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More "Winnowing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... linen-weaver, named Silas Marner, worked at his vocation in a stone cottage that stood among the nutty hedgerows near the village of Raveloe, and not far from the edge of a deserted stone-pit. The questionable sound of Silas's loom, so unlike the natural cheerful trotting of the winnowing-machine, or the simpler rhythm of the flail, had a half-fearful fascination for the Raveloe boys, who would often leave off their nutting or birds'-nesting to peep in at the window of the stone cottage, counterbalancing a certain awe at the mysterious ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... death expressed to me verbally his entire agreement with the argument of Professor Knight's Aspects of Theism (Macmillan, 1893); in which on this subject see pp. 184-186, 'A larger good is evolved through the winnowing process by which physical nature casts its weaker ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... in the kitchen the master had been sitting quietly in the darkening study. All without and within the man was eddying, swirling blackness. Heat beat and glowed upon his forehead, like the radiation from molten metal; there was a winnowing and fanning as of giant wings or leaping of furnace-fires. The blood in his throbbing temples sang a dull, tuneless song. But presently he became aware ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... winnowing of the rice is such a common and important operation in the whole of eastern Mindano that ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... of obtaining the ideal strawberry; and they so often get a good thing among the blanks that they seem disposed to continue indefinitely this mild form of speculation. In the final result merit asserts itself, and there is a survival of the fittest. The process of winnowing the wheat from the chaff is a costly one to many, however, I have paid hundreds of dollars for varieties that I now regard as little better than weeds. From thorough knowledge of the best kinds already in cultivation, the propagator should not impose any second- rate kind on the public. ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... a pile of straw and firewood. To the top of the tree is fastened a human figure called the "witch," made of old clothes and stuffed with gunpowder. At night the whole is set on fire and boys and girls dance round it, swinging torches and singing rhymes in which the words "corn in the winnowing-basket, the plough in the earth" may be distinguished.[291] In Swabia on the first Sunday in Lent a figure called the "witch" or the "old wife" or "winter's grandmother" is made up of clothes and fastened to a pole. This is stuck in the middle ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... with greyhounds and yeomanry uniforms—"horse to ride and weapon to wear"—through the hard years which had followed. These were bad masters every way, unthrifty, profligate, needy, and narrow-minded. The younger men who were supplanting them were introducing machinery, threshing machines and winnowing machines, to take the little bread which a poor man was still able to earn out of the mouths of his wife and children—so at least the poor thought and muttered to one another; and the mutterings broke out every now and then in the long nights of the winter months in blazing ricks and broken ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... see it without, and I can feel it within. We also have our spring when the little arterioles dilate, the lymph flows in a brisker stream, the glands work harder, winnowing and straining. Every year nature readjusts the whole machine. I can feel the ferment in my blood at this very moment, and as the cool sunshine pours through my window I could dance about in it like a gnat. So I should, only that Charles Sadler would rush upstairs to know what was the matter. ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... by responsibility for the souls of his fellows, they soon loved him in a light-hearted fashion. In a society where even the rector harvested alike the true grain and the tares, and left the Almighty to do His own winnowing, Mr. Bennett's free-handed fight with the flesh and the devil was looked upon with smiling tolerance, as if he were charging a windmill with a ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... cattle round and round, prodding them freely with a goad. Some of the larger floors have a second team: several I saw to-day consisting of two donkeys and a pony. These were not muzzled like the oxen, they had no sledge, their hoofs doing the work, and they were kept going round at a good pace. The winnowing follows, after the whole is reduced almost to snuff. This is carried out by throwing shovelfuls in the air, the slight breeze we have to-day carrying the pounded straw away and leaving ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... from its reference to the secret pursuits and feelings of the writer, would the most livelily pique and gratify the curiosity of the reader. Enough, however, will, I trust, still remain, even after all this necessary winnowing, to enlarge still further the view we have here opened into the interior of the poet's life and habits, and to indulge harmlessly that taste, as general as it is natural, which leads us to contemplate with pleasure a great mind in its undress, and to rejoice in the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... break the clods with a wooden mallet fixed to a long shaft, which does not require them to stoop. Almost the only other implement of agriculture these people have is the Khuripi, or weeding iron, and some fans for winnowing the corn. In Nepal, however, they have in some measure made a further progress than in India, as they have numerous water-mills for grinding corn. The stones are little larger than those of hand-mills, and the upper one is turned round by ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... triumph. Had there been a thrashing-machine, could its pleasures have been comparable to that of lying in the straw and watching the grain dance from the sheaves under the skilful flails of the two strong men who belaboured them? There was a winnowing-machine, but quite a tame one, for its wheel I could drive myself—the handle now high as my head, now low as my knee—and watch at the same time the storm of chaff driven like drifting snowflakes from its wide mouth. Meantime ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... a bevey of grouse drowned her voice; poor Sagamore, pointing madly in the blackberry thicket all unperceived, cast a dismayed glance aloft where the sunlit air quivered under the winnowing rush of heavy wings. Siward flung up his gun, heading a big quartering bird; steadily the glittering barrels swept in the arc of fire, hesitated, wavered; then the possibility passed; the young fellow lowered the gun, slowly, gravely; stood a moment motionless with bent head until the ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... was put into the pot. This process lasted two hours. They were then taken out, and allowed to dry; and after that shaken about in a pan, until all the legs and wings were broken off from the bodies. A winnowing process—Swartboy's thick lips acting as a fan—was next gone through; and the legs and wings were thus got rid of. The locusts were then ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... far more than this, however. It was the dull newspaper season, and the case had turned out to be a thoroughly "journalistic" one. So they questioned and interviewed every one concerned, and after cleverly winnowing the chaff, which in this case meant the dull, from the gleanings, most of them gave several columns the next morning to the story. Peter's speech was printed in full, and proved to read almost as well as it had sounded. The reporters were told, and repeated the tales ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... from his spirit flew death, And bale, and ban, Like the corn-chaff under the breath Of the winnowing-fan. ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... the snake across your path Stretches in his golden bath: Mossy-footed squirrels leap Soft as winnowing plumes of Sleep: Yaffles on a chuckle skim Low to laugh from branches dim: Up the pine, where sits the star, Rattles deep the moth-winged jar. Each has business of his own; But should you distrust a tone, Then beware. Shudder all the haunted roods, All the eyeballs under ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... working some distance from the stream were small groups of native Californians or Mexicans. They did not trouble to carry the earth all the way to the river; but, after screening it roughly, tossed it into the air above a canvas, thus winnowing out the heavier pay dirt. [Footnote: Pay dirt: dirt that has gold enough in it to pay for working it.] I thought this ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... The flail is not used for threshing rice but is employed for barley. Another common way of knocking out grain is by beating the straw over a table or a barrel. There are all sorts of cheap hand-worked threshing machines. After the threshing of the rice comes the winnowing, which may be done by the aid of a machine but is more likely to be effected in the immemorial way, by one person pouring the roughly threshed ears from a basket or skep while another worker vigorously fans the grain. The result is what is known as paddy rice. The process which follows winnowing ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... pattern of harrow over the corn, and reduced the straw to a coarse chaff mingled with the grain, so also the treatment in Cyprus remains to the present day. The result is a mixture of dirt and sand which is only partially rejected by the equally primitive method of winnowing. ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... billions of dollars worth of equipment and supplies. Considerable maintenance and repair expense is necessary for the equipment which we desire to retain in active status or in war reserve. Expenses will be incurred for winnowing the stocks of surpluses, for preparing lay-up facilities for the reserve fleets, and for storage ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Swamp's End in the same tale and of the tawdry Millie Slade face to face with the curate in The Mother is again reminiscent of Harte's technique. Like Dickens and like Bret Harte, Duncan was a frank moralist. His chief concern was in winnowing the souls of men and women bare of the chaff of petty circumstances which covered them. His stories all contain at least a minor chord of sentiment, but are usually free from the sentimentality which mars some of Harte's sketches. He is ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... Springer the second in command, with a poss of labourers to execute his decrees. It did not work well. Mr. Rossitur found he had a very tough prime minister, who would have every one of his plans to go through a kind of winnowing process by being tossed about in an argument. The arguments were interminable, until Mr. Rossitur not unfrequently quit the field with, "Well, do what you like about it!" not conquered, but wearied. The labourers, either from want ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... operation and the digestive apparatus, may be considered as a winnowing mill, the effect of which is, to extract all that is nutritious and to get ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... track of him which has not yet been followed out by us. Do not our household servants talk of sifting, straining, winnowing? And they also speak of carding, spinning, and the like. All these are processes of division; and of division there are two kinds,—one in which like is divided from like, and another in which the good is separated from the bad. The ...
— Sophist • Plato
... for rice; for securing the axe to the handle, etc. Women were doing the same work with bamboo, first drying the stalks by standing them upright before a fire. These fine bamboo strings are later used in making winnowing trays and for various kinds of beautifully plaited work. When employed in this way, or on other occasions, the women smoke big cigarettes as ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... foregoing natural outgrowths of the Nibelungen saga are the modern dramas and poems founded upon it since the time of the romanticists at the beginning of the nineteenth century.[7] Nearly all of these have already vanished as so much chaff from the winnowing-mill of time: only two, perhaps, are now considered seriously, namely, Hebbel's Die Nibelungen and Richard Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen. Hebbel in his grandly conceived drama in three parts follows closely ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... chief merit on which I value myself, and found my hopes for future regard, is that faithful veracity with which I have compiled this invaluable little work; carefully winnowing away the chaff of hypothesis, and discarding the tares of fable, which are too apt to spring up and choke the seeds of truth and wholesome knowledge. Had I been anxious to captivate the superficial throng, who skim like swallows over the surface of literature; or had ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... more winnowing than that to which the Constitution was subjected during more than eighteen months before its adoption. In each State, in each section, its friends and enemies discussed it at meetings and in private gatherings. ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... of this output of printed matter with a special tenderness and reverence on political grounds; but it obviously is of a very mixed and unequal character, and, as time goes on, there must be a continuous winnowing process, and a consignment to oblivion of a vast assortment of the dullest theology and of political ephemerides. There will always remain a rich heirloom to our American kinsfolk and ourselves of historical nuggets in the shape of narratives of the fortunes and careers of the Pilgrim Fathers, ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... made of the husbandman and his work. Ploughing the land, sowing the seed, reaping the harvest, and winnowing the grain are often referred to. Our picture shows an Eastern husbandman ploughing. How different it is to ploughing in our own land! There is no coulter; and instead of the broad steel plough-share we see a pointed piece of wood. And the ...
