that I entered upon the duties of the household, with a lightness of heart equal to that of any matron. In the humble home (I commence from there) in that beautiful north-west land of quietness and peace, there was not a ruffle heard, or a rumor sounded, of what was in store for that industrious little community. We were living in the bonds of fellowship with all mankind, and we had no fear. But in all that stillness there was an undercurrent at work that would soon make itself felt. Dissatisfaction on account ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... takes pride that he rides down and stabs at his ease, and with perfect safety, the naked Welshmen?—or is it to his nephew, the beardless Damian?—or must thy possessions go to mend a breach in the fortunes of that other cousin, Randal Lacy, the decayed reveller, who, they say, can no longer ruffle it among the debauched crusaders for want ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... house where she would reign as mistress very won. He numbered the weeks. He whispered: "Come." In the hurry of the moment she did not examine a lightning terror that shot through her. It passed, and was no more than the shadow which bends the summer grasses, leaving a ruffle of her ideas, in wonder of her having feared herself for something. Her father was with them. She and Willoughby were ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... all that I answer for, is that you can have given him no just cause of offence. He certainly is greatly, very greatly discomposed; I have seldom seen him more so. His temper is not happy, and something has now occurred to ruffle it in an uncommon degree; some disappointment, some vexation, which just at this moment seems important, but which I can hardly suppose you to have any concern in, for how ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... And there were birds, birds, birds. Everywhere you heard their joyous piping, the busy flutter of their wings. There were goldfinches, blackbirds, thrushes, with their young—the plumpest, clumsiest, ruffle-feathered little blunderers, at the age ingrat, just beginning to fly, a terrible anxiety to their parents—and there were also (I regret to own) a good many rowdy sparrows. There were bees and bumblebees; there were ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... round to the south-east soon after the departure of the canoes from Moose Fort, and although there was not enough of it to ruffle the surface of the river, it had the effect of checking the influx of ice from James's Bay. The tide, too, began to ebb, so that the progress of the canoes was even more rapid than it appeared to be; and long before the sun set, they were past the point at the mouth ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... Pauper Province!' said William, her chin in her hand, as she leaned forward among the wine-glasses. Her cheeks had fallen in, and the scar on her forehead was more prominent than ever, but the well-turned neck rose roundly as a column from the ruffle of the blouse which was the ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... perhaps, she tucked away some lingering impulse of childhood; but she matched the scrolls and flowers with the utmost care. If a sudden shock of rebellion made her straighten up for an instant, the next instant she was bending to adjust a ruffle to the best advantage. And when the momentous day arrived, and the little sister and I stood up to be arrayed, it was Frieda herself who patted and smoothed my stiff new calico; who made me turn round and round, to see that I was perfect; who stooped to pull out a disfiguring ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... happen that, while he was amusing himself in the circle of his playmates, the most trifling contradiction would ruffle his temper, and fill him with the highest degree of rage and fury, little short ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... and alone, Must prove the dubious step, the still unknown, Yet ever beaten way. And through this fatal vale Would you be wafted with some gentle gale? Put off that eager strife and fierce disdain, Clouds that involve our life's serene, And storms that ruffle all the scene; Your precious hours, misspent in others' pain, On nobler deeds, worthy yourselves, bestow; Whether with hand or wit you raise Some monument of peaceful praise, Some happy labour of fair love: 'Tis all of heaven that you can find below, And opens ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... bowed and again Ryder felt the throb of triumph. He looked upon his friend with admiration. How marvelously McLean had worked the miracle. No accusations, no threats, no obstacles, no blank walls of denial! Not a ruffle of discord in the establishment of these salient facts—the marriage of Madame Delcasse to the pasha and ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... or cut off a politician's head. No excitement quickened his moderation. Even the most biting of personal sarcasms failed to ruffle a temper that ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... the lieutenant, looking very penitent, and offering his hand. "I wouldn't say a word to ruffle your sensitive feelings, I do assure you." Miss Pemberton, being appeased, gave her hand to the lieutenant, and though she at first showed some signs of trepidation, stepped without difficulty into the sternsheets of the boat. She was followed ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... Signor Volpone whom we have all seen—at least such of us as be old Boys—in Ben Jonson's play of the Fox. He Money-grubbed, and Money-clutched, and