"Ruff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of an elderly man emerged from the trees and approached her slowly. He was withered and thin and though but fifty years of age seemed much older. His doublet and hose were of some dark stuff and his short cloak was surmounted by a huge ruff, the edges of which almost joined the brim of the small, high, cone-shaped hat which ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... should have been the faithless Ignacio, a grave and decorous figure was seated. His appearance was that of an elderly hidalgo, dressed in mourning, with mustaches of iron-gray carefully waxed and twisted around a pair of lantern-jaws. The monstrous hat and prodigious feather, the enormous ruff and exaggerated trunk-hose, contrasted with a frame shrivelled and wizened, all belonged to a century previous. Yet Father Jose was not astonished. His adventurous life and poetic imagination, continually on the lookout for the marvellous, gave him a certain advantage over the practical ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... owl, curlew and crested hern, Kingfisher, mallard, water-rail and tern, Chaffinch and greenfinch, warbler, stonechat, ruff, Pied wagtail, robin, fly-catcher and chough, Missel-thrush, magpie, sparrow-hawk, and jay, Built, those far ages gone, in this year's way. And the first man who walked the cliffs of Rame, As I this year, looked down ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... reported to me for temporary duty as infantry with my division. On the 1st of July Hascall's division was relieved by the extension of Hooker's corps, and Schofield with his whole corps in hand advanced a mile upon the Marietta road toward Ruff's Mill. Johnston's failure to attack was proof that he was preparing for retreat, and Sherman pressed the movement of ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... wuz only a few boarders, most of 'em quiet folks, who had been there some time. Some on 'em had been there long enough to have children born under the ruff, who had growed up almost as big as their pa's and ma's. There wuz several of 'em half children there, and among 'em wuz one of the same age who wuz old—older than I shall ever ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... almond eyes with their intensely black pupils and black eyebrows looking down, as it seemed, contemptuously upon this after generation, so incurably lacking in its own supreme refinement. Opposite Lady Laura was a full-length Van Dyck of the Genoese period, a mother in stiff brocade and ruff, with an adorable child at her knee; and behind her chair was the great Titian of the house, a man in armour, subtle and ruthless as the age which bred him, his hawk's eye brooding on battles past, and battles to come, while behind him stretched ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... specially common among birds. It was among birds that it attracted the attention of the ancients, and numerous interesting observations have been made in more recent times. Thus Selous, a careful bird-watcher, finds that the ruff, the male of the Machetes pugnax, suffers from sexual repression owing to the coyness of the female (the reeve), and consequently the males often resort to homosexual intercourse. It is still more remarkable that the reeves ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... 1842 of a Devonshire family, descended from that breezy old sea-dog, Sir John Hawkins. Mr. Payne, indeed, resembles Hawkins in appearance. He is an Elizabethan transferred bodily into the 19th and 20th centuries, his ruff lost in transit. Yet he not infrequently has a ruff even—a live one, for it is no uncommon event to see his favourite Angora leap on to his shoulders and coil himself half round his master's neck, looking not unlike a lady's boa—and its name, Parthenopaeus, is long ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... parts: first a plain base; then a plinth, on the front of which (in bas-relief) are the four children of the deceased in a kneeling posture; and, lastly, on the top of the tomb, the kneeling figures of Trehearne and his wife in the picturesque costume and ruff collars of the age. The principal figures are holding a tablet between them inscribed with a eulogistic epitaph in English, the moral of which is that if Trehearne's royal master could have retained his services, his heavenward ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... He may know it by the glossy black colour, tinged with grey, of its body; the greater wing-coverts, except at the base and tips, and the quill-feathers being mostly white. Round the neck is a white ruff of down; the skin of the head and neck is excessively wrinkled, and is of a dull reddish colour with a tinge of purple. Surmounting the forehead is a large, firm comb, with a loose skin under the bill which can be dilated at pleasure. Now it ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... step from your gold frame, Between that starched old Bishop and the dame In awe-inspiring ruff. We'll brave their ire And trip a minuet. You will not?—Fie! Those mocking lips half make me wish that I, Her grandson, might ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... the room as fast as her high-heeled slippers would let her. "Polly—Polly, did you really like it all?" she asked breathlessly. "Oh! dear me, this ruff will be the death of me," picking at it ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... of Venice differed from those at home, he was unprepared for the surprising appearance and manners of the great people his friend named to him. The gravest Senators of the Republic went in prodigious striped trousers, short cloaks and feathered hats. One nobleman wore a ruff and doctor's gown, another a black velvet tunic slashed with rose-colour; while the President of the dreaded Council of Ten was a terrible strutting fellow with a rapier-like nose, a buff leather jerkin and a trailing scarlet ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... physiognomist would, at a single glance, have detected the sensible woman, in the erect head, the compressed lips, square elbows, and firm judicious step. Even her very garments seemed to partake of the prevailing character of their mistress: her ruff always looked more sensible than any other body's; her shawl sat most sensibly on her shoulders; her walking shoes were acknowledged to be very sensible; and she drew on her gloves with an air of sense, as if the one arm had been Seneca, the other Socrates. From what has been said ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... absorbed an ample pinch of snuff as if to quicken his reminiscences; he shook his laced ruff with his finger tips ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... her sleeves rolled back Making a salad in a big blue bowl. The thick tufts of his black rebellious hair Brushed into sleek submission; his trim beard Snug as the soft round body of a thrush Between the white wings of his fan-shaped ruff (His best, with the fine lace border) spoke of guests Expected; and his quick grey humorous eyes, His firm red whimsical pleasure-loving mouth, And all those elvish twinklings of his face, Were lit with eagerness. ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... faces and shining white collars; the old black-gowned pensioners are on their benches; the chapel is lighted, and Founder's tomb, with its grotesque carvings, monsters, heraldries, darkles and shines with the most wonderful shadows and lights. There he lies, Fundator Noster, in his ruff and gown, awaiting the great Examination Day. We oldsters, be we ever so old, become boys again as we look at that familiar old tomb, and think how the seats are altered since we were here; and how the doctor—not the present doctor, the doctor of our time—used to sit yonder, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... Captain be affronted by a starch'd Ruff and Beard, a Coward in querpo, a walking Bunch of Garlick, a pickl'd Pilchard! abuse the noble Captain, and bear it off in State, like a Christmas Sweet-heart; these things must not be whilst Nicholas Fetherfool ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... he knew that it was the custom of Italian princes to maintain dwarfs in their households. This woman, probably a dependent, was dressed like a princess. Her dress though soiled was of stiff brocade embroidered with gold thread, and the high lace ruff, which made her swarthy complexion darker by contrast with its whiteness, was edged ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... province in France, as that of the Turkish habit; I mean the women's dress, for I perceived no difference among the men, but that they are greater clowns, than any other French peasants. The women wear a broad bone lace ruff about their necks, and a narrow edging of the same sort round their caps, which are in the form of the charity girls' caps in England; but as they must not bind them on with any kind of ribband, they look rather laid upon their heads, than dressed upon them; their gowns ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... Butcher turned nervous, and dressed himself fine, With yellow kid gloves and a ruff— Said he felt it exactly like going to dine, Which the Bellman declared ...