— Mother Stories from the Old Testament • Anonymous
... only fare the worse. If the estate was large enough to stand the strain for two or three years, and the manager was a man of self-control enough to keep his temper, and firmness enough to persevere in a winnowing of the whole region round about, treating them meanwhile with decency, and paying them honestly and promptly, he would at last be able to get a set of trusty hands, and give all the negroes of the neighborhood such an understanding of him that they would be ready, if they went to work for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... blustering vassals AEolus had pent, In ever-during prisons. Phosphor' bright, Most splendid 'midst the starry host of heaven; Admonitor of labor, now was risen; When Perseus bound again on either foot, His winnowing wings; girt on his crooked sword; And cleft the air, on waving pinions borne. O'er numerous nations, far beneath him spread, He sail'd, till Ethiopia's realms he saw; Where Cepheus rul'd. There Ammon, power unjust, Andromeda had sentenc'd,—guiltless maid, To what her mother's boastful tongue deserv'd. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... one of these stables, took from off a chest the portion of oats destined for his horse, and, pouring it into a winnowing basket, shook it as he ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... not turn up. But after some time they caught sight of a great, dark bird winnowing his way slowly above the tree tops. Just to be on the safe side, they got into the water so quickly that one of them, to save time, threw himself in backwards. They did not know that it was only a fishhawk, an amiable soul, quite indifferent to such delicacies as young otters. Another thing ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... purification,—the attainment, after fierce storms and buffetings, of a calm haven for the soul. Queen Mary was to appear at last as the embodiment of all the qualities that seem most noble and enviable in one who "feels the winnowing wings of death". And of this idea what better dramatic setting can be imagined than the ceremony of confession and absolution in accordance with the forms of the Catholic Church? The solemn searching of the heart gives to Mary's character ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20 Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... AEpytus or Polyphontes, of Arcas or Laias or even the Messenger; at every step the ground is seen shifting under his feet; he is comparatively void of matter, and his application of the famous principle is labour lost. He is winnowing the wind; he is washing not ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... and chill, Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide The works of man. Drooping, the labourer-ox Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven, Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around The winnowing store, and claim the little boon Which Providence assigns them. One alone, The redbreast, sacred to the household gods, Wisely regardful of th' embroiling sky, In joyless fields and thorny thickets, leaves His ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... at home. He had no schooling except some small instruction in Latin from the village priest and from a neighboring curate, but he made good use of what he learned. He worked on the farm with his father and his men, ploughing, harrowing, sowing, reaping, mowing, winnowing—in a word, sharing actively and contentedly in all the work that belongs to the farmer's life. And in the long winter evenings or in the few hours of rest that the day afforded, he would hungrily devour the books that were at hand—the "Lives ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... not, my daughter, Seek rest for thee, that thou do well hereafter? And is not Boaz, with whose maids thou wast, One of the nearest kinsmen that thou hast? Behold, this night he in his threshing floor Is winnowing Barley, wash thyself therefore, Anoint thee, put thy clothes on, and get down Unto the floor; but make not thyself known, Till he hath eat and drank, and shall prepare To lie him down; then take good notice where He goes about to take his night's repose, And ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... whistling shroud, I see yon quivering mast; The black throat of the hunted cloud Is panting forth the blast! An hour, and, whirled like winnowing chaff, The giant surge shall fling His tresses o'er yon pennon staff, White as ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... velocity, overtook and collided with the smaller (and lighter), which were thereby forced upwards. This caused various lateral and contrary movements, resulting in a whirling movement ([Greek: din]) resembling the rotation of Anaxagoras, whereby similar atoms were brought together (as in the winnowing of grain) and united to form larger bodies and worlds. Atoms and void being infinite in number and extent, and motion having always existed, there must always have been an infinite number of worlds, all consisting of similar atoms, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... than this, however. It was the dull newspaper season, and the case had turned out to be a thoroughly "journalistic" one. So they questioned and interviewed every one concerned, and after cleverly winnowing the chaff, which in this case meant the dull, from the gleanings, most of them gave several columns the next morning to the story. Peter's speech was printed in full, and proved to read almost as well as it had sounded. The reporters were told, and repeated the tales without ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... To Demeter of the winnowing-fan and the Seasons whose feet are in the furrows Heronax lays here from the poverty of a small tilth their share of ears from the threshing-floor, and these mixed seeds of pulse on a slabbed table, the least of ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... sometimes expressed that our National Library will become overloaded with trash, and so fail of its usefulness. 'Tis a lost fear. There is no act of Congress requiring all the books to be read. The public sense is continually winnowing and sifting the literature of every period, and to books and their authors, every day is the day of judgment. Nowhere in the world is the inexorable law of the survival of the fittest more rigidly applied ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... slothful abundance, and follow their slave-hunting and cattle-stealing propensities quite beyond the range of English influence and law. The Basuto under Moshesh are equally fond of cultivating the soil. The chief labor of hoeing, driving away birds, reaping, and winnowing, falls to the willing arms of the hard-working women; but as the men, as well as their wives, as already stated, always work, many have followed the advice of the missionaries, and now use plows and oxen instead of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... have such an air of fable and poetry that it is impossible to separate the fact from the legend. As we have done in previous instances, we give the stories in their essential entirety, leaving to scholars hereafter the task of winnowing the grains of fact out of the chaff which the imagination of the race has left ...