Money-wrung, ay, and in a manner Money-stole, that he might live largely, and ruffle it among his brother Cits in surpassing state and splendour. He had been Lord Mayor; and on his Show-day the Equipments of chivalry had been more Sumptuous, the Banners more varied, the Entertainment at Saddlers' Hall,—where the Lord Mayor was wont to hold ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... I. "He's not broken to public life and he doesn't ruffle well, that's all; and, after all, it isn't every man who enjoys being called a liar to his face and before some hundreds ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... who still swam on toward where the sailor was waiting, and in happy ignorance of the nearness of one of the sharks. Syd could see right down into the clear water whenever the disturbance made by the lad's strokes did not ruffle the surface, and his starting eyes were plunged down into the depths in search ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... couple of belligerent puppies. Another moment and they would have forgotten the sacred traditions of their class and flown at each other's hair. But Miss Bascom interposed. Even the loss of her uninsured million did not ruffle her, for she had another in Government and railroad bonds, and full confidence in her brother, who was an admirable business man, and not ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... imagined small temporary advantage throw away the long growth of good-will nurtured by wise and patient men and who cannot see the lasting and far greater future evil they do. Of all the years since 1776 this great war-year is the worst to break the 100 years of our peace, or even to ruffle it. I pray you, good friend, get us ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... yet changeless in tide and restraint—was as bright and sparkling as at midsummer. Along the distant beaches the white ruffle of the surf seemed to have just been laundered. The green of the shallows and the blue of the deeper sea were ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... you make it longer, and lower in the neck?" inquired Betty impatiently. Helen was as conscientiously slow about making up her mind as she was about learning her Livy. "It's hemmed, isn't it? Anyhow you could piece it under the ruffle." ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... gown of smooth black cloth clung to her vast form without a wrinkle, sombre, severe, giving her a kind of slenderness in stoutness. She wore a white lace vest and any quantity of lace ruffles, any number of little black velvet lines and points set with paste buttons. And every ruffle, every line, every point and button was an accent, emphasising some beauty of ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... have conspired to disturb the quiet of my mind, however, they could only ruffle the surface. Through Christ, I enjoy settled peace.—In the course of discussion in the Leaders' Meeting I was given to see the amiableness of the meekness of wisdom, which was exhibited by one of our leaders. I came home praying for more of it, feeling greater love for the Lord's people, ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... had occurred to ruffle her, and without endeavouring to elicit the cause—possibly he felt he could make a pretty good guess at it!—he set himself to amuse and entertain her. He was so far successful in his efforts that before very long she had almost forgotten her annoyance of the previous evening ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... Without the slightest ruffle of composure little Eve Edgarton accepted the correction. "Oh, has he?" she conceded amiably. "Well, then, good old John Ellbertson—good old John Ellbertson—how I do love his kind—gray eyes," she ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... the sole remonstrance. Field never used the rod; and in truth he wielded the cane with no great good will—holding it "like a dancer." It looked in his hands rather like an emblem than an instrument of authority; and an emblem, too, he was ashamed of. He was a good easy man, that did not care to ruffle his own peace, nor perhaps set any great consideration upon the value of juvenile time. He came among us, now and then, but often staid away whole days from us; and when he came, it made no difference to us—he had his private room to retire ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... back to his own apartments, fearing that he might speak in the ante-chambers to one of her maids of honor. One evening she went further still. The king was seated, surrounded by the ladies who were present, and holding in his hand, concealed by his lace ruffle, a small note which he wished to slip into La Valliere's hand. Madame guessed both his intention and the letter too. It was difficult to prevent the king going wherever he pleased, and yet it was necessary to prevent his going near La Valliere, or speaking to ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... thousands of stitches! The ruffles ran up and down, and over and across, and three times round. Being white, the garments were of course changed daily. In the intervals of baby-tending, the mother snatched a few minutes here and a few minutes there to starch, iron, flute, or crimp a ruffle, or to finish off a dress of her own. This "finishing off" was carried on for weeks. When her baby was asleep, or was good, or had its little ruffles all fluted, and its little sister's little ruffles were all fluted, then would she seize ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... in chorus delightfully. They were