— The Hunting of the Snark - an Agony, in Eight Fits • Lewis Carroll
... Squash hath fetched his bands from pawn, And all his best apparel; Brisk Nell hath bought a ruff of lawn With droppings of the barrel; And those that hardly all the year Had bread to eat, or rags to wear, Will have both clothes and dainty fare, And ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... of his head was bald; the hair on its sides short and frizzly. His beard was of a reddish tinge, trimmed square and bushy, beneath which his white ruff seemed to glisten from the sudden contrast. His forehead was high and retreating; his face pale, and-his cheek hollow and slightly wrinkled. His nose was small, looking ill suited to the other features, which were large and strongly-marked. His mouth was full, but compressed; ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... cook's shop. Then with a presidential majesty holding his bauble sceptre-like in his hand, muffling his head with a hood of marten skins, each side whereof had the resemblance of an ape's face sprucified up with ears of pasted paper, and having about his neck a bucked ruff, raised, furrowed, and ridged with pointing sticks of the shape and fashion of small organ pipes, he first with all the force of his lungs coughed two or three times, and then with an audible voice pronounced this following sentence: The court ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... white beard seemed to bristle like the ruff of an angry dog, and his eyes flashed fiercely under their shaggy brows. "Do you mean to tell me that after all you've done and—and gone through, Helen has thrown you over? Do you mean to tell ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... eyes were filmed with a gray membrane. His head thrust forward, the feathered ruff beneath it bristled. Darl braced himself to withstand the swooping pounce that seemed imminent, the slash of the sharp beak. A burring rattle broke the momentary hush. The Martian relaxed, turned to the Mercurian from whom the sound had come and ...
— The Great Dome on Mercury • Arthur Leo Zagat
... to thy father. King Powhatan," the Englishwoman said as she showed Pocahontas how to adjust a starched ruff that scratched her neck so that she made a grimace. "They will tell him that thou art here, and then surely in his anxiety to see thee again, he will grant what Sir Thomas desires: that he deliver up our men and the arms he hath taken and give ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... banner, which seemed to be the banner of England, but strangely rent and torn; he had a sword in his right hand, and grasped a Bible in his left. The next figure was of milder aspect, yet full of dignity, wearing a broad ruff, over which descended a beard, a gown of wrought velvet, and a doublet and hose of black satin. He carried a roll of manuscript in his hand. Close behind these two came a young man of very striking countenance and demeanor, with deep thought ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... time has flung away Uncouth words in disarray, Tricked in antique ruff and bonnet Ode, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... did.—Come hither, mend my ruff: Here, when? thou art such a tedious lady; and Thy breath smells of lemon-pills: would thou hadst done! Shall I swoon under thy fingers? I am So ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... resting. Suddenly he straightened up to his full height, raised his tail and spread it until it was like an open fan above his back. The outer edge was gray, then came a broad band of black, followed by bands of gray, brown and black. Around his neck was a wonderful ruff of black. His reddish-brown wings were dropped until the tips nearly touched the log. His full breast rounded out and was buff color with black markings. He was of about the size of the little Bantam hens Peter had seen ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... table, with cups and bottles on it, and on the necks of the bottles parchment labels were tied that stuck out stiffly. A stout woman in very full skirts sat in a large armchair at the foot of the bed. She wore a queer white cap, the like of which Dickie had never seen, and round her neck was a ruff which reminded him of the cut-paper frills in the ham and beef shops in the New ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... of the Lord of Misrule to open the Christmas revels. A fierce and ferocious-looking fellow was he, with his great green mustache and his ogre-like face. His dress was a gorgeous parti-colored jerkin and half-hose, trunks, ruff, slouch-boots of Cordova leather, and high befeathered steeple hat. His long staff, topped with a fool's head, cap, and bells, rang loudly on the floor, as, preceded by his diminutive but pompous page, ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... shorter than the brow, With little ruff starch'd, you know how, With cloak like Paul, no cape I trow, With surplice none; but lately now With hands to thump, no knees to bow: See a new ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... that gave it waviness; round and round the head, between each rich mass, were two rows of large pearls, until, at the top, they were lost in the folds of a ribbon; a double row of pearls round the fair neck; a ruff, opening low in front, a tight bodice, and sleeves full to an extreme at the top, tighter toward the wrists, seem to indicate that the dress of the period of Charles I had even been selected for this most lovely portrait. The head is turned aside—with great judgment—probably ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... away toward a northern cove, where the diver's little boat was housed. There he found Nicholas the fish, spread out in all his glory, like a polypod awash, or a basking turtle, or a well-fed calf of Proteus. Laid on his back, where the wavelets broke, and beaded a silver fringe upon the golden ruff of sand, he gave his body to soft lullaby, and his mind to perfect holiday. His breadth, and the spring of fresh air inside it, kept him gently up and down; and his calm enjoyment was enriched by the baffled wrath of his enemies. For flies, of innumerable sorts and sizes, held a hopeless buzz ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... effigies are, I believe, pretty numerous, varying in ugliness, but none that I have seen even handsome—prettiness, of course, is out of the question. She was fond of finery, but had no taste in dress. Her ruff is downright odious; and the liberal exposure of her neck and bosom anything but alluring. With all her pearls about her, she looks like a pawnbroker's lady bedizened for an Easter ball, with all the unredeemed pledges from her husband's shop. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various