— Japan • David Murray
... and gone over to the enemy. Such a defection might well have produced a general panic in a better army than that which was encamped under Dundalk. It was necessary to be severe. Six of the conspirators were hanged. Two hundred of their accomplices were sent in irons to England. Even after this winnowing, the refugees were long regarded by the rest of the army with unjust but not unnatural suspicion. During some days indeed there was great reason to fear that the enemy would be entertained with a bloody fight between the English soldiers ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... constitute an element that is unwittingly the safety valve of constitutional government. Wherever the people rule the public welfare is ever endangered whenever radical changes are to be introduced, unaccompanied with a vigorous opposition. A healthy opposition is the winnowing fan that separates the politician's chaff from the patriot's wheat, presenting the most desirable of the substantial element needed. At the convention in 1868 at Fort Yale, called by A. Decosmos, editor of The British Colonist, ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... "woolly-horse," "mule-eating," "free-love," "nigger-embracing" black Republican; an extravagant, insubordinate, reckless adventurer; a financial spendthrift and political mountebank. As the reading public is not always skillful in winnowing truth from libel when artfully mixed in print, even the grossest calumnies were not without their effect in contributing to his defeat. But to the sanguine zeal of the new Republican party, the "Pathfinder" ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... husking and winnowing a caban of paddy is 12 1/2 cents, so that as two cabans of paddy give one caban of rice, the cost of this labour would be 25 ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... "Whenever the temperance cause has attempted to fly with one wing, whether moral suasion or legal suasion, its course has been a spiral one. It will never accomplish its mission in this world, until it strikes the air with equal vans, each wing keeping time with the other, both together winnowing the earth of the tempter ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... to all modern improvements in agriculture. The name of Des Rameures frequently occurred in the conversation as confirmation of their own theories, or experiments. M. des Rameures gave preference to this manure, to this machine for winnowing; this breed of animals was introduced by him. M. des Rameures did this, M. des Rameures did that, and the farmers did like him, and found it to their advantage. Camors found the General had not exaggerated the local importance of this personage, and that it was most essential to conciliate ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... which we have, who shot vigorously with their arrows, and occasionally chased the Imbozhwa, we should have been routed. I did not go near the fighting, but remained in my house to defend my luggage if necessary. The women went up and down the village with sieves, as if winnowing, and singing songs, and lullilooing, to encourage their husbands and friends who were fighting, each had a branch of the Ficus indica in her hand, which she waved, I suppose as a charm. About ten of the Imbozhwa are said to have been killed, but dead and wounded were at once carried off by their ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... that never know the light, The darkness is a sullen thing; And they, the Children of the Night, Seem lost in Fortune's winnowing. ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... weaving made it supply one of nature's imperfections. Wood existed before carpentering took possession of it, and transformed it each day to supply new wants and made us see all the advantages derived from it, giving the oar to the sailor, the winnowing-fan to the laborer, the ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... works are forty, less one—sowing, ploughing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, sifting, grinding, riddling, kneading, baking, shearing wool, whitening, carding, dyeing, spinning, warping, making two spools, weaving two threads, taking out two threads, twisting, loosing, sewing two stitches, tearing thread for two sewings, hunting the gazelle, slaughtering, skinning, ...