all in a row gesticulating, and anger, vengeance, jealousy, terror, and stupefaction breathed forth at once from their half-opened mouths. The outraged lover brandished his naked sword; his guipure ruffle rose with jerks to the movements of his chest, and he walked from right to left with long strides, clanking against the boards the silver-gilt spurs of his soft boots, widening out at the ankles. He, she thought must ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... see that no creature can be more full of concentrated life; all his nervous system seems on edge, every instant he is rising or lowering on his feet, the tail vibrates, the neck protrudes or shrinks again, the feathers ruffle, the crest dilates; he talks to himself with an impatient chirr, then presently hovers and dives for a fish, then flies back disappointed. We say "free as birds," but their lives are given over to arduous labors. And so, when our condition seems most ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the floor with careful deliberation, took off her black calico bonnet, stepped into the aisle, slapped her hands together and began to spin around and around upon her toes with incredible celerity. Her homespun skirt ballooned about her, the ruffle of her collar stood out like a little frill of white neck feathers. She had a fixed, foolish expression, maintained an energy of motion that was persistent and amazing, and gave out at regular intervals a short, staccato squeal that was scarcely ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... the youngsters with such old-world superstitions. As you say, they couldn't get through the ice now if they would, without cutting a hole; and when the ice grows weak, will be time enough for you to worry. Take another ruffle to your night-cap, Tom, and you youngsters had better get to bed, and prepare to take to the ice at six o'clock, after a cup of hot coffee and a lunch of sandwiches. ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... cast in his mind if he himself come upon a fervent longing for something which he cannot get (as a good man will not), as perchance his pleasure of some certain good woman who will not be caught. And then let him tell me whether the ruffle of his desire shall not so torment his mind that all the pleasures that he can take beside shall, for lack of that one, not please him a pin! And I dare be bold to warrant him that the pain in resisting, and the great fear of falling, that many a good man ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... Tidy, now, dere's a spec'men for yer. Never was no more 'complished 'fectioner dan she. She knowed how to cook all de earth, she did. Hi! couldn't she barbecue a heifer, or brile a cock's comb, jest as 'spertly as Miss Tilda here broiders a ruffle. Right smart cretur she wor. And so YE'RE a gwine to be, honey,—your old mammy sees it in de tips ob yer fingers;" and Rosa caught up the child, and well-nigh smothered it with ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... love a stiff Ruffle, for shou'd the Wind blow it aside, your Ladyship's Elbow might catch cold, but I'll slacken my Hand i'the next.—Does your Ladyship want a ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... very extraordinary way—a mere puppet, pulled by wires in the hands of another. The master showman, fully as extraordinary in his own way as his puppet, kept, while I was by, as much as possible behind the scenes. The hand and ruffle of the French petit-maitre, and the prompter's voice, however, were visible and audible enough for me. In plain English, I suppose it is no news to you to hear that Mdlle. O'Faley is a fool, and Monsieur de Connal, Captain O'Connal, Black Connal, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... the cigarette in his long holder had gone out, but Billy was disposing of eggs, toast, bacon, and cream with youthful zest. Clarence's hot, sick gaze rested almost with hostility upon his wife's cool beauty; in a gray linen gown, with a transparent white ruffle turned back from her white throat, she looked as fresh as ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... recognized duty as duty. This young life was innocent of anything which suggested routine; order for him was a happen-so or an of-course result of his mother's or John's efforts; the details necessary for neatness were never allowed to ruffle his ease nor to interfere with his impulses. The Stoneleighs' home was a generous pile, locally magnificent, but our young scion's fine, front room was perennially a clutter. From his birth up, Henry was never taught the ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... on the farmers. They are, as a rule, a loyal class of men, but their loyalty will probably be shaken when they realise that the Lord has spoiled their crops to provide Queen's weather for the Jubilee. An occasional shower might wet the Queen's parasol or ruffle the plumage of the princes and princelings in her train. Occasional showers, however, are just what the farmers want. The Lord was therefore in a fix. Though the Bible says that with him nothing is impossible, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... (I should say) who must be killed to be got out of the way. His manners, perfectly composed. We looked at one another pretty hard. There was an air of chronic anxiety upon him. But not a crease or a ruffle in his dress, and his papers were as composed as himself. (Mr. Thornton was going in to deliver ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... he said, "that aught less than necessity should make us, the Most Christian' King, give cause to the effusion of Christian blood, if anything short of dishonour may avert such a calamity. We tender our subjects' safety dearer than the ruffle which our own dignity may receive from the rude breath of a malapert ambassador, who hath perhaps exceeded the errand with which he was charged.