... of one long house with Seven appartments or rooms in Square form about 30 feet each room opening into a passage which is quit through the house those passages are about 4 feet in width and formed of Wide boads Set on end in the ground and reaching to the Ruff which Serves also as divisions to the rooms. The ground plot is in this form 1 1 1 1 is the passages. 2 2 &c. is the apartments about 30 feet square. this house is built of bark of the White Cedar Supported on long Stiff poles resting on the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... literature, and imbued with the ghostly associations of the season, he would have gone to his door expecting to behold a weird figure clothed in the vestments of the last century; or an old woman in ruff and martingale, whose figure in the flesh had once haunted those legal precincts; or the ghostly semblance of the Baron of Verulam himself, revisiting the glimpses of the moon and the avenue of elms that ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... permitted to inherit the Harden Library. The inspired pen of the chronicler evoked the long procession of those Hardens whose motto was Invictus; crossed-legged crusading Hardens, Hardens in trunk hose, Hardens in ruff and doublet, in ruffles and periwig; Hardens in powder and patches, in the loosest of stocks and the tightest of trousers; and never a petticoat among them all. It was just as well, Rickman reflected, that Poppy's frivolous little phantom had not danced after him into the Harden ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... velvet, like the cloak; and the hose, like the doublet, were of cloth of gold. The shoes of purple velvet were fastened with buckles of diamonds to correspond with the agraffe of the cloak. His ruff was of gold lace, his hat was decorated with a long white plume, and on his breast he wore the splendid order of ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... place that is better than this, Robin Ruff, And I hope in my heart you'll go there; Where the poor man's as great, Though he hath no estate, Ay, as though he'd a thousand a year, Robin Ruff, As though he'd ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... sunshine, breaking through the thin-topped pine trees, lay everywhere about us; a little brown feathered bird, scarcely a dozen yards away, sang to us so lustily that the soft feathers around his throat stood out like a ruff. Down below the sea came ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... midst the depth of woods Heard the love-signal of the grouse, that wears A sable ruff around his mottled neck; Partridge they call him by our northern streams, And pheasant by the Delaware. He beat 'Gainst his barred sides his speckled wings, and made A sound like distant thunder; slow the strokes At first, then fast and faster, till at length They passed into a murmur ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... but not 'punto', which occurs in Bacon. 'Privado', signifying a prince's favourite, one admitted to his privacy (no uncommon word in Jeremy Taylor and Fuller), has quite disappeared; so too has 'quirpo' (cuerpo), the name given to a jacket fitting close to the body; 'quellio' (cuello), a ruff or neck-collar; and 'matachin', the title of a sword-dance; these are all frequent in our early dramatists; and 'flota' was the constant name of the treasure-fleet from the Indies. 'Intermess' is employed by Evelyn, and is the Spanish 'entremes', though not recognized ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... to the Big House which lately he had left in anger; and as he entered the great dining-room he saw once more his coveted picture, the image of the morning, the tall young girl with the brown ruff of hair rolling back from the smooth brow, above the clear-seeing dark eyes. Here again, by miracle, had come his friend, to meet him in the smother of the grimy way of life! Yet he thought the girl looked at him but coldly as he stood ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... the great creature past him, and Lloyd uttered an exclamation of delight, he was so unusually large and beautiful. His curly coat of tawny yellow was as soft as silk, and a great ruff of white circled his neck like a collar. His breast was white, too, and his paws, and his eyes had a wistful, human look that went straight to Lloyd's heart. She shook the offered paw, and then impulsively threw her arms around his neck, exclaiming, ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... Shipbuilder and his Wife," at present in Buckingham Palace; that simply marvellous old woman at the National Gallery in London, made familiar to everyone by countless photographs and other reproductions; the man in ruff and woman in coif at the Brunswick Museum; and a score of others scarce less important. With increasing popularity, he was able to command his own prices, so that only a part of his time was it necessary for him to devote to the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... the gentleman; but, were it not for the reverences of obsequious beadles and the recognitions of respectful students, you would scarce surmise the academic dignitary. That old-fashioned divine,—his square cap and ruff surmounting the doctor's gown,—with whom he shakes hands so cordially, is a Royalist and Prelatist, but withal the Hebrew Professor, and the most famous Orientalist in England, Dr. Edward Pocock. From his little parish of Childry, where he passes for "no Latiner," and is little prized, he ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... into the hands I stretched forth to receive it. I turned the face to the light, and was surprised to see merely an old family portrait; it was that of a gentleman in the flowered vest mid stiff ruff which referred the date of his existence to the reign of Elizabeth,—a man with a bold and noble countenance. On the corner was placed a faded coat of arms, beneath which was inscribed, "Herbert De ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for the first time handsome. He WAS better looking. When one approaches the confines of love, one nears the borders of beauty. Nature sets going a certain work of decoration, of transformation. Had David about this time been a grouse, he would probably have displayed a prodigious ruff. Had he been a bulbul and continued to feel as he did, he would have poured into the ear of night such roundelays as had never been conceived of by that disciplined singer. Had he been a master violinist, he would have ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... something of the oddity of an apparition, standing before me. She might have been posing for her photograph. Her sad-colored robe arranged itself in serpentine folds at her feet; her hands locked themselves listlessly together in front; and her chin rested upon a cinque-cento ruff. The first thing I did, after bidding her good-morning, was to ask her for news of her little nephew,—to express the hope that she had heard he was better. She was able to gratify this hope, and spoke as if we might expect to see him during ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... Old English letters, and those half pick'd out, Leave us, unskilful readers, much in doubt; Our sons shall see its more degraded state; The tomb of grandeur hastens to its fate; That marble arch, our sexton's favourite show, With all those ruff'd and painted pairs below; The noble Lady and the Lord who rest Supine, as courtly dame and warrior drest; All are departed from their state sublime, Mangled and wounded in their war with Time, Colleagued with mischief: here a leg is fled, And lo! the Baron with ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... necessary shopping. When I got back my mother was gone. She had received a bogus note, written I presume by Crabtree, asking her to come to me at once, as I had been taken sick in one of the stores. I immediately hired a detective, Mr. Ruff here, and we tracked ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... great forests of the Far North lives Yowler's cousin, Tufty the Canada Lynx, also called Loup Cervier and Lucivee. He is nearly a third larger than Yowler. From the tip of each ear long tufts of black hair stand up. On each side of his face is a ruff of long hair. His tail is even shorter than Yowler's, and the tip of it is always wholly black. His general color is gray, mottled with brown. His face ruff is white with black border. Yowler's feet are large, but Tufty's are immense for his ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... black flowered damask, turned up above the elbow, from which descended a close sleeve of pearl-coloured satin, puffed out, and buttoned at the wrist; her bosom being covered with a fine flowered linen, gathered close at the neck like a ruff. Her hair, which was of a dark brown colour, was parted from the middle of the forehead; on her head was a plain coifure, surmounted by a gold lace, covered with a small, black, silk cap. In her right hand, which was richly decorated with rings, she held the fatal cup, with the cover in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... first, then the green, and the red last, and yet you will give me the first which comes.