— Hebrew Literature
... then. But later on in autumn, while rambling round the Chace, there came on a 'skit' of rain, and I made for one of his barns for shelter. There was Hilary in the barn with his men, as busy as they could well be, winnowing oats. It seemed to me that especial care was being taken, and on asking questions, to which the men silently replied with a grin, Hilary presently blurted out that the dust had to be carefully removed, because the grain was for the racing-stable. The dainty ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... people will not look at the moon. The reason assigned for this, is as follows. Once, when the elephant-faced god Pulliar was dancing before the gods, the moon happening to see him, laughed at him, and told him that he had a large stomach, an ear like a winnowing-fan, etc. This so enraged him, that he cursed her. This curse was inflicted on the ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... a most curious perversion of Scripture in the Greek Church, many of the peasantry of Russia were prevented from raising and eating potatoes; how, in Scotland, at the beginning of this century, the use of fanning mills for winnowing grain was widely denounced as contrary to the text, "The wind bloweth where it listeth," etc., as leaguing with Satan, who is "Prince of the powers of the air," and therefore as sufficient cause for excommunication from the Scotch Church. Instructive it would be also to note how the introduction ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... before its hall-door was a small lawn, bounded on the left by a wall that separated it from the farm-yard into which the kitchen door opened. Here were stacks of hay, oats, and wheat, all upon an immense scale, both as to size and number; together with threshing and winnowing machines, improved ploughs, carts, cars, and all the other modern implements of an extensive farm. Very cheering, indeed, was the din of industry that arose from the clank of machinery, the grunting of hogs, the cackling of geese, the quacking ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... when Boaz was to have a winnowing of barley, Naomi told Ruth to make herself ready, putting on her best clothing, and to go to the winnowing and the feast and to ask Boaz what ...
— Wee Ones' Bible Stories • Anonymous
... Roma heard the music of a band. At that a spirit of defiance took possession of her, and she put on her hat and cloak. As she passed through the empty drawing-room, the auctioneer, who was counting his notes with the dry rustle of a winnowing machine, looked up with his beady ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... and appointed Lucas Springer the second in command, with a poss of labourers to execute his decrees. It did not work well. Mr. Rossitur found he had a very tough prime minister, who would have every one of his plans to go through a kind of winnowing process by being tossed about in an argument. The arguments were interminable, until Mr. Rossitur not unfrequently quit the field with, "Well, do what you like about it!" not conquered, but wearied. The labourers, either from want of ready ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... are believers only in name; but true believers would remain steadfast, as in the days of old. It is a fact worthy of special notice, that persecution not only fails to conquer those who love Jesus, but it fails also to hinder others from embracing his religion. It has first a winnowing power. It separates from the body of the faithful those who are Christians only in name. Then the manifestation of Christian faith and patience by those who remain steadfast, draws men from the world without to ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... plough gear, harrowing tackle, &c.; and adds another list of instruments and utensils: a caldron, kettle, ladle, pan, crock, firedog, dishes, bowls with handles, tubs, buckets, a churn, cheese vat, baskets, crates, bushels, sieves, seed basket, wire sieve, hair sieve, winnowing fans, troughs, ashwood pails, hives, honey bins, beer barrels, bathing tub, dishes, cups, strainers, candlesticks, salt cellar, spoon case, pepper horn, footstools, chairs, basins, lamp, lantern, leathern bottles, comb, iron bin, ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... merit on which I value myself, and found my hopes for future regard, is that faithful veracity with which I have compiled this invaluable little work; carefully winnowing away the chaff of hypothesis, and discarding the tares of fable, which are too apt to spring up and choke the seeds of truth and wholesome knowledge. Had I been anxious to captivate the superficial throng, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... along the way. Here lived burgesses who daily walked the fallow; shepherds in an intra-mural squeeze. A street of farmers' homesteads—a street ruled by a mayor and corporation, yet echoing with the thump of the flail, the flutter of the winnowing-fan, and the purr of the milk into the pails—a street which had nothing urban in it whatever—this was the Durnover ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... stupid that I could hardly finish a letter to Alick. So I begin one to-day to recount the wonders of the season here. I went over to Mustapha's island to spend the day in the tent, or rather the hut, of dourrah-stalks and palm-branches, which he has erected there for the threshing and winnowing. He had invited me and 'his worship' the Maohn to a picnic. Only imagine that it rained! all day, a gentle slight rain, but enough to wet all the desert. I laughed and said I had brought English weather, but the Maohn shook his head and opined ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... hands: Now shalt thou see true Ministers indeed. Lo how all human means he sets at naught! So that nor oar he needs, nor other sail Except his wings, between such distant shores. Lo how straight up to heaven he holds them rear'd, Winnowing the air with those eternal plumes, That not like mortal hairs fall off or change!" As more and more toward us came, more bright Appear'd the bird of God, nor could the eye Endure his splendor near: I mine bent down. He drove ashore in a small bark so swift And light, that in its course no wave ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... the first to practice the arts necessary to a civilized people. From the first dynasty, 3,000[13] years B.C., paintings on the tomb exhibit men working, sowing, harvesting, beating and winnowing grain; we have representations of herds of cattle, sheep, geese, swine; of persons richly clothed, processions, feasts where the harp is played—almost the same life that we behold 3,000 years later. As early as this time the Egyptians knew how to manipulate ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... in March in the eastern and southern parts of the country. The spring cereals are cut by hand sickles, the grain is then husked by the tramping of cattle, and, lastly, the chaff is separated from the grain on the threshing floor, the hot burning wind often acting as a natural winnowing fan. ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... religion at last to its destruction, as Christ seems to have warned His own disciples. Science has been the slowly advancing Nemesis which has overtaken a barbarised and paganised Christianity. She has come with a winnowing fan in her hand, and she will not stop till she has thoroughly purged her floor. She has left us the divine Christ, whatever may be the truth about certain mysterious events in His human life. But assuredly she has not left us the right to offer wheedling prayers to a mythical Queen of Heaven; ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... lesson by pulling out nearly half his beard, by way of a proof that growth is none the thicker for being cut back. In other matters, however, neither Sofron nor Arkady Pavlitch objected to innovations. On our return to the village, the agent took us to look at a winnowing machine he had recently ordered from Moscow. The winnowing machine did certainly work beautifully, but if Sofron had known what a disagreeable incident was in store for him and his master on this last excursion, he would doubtless have stopped at ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... hate. I only could peer and shudder and fear—'twas ever so ghastly and still; But I knew over there in his lonely despair he was plotting me terrible ill. I knew that he nursed a malice accurst, like the blast of a winnowing flame; I pleaded aloud for a shield, for a shroud—Oh, God! then ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... gloriously audacious faith of youth which has just discovered a true apostle. "Pater puts you on to the inner meaning of everything—in art, I mean. He doesn't wander about in the air like Ruskin, though, of course, if you get your mental winnowing machine in proper working order you can get the good grain out of Ruskin. 'The Stones of Venice' and 'The Seven Lamps' have taught me a lot. But you always have to be saying to yourself, 'Is this gorgeous nonsense or isn't it?' whereas in ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... discover from a stranger's face whether this is a friend or no? Those by-words—"atoms," "affinities"—are facts surviving in modern languages for the confusion of philosophic wiseacres who amuse themselves by winnowing the chaff of language to find its grammatical roots. We feel that we are loved. Our sentiments make themselves felt in everything, even at a great distance. A letter is a living soul, and so faithful an echo of the voice that speaks in it, that finer natures look upon a letter as one ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... omen, when he now heard the words of Ukeshi the younger, was still more pleased in his heart. He caused Shihi netsu-hiko to put on ragged garments and a grass hat and to disguise himself as an old man. He also caused Ukeshi the younger to cover himself with a winnowing tray, so as to assume the appearance of an old woman, and then addressed them, saying: "Do ye two proceed to the heavenly mount Kagu, and secretly take earth from its summit. Having done so, return hither. By means of you I shall then divine whether my undertaking will be successful or ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... entry of Turkey into the great war marks a further stage in the winnowing process from which we hope that a regenerated Europe will emerge. Two of the main causes of the war are the Turk and the Magyar, whose effete and tyrannous systems have each in its own manner and degree long kept South-Eastern Europe in a ferment of unrest and reaction. It is a matter of profound ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... given to threshing wheat and a very slow process it was. A sail was spread in the field and I and the older boys tried to beat and rub the wheat out. In olden days the people threshed in their sitting-rooms. We also did a little winnowing, throwing the wheat up for the wind to blow the chaff away. I should think all our efforts did not produce more than a quarter of ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... a message of terror, the proclamation of the impending kingdom passed into a denunciation of 'the wrath to come,' set forth with a tremendous wealth of imagery as the axe lying at the root of the trees, the fan winnowing the wheat from the chaff, the destroying fire. That wrath was inseparable from the coming of the King; for His righteous reign necessarily meant punishment of unrighteousness. So all the older prophets had said, and John was but carrying on their testimony. So Christ has said. No more terrible ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... how the misfortune occurred: Seeing herself all withered, the woman took the fan with which her companion had been winnowing maize for the manufacture of beer and shut herself into her hut, carefully closing the door. There she began to tear off her old skin, throwing it on the fan. The skin came off easily, a new one appearing in its place. ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... type—which introduces the paradox that the healthiest diseases from which a race may suffer are those that are most deadly. Where a disease does not kill there is no development against it. It is the winnowing fan of death that makes for the development of animal life. And the correct picture of nature—if we must picture an intelligence behind it—would be that of an intelligence aiming at killing all, and only failing in its purpose because the ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... rising straw-rick talked of the past days when they had been accustomed to thresh with flails on the oaken barn-floor; when everything, even to winnowing, was effected by hand-labour, which, to their thinking, though slow, produced better results. Those, too, on the corn-rick talked a little; but the perspiring ones at the machine, including Tess, could not lighten their duties by the exchange of many words. It was the ceaselessness of the ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... corn-shops with their pyramids of yellow and red and ochre, and the fat