—Admit the Envoy of Burgundy to ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... marriage peal of fairies Comes the tinkling sound, Or like chimes of sweet St. Mary's On far English ground. How my courser champs the snaffle, And with nostril spread, Snorts and scarcely seems to ruffle Fern leaves with his tread; Cool and pleasant on his haunches Blows the evening breeze, Through the overhanging branches Of the wattle trees: Onward! to the Southern Ocean, Glides the breath of Spring. Onward! with a dreary motion, I, too, glide and sing— Forward! forward! still we wander— Tinted ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... recklessness of danger, fell upon the deck of his galley, torn to pieces with twenty-four wounds from a stone gun of the Black Galley, while at nearly the same, moment a gentle breeze began in the distance to ruffle the surface of the waters. More than a thousand men had fallen in Spinola's fleet, inclusive of the miserable slaves, who were tossed overboard as often as wounds made them a cumbrous part of the machinery, and the galleys, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... unceremonious usage, was properly brushed and decked out for the occasion. His head, which nature had ornamented with the blackness of a crow, now shone with the whiteness of snow; and his bony hand, that so well became the saber, peered from beneath a ruffle with something like maiden coyness. The improvements of the dragoon went no further, excepting that his boots shone with more than holiday splendor, and his spurs glittered in the rays of the sun, as became the pure ore of which ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... rowed out and out to the farthest islands, and there he frightened the birds. At his approach they rose: first a few, then many, then all protested in a hideous chorus of wild screams. He was enveloped in an angry crowd, a pandemonium of birds. But it did not ruffle his good humour. "Wait a bit," he said to them. "Wait a bit, until the islands at Hellebergene are 'protected,' and the whole estate as well. Then you shall come and be happy with us. Good-bye ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... as Mrs. Linton! They'll be the oddest couple! I wonder if she'll get tired of perpetual music, and if he'll rage round his own drawing-room and ruffle his hair when he feels annoyed, like he ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... with fringed, drooping eyelashes. She had braids of dark hair wreathed around her head, a soft pink color in her cheeks, and a rosebud mouth, womanly, fresh, and lovely. Kate was clad in a pink muslin dress, with a tiny white ruffle around her white throat. She was armed with four steely needles, which were so many bright arrows that pierced my heart through and through. Over her fingers glided a small blue thread, which proceeded from the ball of yarn ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... appearance. Morocco boots, with red tips, covered his little feet; broad trousers, of dark-blue velvet, came to his knees, and were held together at the waist by a blue silk sash, whose lace- tipped ends fell at his left side. He wore a blue velvet jacket, with a tastefully embroidered lace ruffle around the neck. The round, rosy face, with the ruby lips, the dimple in the chin, the large blue eyes, shaded by long, dark lashes, and crowned by the broad, lofty brow, was rimmed around with a profusion of golden hair, which fell ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... as they usually run in each other's footsteps. The hare's track when running is two holes abreast and then two single ones. The fox runs rather like a dog. The squirrel hops two feet at a time, often leaving a slight ruffle on the snow as he swishes his tail. Among the cembra trees in the Engadine the snow may be sprinkled with the nuts out of the cones. They are delicious eating, being very like the Italian stone pine nut, or pinelli, and they ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... jest at a play. His pick-tooth bears a great part in his discourse, so does his body, the upper parts whereof are as starched as his linnen, and perchance use the same laundress. He has learned to ruffle his face from his boot, and takes great delight in his walk to hear his spurs gingle. Though his life pass somewhat slidingly, yet he seems very careful of the time, for he is still drawing his watch out of his pocket, and spends part of his hours ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... surrounded by that dark line which nights of dissipation pencil too infallibly, seemed larger, more liquid than ever. His face, a little elongated, had gained in calm dignity what it had lost in feverish excitement. His hand, always wonderfully beautiful and strong, was set off by a ruffle of lace, like certain hands by Titian and Vandyck. He was less stiff than formerly. His long, dark hair, softly powdered here and there with silver tendrils, fell elegantly over his shoulders in wavy curls; his voice was still youthful, ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a sort, delighted; and Fleda was in too passive a mood of body and mind to have any care on the subject. The agitation of the past days had given way to an absolute quiet that seemed as if nothing could ever ruffle it again, and this