—He's a handsome lord, that Duke of Portland; he was one of the bon—before King William went over and conquered England, and he was made a lord for his valour.—My ruff, Babette. The Dutch are a brave nation. My bustle now.—How much beer did you give the officers? Mind you take care of everything while I am gone. I shall be home by nine, I dare say. I suppose they are going to try him now, that he may be hanged at sunrise. I knew how it would be. Yes, yes, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... since the night of his call, he forgot much what he was at dinner. The next morning his man (in actu or potentia) enjoys his pickadels. His laundress is then shrewdly troubled in fitting him a ruff, his perpetual badge. His love-letters of the last year of his gentlemanship are stuffed with discontinuances, remitters, and uncore priests; but, now being enabled to speak in proper person, he talks ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... behind, the Swiss guards on one side and the French guards on the other, form a line as far as it can reach.[2112] The Cent Suisses march ahead of the horsemen in the costume of the sixteenth century, wearing the halberd, ruff, plumed hat, and the ample parti-colored striped doublet; alongside of these are the provost-guard with scarlet facings and gold frogs, and companies of yeomanry bristling with gold and silver. The officers of the various corps, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... So den Rudolph comes oud, und she vants to rush of his arms, but dot pluddy fool voodent allow dot. He chucks her avay, und says, "Don'd you touch me, uf you please, you deceitfulness gal." I dold you vot it is, dot looks ruff for dot poor gal. Und she is extonished, und says, "Vot is dis aboud dot?" Und Rudolph, orful mad, says, "Got oudsiedt, you ignomonous vooman." Und she feels so orful she coodent said a vord, und she ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... were leaving this noble edifice, we met a minister coming in; he wore a short, black gown, and had a deep white ruff ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... Queen Mary show ruffs, but not edged with lace. Queen Elizabeth's, on the contrary, are both edged with lace and, in some instances, covered with it. On her poor old effigy at Westminster Abbey, where her waxen image is dressed in her actual garments, the only lace that appears is on the enormous ruff, three-quarters of a yard wide, covered with a fine lace of the loose network kind. The rest of her garments are trimmed with gold and silver lace ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... and had himself followed close upon the track with his usual eagerness to witness or participate in every battle. Suddenly Alphonse Corse, who rode at Henry's aide, pointed out to him, not more than a hundred paces off, an officer wearing a felt hat, a great ruff, and a little furred cassock, mounted on a horse without armour or caparisons, galloping up and down and brandishing his sword at the carabineers to compel ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to speak soft and gentle sentences. In her apparel she was less gay than her ladies, but nevertheless she was more queenly. Her dress and mantle were of the richest purple Genoese unadorned with embroidery, and round her neck she wore a ruff of fine ermine and a string of princely pearls. A small golden cross of curious graven gold dangled to her waist from a loup in the ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... here a list of birds which I have stuffed, all of which were killed in this neighbourhood:—Night-jar (Caprimulgus Europœus), wry neck (Yunx Torquilla), buff blackbird (Turdus merula), razorbill (Alca Torda), little auk (Mergulus Alia), ruff (Machetes Pugnax), green sand piper (Totanus Octaopus), snipe (Scolopax gallinago), water rail (Rallus Aquaticus), golden plover (Charadrius Pluvialis), woodcock (Scolopax Rusticola), large spotted wood pecker (Dendrocopus Major), hawfinch ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... a ruff, or some equally wretched frippery, carelessly left by the old lady, all their plans for deliverance appeared likely to miscarry. Presumably, Constance, turned from her original purpose by the noisy altercation, had hurried to the window, where ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... three and twenty years of age, dressed in a coat of dark green cloth trimmed with fur, and close-fitting at the waist. This coat opened in front, showing a broidered woollen skirt, but over the bust it was tightly buttoned and surmounted by a stiff ruff of Brussels lace. Upon her head she wore a high-crowned beaver hat, to which the nodding ostrich feather was fastened by a jewelled ornament of sufficient value to show that she was a person of some means. In fact, this lady was the only child of a sea captain and shipowner named Carolus van ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... Mr. D. W. C. Ruff, of St. Paul, had a wonderful showing of peonies of named varieties, most of them very expensive from a money standpoint, they having cost him prices varying from $5.00 to $40.00 a root, and judging by the character of the flowers which he held up for the audience while ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... whirl, an' down I goes wid a fling, my ax a-flyin' way out yander. But in de wriggle uf a buck's tail comes up nigger ag'in; goes down Injun ag'in. Yes, an' a leetle mo' dan dat: nigger an' Injun clean ober de turn uf de hill, an' now a-slidin', slidin' down whar it wus steep as a house-ruff. ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... finest youths the sun, I think, ever shined upon. They walked to and fro, with their hands in their pockets, to see a match played by some scholars and some gentlemen fam'd for their skill. I gaped also and stared as a man in his way would doe; but a country ruff gentleman, being like to lose, did swear, at such a rate that my heart did grieve that those fine young men should hear it, and know there was such a thing as swearing in the kingdom. Coming to my lodging, I charged my ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... woman forever as a picture? A picture she was, in the short-waisted gown of the Empire, of that white stuff Napoleon praised because it was manufactured in France. It showed the line of her throat, being parted half way down the bosom by a ruff which encircled her neck and stood high behind it. The transparent sleeves clung to her arms, and the slight outline of her figure looked long in ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... you were a little one. The doll we had given her had, however, the place of honour. Her sister, little Emilia told me, was married a month ago, and she was proceeding to make the little Dutch puppets in her baby-house enact the wedding, one being dressed in a black gown and stiff ruff, like a Genevan minister, when she caught a tone that made her cry out that mother was weeping, and stump across the floor in her stout little shoes to comfort her, ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I git a slice I mus' not cease to try, But keep a-movin' fas' es life To hol' my piece ub pie. Dis ruff ol' worl' has little use Fur dem dat chance to fall, An' while youze gittin' up ag'in 'Twill ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... hands again— [He takes her hand as before.] O go and now Read Ovid! Cousin, will you tell me one thing: Wore lovers ruffs in Master Ovid's time? Behoved him teach them, then, to put them on;— And that you have to learn. Hold up your head! Why, cousin, how you blush! Plague on the ruff! I cannot give't a set. You're blushing still! Why do you blush, dear cousin? So!