brown bunnia in the midst; shops bright with brass-work and Jaipur enamel; lattice windows, low-browed arches, glimpses into shadowed courts; flitting figures of veiled women; humbler women, unveiled, winnowing grain, or crowned with baskets of sacred cow-dung, stepping ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... you, Or how of you should love possess his fill? After the fulness of all rapture, still,— As at the end of some deep avenue A tender glamour of day,—there comes to view Far in your eyes a yet more hungering thrill,— Such fire as Love's soul-winnowing hands distil Even from his inmost ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... when his views appear to have undergone a marked change. Some of his disappointed friends ascribed the change to the serious shock he suffered at his wife's death. There may possibly be truth in that opinion; "the winnowing wings of death" often bring about a searching change. No one yet has ever been able to seriously live up to the Hedonistic rule, "eat and drink for to-morrow we die". If death were announced, the very last thing man would do would be to eat and ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... cultivation of sorghum, panic-grass, barley, wheat, large white beans, small red beans, and sesame. It was at this time that the ina-hata (paddy-loom) was devised for drying sheaves of rice before winnowing. Although it was a very simple implement, it nevertheless proved of such great value that an Imperial command was issued urging its wide use. In short, in the early years of the Heian epoch, the Throne took an active part in promoting agriculture, but ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... called up men's souls, and awakened their eyes to the dangers of their state.—He himself—for he will give up brother and wife to save himself—is not averse to a change of measures; and though we cannot at first see the Court purged as with a winnowing fan, yet there will be enough of the good to control the bad—enough of the sober party to compel the grant of that universal toleration, for which we have sighed so long, as a maiden for her beloved. Time and opportunity will lead the way to more thorough reformation; and that will be ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... whole of this output of printed matter with a special tenderness and reverence on political grounds; but it obviously is of a very mixed and unequal character, and, as time goes on, there must be a continuous winnowing process, and a consignment to oblivion of a vast assortment of the dullest theology and of political ephemerides. There will always remain a rich heirloom to our American kinsfolk and ourselves of historical ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... note on the second ode of the preceding decade. They formed a society, whose members helped one another in their field work, so that their harvest might be said to be carried home at the same time. Then would come the threshing or treading, and winnowing, after which the groin would be brought ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... that olde adage, Much curtesie, much subtiltie. Those companies, like a great deale of corne, doe yeeld some chaffe, the corne are cormorants, the chaffe are good fellowes, which are quickly blowen to nothing, with bearing a light hart in a light purse. Amongst this chaffe was I winnowing my wits to liue merily, and by my troth so I did: the prince could but command men spend theyr bloud in his seruice, I coulde make them spend all the monie they had for my pleasure. But pouerty in the end parts frends, though I was prince of their purses, ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... Fowler, that has played about between us? You and I and all of us have added thought to thought, but the thread is neither you nor me. What is true we all have; when the individual has altogether brought himself to the test and winnowing of expression, then the individual is done. I feel as though I had already been emptied out of that little vessel, that Marcus Karenin, which in my youth held me so tightly and completely. Your beauty, dear Edith, and your broad brow, dear Rachel, ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... that part of the cornice which, giving South, was quite free of moss and always dry. Thither the airy folk came flying every evening as surely as doves to the dovecote. They easily found room, grown tiny now and light as the chaff that scuds before the winnowing-fan. For my own part, sallying out from my quiet death-chamber, I would sit down sometimes in the midst of them under shelter of the marble edge-tiles, and in a feeble, whistling voice sing them songs of the days of ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... No brother could be kinder. Ah! how brightly, how vividly deeds of kindness stand out on the dark background of sickness and sorrow! I never, never can forget that era of my existence, when the destroying angel seemed winnowing the valley with his terrible wings,—when human life was blown away as chaff before a strong wind. Strange! the sky was as blue and benignant, the air as soft and serene, as if health and joy were revelling in the green-wood ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... performed, unperceived, and alone. You go to the barn, and open both doors, taking them off the hinges, if possible; for there is danger that the being about to appear may shut the doors and do you some mischief. Then take that instrument used in winnowing the corn, which, in our country dialect, we call a wecht; and go through all the attitudes of letting down corn against the wind. Repeat it three times; and the third time, an apparition will pass through the barn, in at the windy door, and out at the other, having ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... and wild. At length we dipped into the evening shadow of Durdun Dagh, and reached the village of Koord Keui, on his lower slope. As there was no place for our tent on the rank grass of the plain or the steep side of the hill, we took forcible possession of the winnowing-floor, a flat terrace built up under two sycamores, and still covered with the chaff of the last threshing. The Koords took the whole thing as a matter of course, and even brought us a felt carpet to rest upon. They came and seated themselves around us, chatting sociably, while we lay in ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... mistaken," replied the superintendent. "There were a good many bad fellows, but I flatter myself that there are very few now in proportion to the number of