feeling was seconded by the extreme prostration of body. She was a mere child in the hands of her nurse, and had, Mrs. Pritchard said, "if she wouldn't mind her telling,—the sweetest baby-face that ever had so much ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... spots of changeable green water, moving silently and shadow-like along, in strong contrast with the surrounding dark, marked the places where the monsters were gliding below. When their broad, blackish backs were above the waves, there was frequently a ring or ruffle of snowy surf, formed by the breaking of the swell around the edges of the fish. The review of whales, the only review we had witnessed in Her Majesty's dominions, was, on the whole, an imposing spectacle. We turned from it to witness another of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the open sea; and there is nothing round them but the waves, and the sky, and the wind. But the waves are gentle, and the sky is clear, and the breeze is tender and low; for these are the days when Halcyone and Ceyx build their nests, and no storms ever ruffle the pleasant summer sea. ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... as the suits were the shirts, with their deep lace collars and ruffle; while for service in the field half a dozen plain shirts were purchased. The headdress on ordinary occasions was a broad beaver hat with plumes, and in the field a close fitting helmet with cheek pieces. Visors had been almost entirely given up. On the third day Hector presented himself ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... wit Lambent yet bland, like summer lightning; Venomless rapier-point, whose "hit" Was palpable, yet painless. Brightening E'en, party conflict with a touch Of old-world grace fight could not ruffle! Faith, GRANVILLE, we shall miss thee much Where kites and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... fashion then. Their skirts were straight and barely touched the floor, being made for a time when dancing was a part of court life, and when every one within certain limits of age was expected to dance well. There was no exaggeration of the ruffle then, nor had the awkward hoop skirt been introduced in Spain. Those were the earlier days of Queen Elizabeth's reign, before Queen Mary was imprisoned; it was the time, indeed, when the rough Bothwell had lately carried her off and married her, after a fashion, with so ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... William Thompson,[77] in order to procure a warrant. There they made an affidavit of the several circumstances attending their discovery, and Sir William upon the examination also of a lady (who produced a piece of lace before she had seen the ruffle, and declared that if it were Mr. Darby's it must tally therewith, which on a comparison it did exactly) granted a warrant. It appeared also at the same time, upon the oath of Mr. Willoughby, that the day Mr. Darby was ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... season advances, and those birds which make us but a passing visit depart, the woods become silent again, and but few feathers ruffle the drowsy air. But the solitary rambler may still find a response and expression for every mood in ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... Shall the favourite of the gods—shall the guest of Hypatia—earn his breakfast, while I have an obol to share with him? Base thought! Youth! I have wronged you. Unphilosophically I allowed, yesterday morning, envy to ruffle the ocean of my intellect. We are now friends and brothers, in hatred ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... girl deep in a forest lane, A narrow lane dark-roofed with locking firs; And there are purple foxgloves shoulder high, And round the girl's knees Canterbury bells. Upon the air is scent of wounded trees, As though a storm had passed there, and great owls Ruffle a shade unloved of birds that sing. But at the green lane's end, far down A bit of heart-shaped sun tells where the road Lies wide and open; on the sun the still Dark shadow of a steed: and by the ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... us to do but sit about the decks in the shade of the awnings and look at the distant shore. We lay in luminous blue water; shoreward the water was green-green and brilliant; at the shore itself it broke in a long white ruffle, and with no crash, no sound that we could hear. The town was buried under a mat of foliage that looked like a cushion of moss. The silky mountains were clothed in soft, rich splendors of melting color, and some of the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... each day to see some good from all this teaching come to the bold, dashing, untamable Maggie, who, spurning birth and blood alike, laughs at form and etiquette as taught by Mrs. Jeffrey, and, winding her arms around her grandmother's neck, crumples her rich lace ruffle with a most unladylike hug, and then bounds away to the stables, pretending not to hear the distressed Mrs. Jeffrey calling after her not to run, "it is so Yankeefied and vulgar"; or if she did hear, answering back, ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... after the departure of the big brothers, the little girl came home radiant, brushes dangling from her apron ruffle like scalps. Then, one evening, when four catches should have made her happy, she ate her supper with a sad and puzzled face, and afterward added only two tails to her string. Her mother, seeing that something was troubling her, inquired what ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
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