men on the line. We are constantly winnowing them out, purifying the ore, as it were, so that we are gradually getting rid of all the dross, and leaving nothing but sterling metal on the line. Why, Mr Tipps, you surely don't expect that railways ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... been recently introduced, the invention of Mr. Nelson, C.E., of the Ceylon iron works, by which this evil is obviated; its principle being not weight, but simple friction, of sufficient force to break the parchment at first, and, when continued, to polish the bean free from the husk. A very simple winnowing machine for cleaning the coffee as it comes out of the peeler, is attached. From the winnowing machine it runs into the separating machine, which sorts it into sizes, and equalizes the samples, by which a vast amount of time and manual ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... often get a good thing among the blanks that they seem disposed to continue indefinitely this mild form of speculation. In the final result merit asserts itself, and there is a survival of the fittest. The process of winnowing the wheat from the chaff is a costly one to many, however, I have paid hundreds of dollars for varieties that I now regard as little better than weeds. From thorough knowledge of the best kinds already in cultivation, the propagator should not impose any second- rate kind on the public. ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... he had no longer to cleanse himself, and pass under the winnowing of confession, to present himself for the Communion in the morning, he remained irresolute, not knowing any longer how to occupy his time, terrified by the recommencement of that life of the world which would upset all the barriers of forgetfulness, and would ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... whole, plain; but some of the particulars require to be explained, and to be more accurately determined. The signification "sieve," commonly assigned to [Hebrew: kbrh], must be conceded to it. We must, however, here understand it of such a sieve as serves similar purposes as a winnowing shovel, in which the corn is violently shaken, and thus purified; and not of a sieve in which, by mere sifting, the corn is freed from the dust which has remained after the first [Pg 388] and proper cleansing. The latter is assumed ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... highly efficient. The sheaves were brought on the heads of the negroes from the great smooth stack yard, and opened in a shed where the scattered grain might be saved. A mechanical carrier led thence to the threshing machines on the second floor, whence the grain descended through a winnowing fan. The pounding mill, driven by the tide, was a half mile distant at the wharf, whence a schooner belonging to the plantation carried the hulled and polished rice in thirty-ton cargoes to Charleston. The average product per acre was about forty-five bushels in the husk, each ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... them, for only a small quantity of water was put into the pot. This process lasted two hours. They were then taken out, and allowed to dry; and after that shaken about in a pan, until all the legs and wings were broken off from the bodies. A winnowing process—Swartboy's thick lips acting as a fan—was next gone through; and the legs and wings were thus got rid of. The locusts ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... trick of memory that, of winnowing the joys of travel from its discomforts, and letting the latter slip unconsciously away! The dust and the heat and the thousand petty annoyances pass with the fact to be forgotten, while the snow-hooded mountains and the deep blue sky and the smiling fields stay with us, a part of ourselves. ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... in these cases it seemed, on the whole, preferable to take the risk of including too much rather than the opposite, and to leave the task of further winnowing to ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... call me now. Yes, you are right, mistress, though I would it had been another who told me so! Boy indeed I am—or have been—without a thought in my head but of her. The sound of my father's voice has been but as the wind of the winnowing fan. In me it has found but chaff. If you will have me take a side, though, you will find me so far worthy of you that I shall take the side that seems to me the right one, were all the fair Dorothies of the universe on the other. In very truth I should be somewhat ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... longer will I pray, for your ears are shut unto my crying and your eyes blind to my griefs! Therefore, I make entreaty of that last friend whom the Gods, departing, leave to helpless man. Sweep hither, Death, whose winnowing wings enshadow all the world, and give me ear! Draw nigh, thou King of Kings! who, with an equal hand, bringest the fortunate head of one pillow with the slave, and by thy spiritual breath dost waft the bubble of our life far from this hell of earth! Hide me where winds ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... business with grim industry and a sureness of judgment born of his thorough knowledge of range work. There was the winnowing process which left the bigger, stronger calves in charge of two men, at a line camp known locally as Ten Mile, and took the younger ones on to the home ranch, where hay and shelter were more plentiful and the loss would ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... who are the greatest sufferers from it, name one of the conditions of progress—is as necessary, aye, more so, than what you call good, to your and our elevation to higher spheres. It is not to be hated, but welcomed. It is the winnowing of the grain from the chaff. Children of truth, don't worry over what to you seems evil; soon you will be of us and will understand, and be rejoiced that what you call evil persists and works as leaven in the great work of mind ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... and with the information that there was a negro in a neighboring cabin who had just come from the Rebel camp, and could give the latest information. While he hunted up this valuable auxiliary, I mustered my detachment, winnowing out the men who had coughs, (not a few,) and sending them ignominiously on board again: a process I had regularly to perform, during this first season of catarrh, on all occasions where quiet was needed. The only ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
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