—'twill beat me! I'll give ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... up and readjusted her ruff, which in the excitement of the moment had been forced to assume a position about her forehead which gave one the impression that its royal wearer had suddenly donned ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... it was the home of decayed gentility. Here would be refined eating of a dinner of herbs, solaced by talk of prideful yesterdays. You saw it in the few things that still kept their grip on the past: on the wall an old, black painting of a knight in ruff and quilted doubtlet; a pounce-box and a hawking-glove on the chimney-piece, and above it an oval scutcheon, with a golden eagle naissant from a fesse vert. And hope was ever new-born here, but it was the hope centred in the Virgin-Mother, posed in ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... tint which in felicitous French phraseology is termed de couleur de fleur de pecher, and swept down from her slender figure in statuesque folds that ended in a long court train, particularly becoming in the pose she had selected. The Elizabethan ruff, with an edge of filmy lace, softened the effect of the bodice cut squares across the breast, and revealed the string of pearls—Leicester's last gift—that shone so fair upon his countess's snowy neck. From the mass of hair heaped high upon her head soft tendrils ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the forehead. Our women have made themselves into wicked Faustinas and vulgar Anonymas long enough with their frizzes and short curls and "banging," as the square-cut straight lock on the forehead is called. Let us see the Madonna brow once more. The high ruff, the sleeve to the elbow, the dress cut to show the figure, all bring-back the days of our great-grandmothers: the opera is filled with Copley's portraits. The bonnets, too, are delightfully large, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... In all affairs of boot and spur and hose; In matters of the robe and cap supreme; In ruff disputes, my lord, there's no ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... Scotchman thrust his hand into the ruff of shaggy hair about the neck of one of the collies beside him. There was a low growl from the other dog, who rose and rested his pointed ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... to transmit to posterity a form precisely similar, with all its peculiar characters undiminished, is, among pigeon-fanciers, designated as of a pure or permanent race. It is distinguished by a remarkable ruff or frill of raised feathers, which, commencing behind the head and proceeding down the neck and breast, forms a kind of hood, not unlike that worn by a monk. From this circumstance, it has obtained its Gallic name of nonnain capuchin. In size it is one of the smallest of ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... his body to the left, striving to pin Kurt against the driver's side of the cabin, his hands clawing at the fur ruff bordering the other's hood, trying for a throat hold. Perhaps it was Kurt's over-confidence which betrayed him and left him open to a surprise attack. He struggled hard to bring up his arm, but both his weight and Ross's ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... caught the claim agent's lip, and he frowned to pull himself out of his own weakness before he made reply. Miss Lady, tall, well-rounded, dark-eyed, her ruff of red-brown hair thrown back, stood looking at him, her hand clasped ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... a tall, stepped and sharply pointed gable, flanked on either hand by slender, four-sided pinnacles. From the niche in the said gable, arrayed in sugar-loaf hat, full doublet and trunk hose, his head a trifle bent so that the tip of his pointed beard rests on the pleatings of his marble ruff, a carpenter's rule in his right hand, Sir Denzil Calmady gazes meditatively down. Delicate, coral-like tendrils of the Virginian creeper, which covers the house walls, and strays over the bay windows of the Long Gallery ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... form the brim of the hat, and the soft, graceful arrangement of the hair in front that decreases the too broad effect of the brow, and the full fluffy ruff snuggled up closely to the chin, produce a pleasing transformation of the meagre-looking original that to the uninitiated seems little short of magical. The broad, cravat-like bows, and the flaring ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... made at a place called the Island of the Standing Stone, on the shore of a shallow bay. The weather was fine. The mountains of the mainland were unclouded, excepting one, which had a horizontal ruff of dull slate color, but its icy summit covered with fresh snow towered above the cloud, flushed like its neighbors in the alpenglow. All the large islands in sight were densely forested, while ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... a glimpse beneath Of ample, throat-encircling ruff As white as some wind-gathered wreath Of snow quilled into plait ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... Reykjavik. It is a moderate-sized, unpretending place, capable of holding three or four hundred persons, erected in very ancient times, but lately restored. The Icelanders are of the Lutheran religion, and a Lutheran clergyman, in a black gown, etc., with a ruff round his neck, such as our bishops are painted in about the time of James the First, was preaching a sermon. It was the first time I had heard Icelandic spoken continuously, and it struck me as a singularly sweet caressing language, although I disliked the particular cadence, amounting almost ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... of a man in middle life, handsomely dressed in black velvet, with hat and ruff. His face was sad, but the bright, dark eyes looked intelligently at the girls, and the whole ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... little. He was warmly clad in sealskin; around his neck was a white bearskin ruff, as warm as toast, and very pretty, too, as soft and fluffy as a lady's boa. On his feet were moccasins of walrus hide. He had been perhaps an hour watching the hole in the ice, and knelt there so still that he looked ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
... in caparison with great folks of quality, yet he has got as good blood in his veins as arrow privat 'squire in the county; and then his pursing is far from contentible. — Your humble sarvant had on a plain pea-green tabby sack, with my Runnela cap, ruff toupee, and side curls. — They said, I was the very moral of lady Rickmanstone, but not so pale — that may well be, for her ladyship is my elder by seven good years and more. — Now, Mrs Mary, our satiety is to suppurate — Mr Millfart goes to Bath along with the Dallisons, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... grouse is a beautiful bird. He is yellowish-brown or rusty, splashed with black or dark brown, and white, with under-parts of a light buff. His beak is short and on his small, dainty head he carries his crest proudly. His shoulders bear epaulets of dark feathers, called the ruff, and his fan-like tail is banded and cross-barred. The nest of the grouse is on the ground, usually against a fallen log, at the foot of a tree, or in a hollow made by the roots; or it may be hidden amid underbrush. ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... mistake," said Mr. Eildon, pointing to a large picture hanging on the wall of three sewing-machines worked by three ladies, the one in the middle being Queen Elizabeth in her ruff, the one on the right Queen Victoria in her widow's cap: the princess of Wales was very busy at the third. "Is not that what is called an anachronism, Miss Adamson? Are not sewing-machines a recent invention? There were none ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... sometimes incorrect, owing to the scanty knowledge of the time, have a great deal of life. Each bird is presented both in repose, with plumage all folded smoothly back, and in excitement, with every fan and ruff and erectile ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... that in making hybrids the cock pheasant would prefer certain hen fowls and strongly dislike others. I will write to Mr. H. in a few days, and ask him whether he has observed anything of this kind with pure unions of fowls, ducks, etc. I had utterly forgotten the case of the ruff (437/2. The ruff, Machetes pugnax, was believed by Montague to be polygamous. "Descent of Man," Edition I., Volume I., page 270.), but now I remember having heard that it was polygamous; but polygamy with birds, at least, does not seem common enough to have played an important ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Plague to burial within the city walls. In 1522 there were 50,000 of such burials in Rouen alone in six months. Every gallant who goes by with his feathered cap and velvet cloak, his tightly-fitting hose and slashed shoes, every lady in her purple hat and stiff-starched ruff, her gold-brocaded stomacher, and her sweeping skirt, every soldier swaggering his rapier, every sailor rolling home from sea, every monk mumbling his prayers over a rosary—all alike are breathing an infected poisonous air. The young girls from the country feel ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... and stared. An old-fashioned brougham was being drawn slowly by a very fat old white horse into the too narrow space between the hearse and Briggs's car. Seated in the brougham was the erect figure of a very thin old man. His hair showed beneath his high silk hat like a stiff white ruff on his neck. His hands were clasped over a gold-headed cane. His whole appearance was one of extreme dignity and reverence. The procession at once took on the decent ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... went on board and gave himself up to the captain of one of our ships of the line, a seventy-four called the Bellerophon. I remember that owing to that event she was very commonly known amongst us as the "Billy Ruff'un," and we used to aggravate the people not a little on our march into the city, by singing, "God save Buonaparte, who has fled and given himself up to the Billy Ruff'uns," in opposition to their cry of "God save the king;" thousands of them having come out with white ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... She was wearing a new net blouse that she thought became her. It had a high collar with a tiny ruff, reminding her of Mary, Queen of Scots, and making her, she thought, look wonderfully a woman, and dignified. At twenty she was full-breasted and luxuriously formed. Her face was still like a soft rich mask, unchangeable. But ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... black coat, breeches, and vest with steel buttons, lace frills and ruff, a sword and a dress-hat," our author was presented at the brilliant Tuscan Court. Grand Duke Leopold II left on Cooper's mind a strong impression of integrity of character; his simplicity and justice were borne out in his greeting: "They tell me you are the author ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... for his wife and children in the wilderness. He had the king's charter in his keeping, and was appointed the first Governor of Massachusetts. Imagine him a person of grave and benevolent aspect, dressed in a black velvet suit, with a broad ruff around his neck and a peaked beard upon his chin. There was likewise a minister of the Gospel, whom the English bishops had forbidden to preach, but who knew that he should have liberty both to preach and pray in the forests of America. He wore a black cloak, called a Geneva ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... always make me laugh; I cannot help that; but I wish you would do yourself justice, nevertheless. You may not know it, but if you would only put on a ruff and satin doublet and hose and wig, and all the rest of it, you would look exactly like one of the courtiers of the court of Queen Elizabeth. You are a perfect type of ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... corpse is more corpse-like than the queerly foreshortened dead body in the picture on anatomy at The Hague. The warrior's head, supposed to be a portrait of his father, is an ancient copy and a capital one. Old dame Elizabeth Bas, with her coif, ruff, and folded hands, holding a handkerchief, is a picture you return to each day of ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... dark and close fitting, had a very high-standing ruff, which enclosed her slightly elongated and very pale face, just as the half-open shield of a leaf encloses a white flower-bud. Her whole person, in that chamber, with its very high ceiling and massive furniture, seemed smaller and less tall than elsewhere. ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... loved his life as dearly as Sir Walter loved it met death as blithely. He dressed himself for the scaffold with that elegance and richness which all his life he had observed. He wore a ruff band and black velvet wrought nightgown over a doublet of hair-coloured satin, a black wrought waistcoat, black cut taffety breeches and ash-coloured silk stockings. Under his plumed hat he covered his white locks with a wrought nightcap. This last he bestowed on his way ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... wid my fourth wife and she is much younger dan me. I am unable to work and have to stay in bed lots of de time. My wife works at odd jobs, like washing, ironing and cooking. We rent a two-room house from Miss Ann Ruff. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... made his appearance silently at the door and walked in, his deerskin moccasins making no sound as he came towards us. He was followed by a great fierce-looking dog, about whose neck was a formidable ruff of loose hair, and as he trotted towards me I saw in them the Indian and ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... young business man of about twenty-five. Ordinary winter suit for first entrance. Change to white Pierrot costume with white pumps, white socks, white pajama suit with large black pompons, or discs of black satin, on it. Large stiff ruff of white tulle. Face whitened with grease paint. Black patches. Black satin half-mask in hand. Head covered with close fitting ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... sincerely apologise. I was misled by the unusual tone of the brown. But—no, it is undoubted. None other than Van Dyck painted that ruff." ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... LADY. When I prize A lover's sigh more dear than mine own pleasure. See, the Signora Julia passed again. She is far too pale for so much white, I find. Donna Aurora—ah, how beautiful! That spreading ruff, sprinkled with seeds of gold, Becomes her well. Would you believe it, sir, Folk say her face is twin to ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... in a town, Before them everything went down; Some tore a ruff, and some a gown, 'Gainst one another justling; They flew about like chaff i' th' wind; For haste some left their masks behind; Some could not stay their gloves to find; There ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... Lawrence monument in Chelsea Old Church. The inscription bears date 1605. On the north side of the chancel is a large monument to Sir Thomas Smith, died November 28, 1609. Opposite is that of Lady Margaret Legh, who is represented life-size dressed in stiff ruff and farthingale, holding an infant in swaddling bands on her knee. Another infant in swaddling bands is on her left side. Over her is an arch supported by pillars. The coat of arms of her family rests in the centre of the arch. She died July ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... very deed as I said but now: you have no fantasy hereaway of the necessities of a man that is in the Court. He must needs have his broidered shirts, his Italian ruff, well-set, broidered, and starched; his long-breasted French doublet, well bombasted [padded]; his hose,— either French, Gally, or Venetian; his corked Flemish shoes of white leather; his paned [slashed and puffed with another colour or material] velvet breeches, guarded with golden ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... the names that I've long revered,— By my great-great-grandfather's great gray beard, By my father's sword, by my uncle's hat, By my spinster aunt's Angora cat, By my ancient grandame's buckled shoes, By my uncle Gregory's marvellous brews, By Sir Sydney's wig, And his ruff so big,— Indeed, by his whole preposterous rig,— By the scutcheon and crest, and all the rest Of the signs of my house, I vow this vow: That whoever beneath this mistletoe bough Shall first kiss me, he—none but he— My partner for life ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... black and white, vibrating as though waves were passing over it. When we came nearer we saw that the field was covered so thick with gulls that the ground was hidden. The gull was a small white variety about the size of a pigeon, with a black ruff around its neck. The wave-like motion was made by the birds digging away in the newly turned earth for worms and larvae; judging by the way they worked, they must have cleaned up ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... time hath flung away, Uncouth words in disarray, Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet, Ode and ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... rise, development, and spread of the chrysanthemum? As a fashion it is not so extraordinary as the hoop-skirt, or as the neck ruff, which is again rising as a background to the lovely head. But the remarkable thing about it is that heretofore in all nations and times, and in all changes of fashion in dress, the rose has held its own as the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... my ruff looks so nice," said Ruth, with gentle pleasure. And indeed it did look nice, and set off the pretty round throat most becomingly. Her hair, now grown long and thick, was smoothed as close to her ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... it was resolved to carry out the reception idea, and to have a little play in which Dot and Dimpsie could be brought in, also a very magnificent Maltese cat belonging to Patty Curtis, and Miss Muffet's parrot. The cat, arrayed in a lace ruff, with a red ribbon, would be an imposing figure, and the parrot would look well as one of the properties. Miss Muffet herself, in some character, probably as a Yankee school-mistress, must be ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... years; she looked hopelessly removed from youth and beauty now, but later in the day, when her hair would be taken out of its crimping kids, her sallow cheeks touched with rouge, and her veined neck covered by a high collar, a coral chain, and an ostrich-feather ruff, some traces of her former good looks might be visible. She still affected tight corsets, high heels, enormous hats. But Emeline's interest in her own appearance was secondary now to her fierce pride and faith in Julia's beauty. Drifting along the line of ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... shoes. Then follows a fancy ball in the Guerzenich House, in which the lineal descendants of the burgomasters and councillors of old come out in ancient family trappings of black cloth or velvet, stiff white ruff and heavy gold chain from shoulder to shoulder, which their forefathers once wore in earnest. Among the museums and other additions of modern taste is the beautiful botanical garden and large conservatory, where flourish tropical plants in profusion—a thing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... to rouse Mr. Hume, then drew it back ashamed of his fancies; but the movement awoke the jackal. It lifted its head, snuffed the air, then sprang up with the ruff on its neck erect, and its sharp white teeth gleaming. Several moments it stood so, then with many a look out, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... wrist, in the manner of a gauntlet. In one hand he carried his walking-stick and his hat, which he had removed, and the other hung heavily by his side. A quantity of grizzled hair descended in long tresses from his head, and rested upon the plaits of a stiff ruff, which effectually concealed his neck. So far all was well; but the face!—all the flesh of the face was coloured with the bluish leaden hue, which is sometimes produced by metallic medicines, administered in excessive quantities; the eyes showed an undue proportion of ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... looked 'bout half agin the size he was, an' they come along an' told it. Then someone else sees him, er another one, an' he recollects that he heard tell of a monstr'us big wolf er dog, he cain't recollect which, so he splits the difference an' makes him half-dog an' half-wolf, an' he adds a big ruff onto his neck fer good measure, an' tells it 'round. After that yo' kin bet that every tin-horn that gits within twenty mile of Spur Mountain will see him, an' each time he gits bigger, an' his ruff gits bigger. It's like a stampede. Yo' let someone pan out mebbe half a ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... analogous case to that of the British sloop Reindeer.] The carpenter reported that he alone of his crew was fit for duty; the others were dead or disabled. Lieutenant Wilmer was knocked overboard by a splinter, and drowned; his little negro boy, "Ruff," came up on deck, and, hearing of the disaster, deliberately leaped into the sea and shared his master's fate. Lieutenant Odenheimer was also knocked overboard, but afterward regained the ship. A shot, glancing upward, killed four of the men who were standing by a gun, striking the last one in the ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... all his epithets, and all his coloured touches of nature. If we are not repelled by the absurd subject, we have to admit that none of the immediate imitators of Venus and Adonis has equalled the juvenile Barnfield in the picturesqueness of his "fine ruff-footed doves," his "speckled flower call'd sops-in-wine," or his desire "by the bright glimmering of the starry light, to catch the long-bill'd woodcock." Two months later, in January 1595, Barnfield published his second volume, Cynthia, with certain Sonnets, and this time signed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... deeming himself much in her debt, he sent on shore a very courteous letter, and with it two ounces of ambergriece, an ounce of the essence of amber, a great glass of fine rose-water, an excellent picture of Mary Magdalen, and a cut-work ruff. Here he expected courtesies to stay, but the lady must positively have the last word, and as the English ships were starting her servants came on board with yet a letter, accompanying a basket of delicate white manchett bread, more clusters of fruits, and ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... in the ruff over there? That is Mary Darragh, Lady Benneville, my bitterest, bitterest enemy! See how she smiles at me! Deceitful minx! When I tell you all you will surely take her out of the room and fling her into ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... answered, I think, by the plain fact that, of course, Raleigh's portrait was exactly such a one as Sir Robert says they would have admired; a picture probably in a tawdry frame, representing Queen Bess, just as queens were always painted then, bedizened with 'browches, pearls, and owches,' satin and ruff, and probably with crown on head and sceptre in hand, made up, as likely as not, expressly for the purpose for which it was used. In the name of all simplicity and honesty, I ask, why is Raleigh to be accused of saying that the Indians ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... for her digester, and if I only had one dropped in water," she said, and quick as thought Maude brought her one, while Hannah growled again, "Ole marster 'll raise de ruff, case he ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... and war in that iron age could be, a school of humanity and self-control. In religion he was himself not an ascetic saint, there is one light passage at least in his early life: and at Augsburg they show a ruff plucked from his neck by a fair Augsburger at the crisis of a very brisk flirtation. But he was devout, and he inspired his army with his devotion. The traveller is still struck with the prayer and hymn which open and close the march of the soldiers of Gustavus. ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... custom, in very plain fashion. He wore a wide-leaved, loosely shaped hat of dark felt, with a silken cord round the crown,—such as had been worn by the Beggars in the early days of the revolt. A high ruff encircled his neck, from which also depended one of the Beggars' medals, with the motto, 'Fideles au roy jusqu'a la besace,' while a loose surcoat of gray frieze cloth, over a tawny leather doublet, with wide slashed ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... consider'd life in all its forms, Of vegetables first, next zoophytes, The tribe that dwells upon the confine strange 'Twixt plants and fish; some are there from their mouth Spit out their progeny, and some that breed, By suckers from their base or tubercles, Sea-hedgehog, madrepore, sea-ruff, or pad, Fungus, or sponge, or that gelatinous fish, That taken from its element at once Stinks, melts, and dies a fluid; so from these, Through many a tribe of less equivocal life, Dividual or insect, up I ranged, From sentient to percipient, small advance, Next to intelligent, ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... (the American writer) observes that "the daisy with its wide plaited ruff and yellow centre is not our (that is, an American's) flower. The ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... royalty, and the eccentric statesman was left with his chief valet. The toilet was completed in solemn silence. Then, the count walked to the mirror to take another look at his adored person. He gave a complaisant stroke to his ruff of richest Alencon, smoothed the folds of his habit, carefully arranged the lace frills that fell over his white hands, and then turning to his ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... in curious fancies, His daughter's portion a rich shell inhances, And Ashmole's baby-house is, in his view, Britannia's golden mine, a rich Peru! How his eyes languish! how his thoughts adore That painted coat, which Joseph never wore! He shows, on holidays, a sacred pin, That touch'd the ruff, that touch'd Queen Bess's chin. "Since that great dearth our chronicles deplore, Since that great plague that swept as many more, Was ever year unblest as this?" he'll cry, "It has not brought us one new butterfly!" In times that suffer such learn'd men as these, Unhappy I——y! ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... there man in the night-cap, with the red ruff round his neck, is Sail's fancy man, and he sometimes lets her have a cargo of fish for services done and performed, you understand—and so Sail she comes down this morning, and she finds Poll having a phililoo with him, that's all; but I wish they would go and have it out somewhere ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... mile of wall. But I forgot, you have not seen Paris, nor those acres of gaudy colouring which Henri's vanity inflicted upon us. Florentine Marie, with her carnation cheeks and opulent shoulders—the Roman-nosed Bearnais, with his pointed beard and stiff ruff. Mon Dieu, how the world has changed since Ravaillac's knife snapped that valiant life! And you have never seen Paris? You look about you with wide-open eyes, and take this crowd, this ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... I vos jist a-chargin' agin ven a great he-fellow, in a ruff coat and partic'lar large viskers, accostes me (ciwilly I must ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... while talking, had placed his foot on one of the bars of the chair on which Madame Bovary was sitting. She wore a small blue silk necktie, that kept up like a ruff a gauffered cambric collar, and with the movements of her head the lower part of her face gently sunk into the linen or came out from it. Thus side by side, while Charles and the chemist chatted, they entered into one of those ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... flowers in Tonto's wreath, and tied red tissue-paper streamers to the goat's horns. They put a green ruff around the cat's neck, and a red one on the dog; but the dog ran at once to the river and waded in and got it all wet, and the color ran out and dyed his coat, and the ruff fell off, before they were even ...
— The Mexican Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... consideration upon his relations with George Iredale, and the result of his reflections was displayed in his manner when he returned from the fields. Never in his life had he held such a handful of trumps. His hand needed little playing, and the chances of a cross ruff looked ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... independent thinker. Osborne Gordon had recommended him to read Hooker, and he caught the tone and style of the "Ecclesiastical Polity" only too readily, so that much of his work of that winter, the more philosophical part of vol. ii., was damaged by inversions, and Elizabethan quaintness as of ruff and train, long epexegetical sentences, and far-sought pomposity of diction. It was only when he had waded through the chaos which he set himself to survey, that he could lay aside his borrowed stilts, and stand on his own feet in the Tintoret ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... occasion, and a very pretty thing it is." This led to an explanation (it could be delayed no longer) that the sound Spenser, which, when poetry is talked of, generally excites an image of an old bard in a ruff, and sometimes with it dim notions of Sir P. Sidney and perhaps Lord Burleigh, had raised in my gentleman a quite contrary image of the Honorable William Spencer, who has translated some things from the German very prettily, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... second engineer, but he was caught pilfering the skipper's private supply of fresh butter, which he kept in a jar in his bunk and was very jealous of, so Bertie had to be made away with. He walked the plank at daybreak one grey stormy morning just off the Nethermost Ruff of the Dogger. The second was very upset for a day or two; he said he would have staked anything on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 26, 1917 • Various
... to the Constable again, and Ralph bespoke her attention for a small Lancret hanging near it, which represented a gentleman in a pink doublet and hose and a ruff, leaning against the pedestal of the statue of a nymph in a garden and playing the guitar to two ladies seated on the grass. "That's my ideal of ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... swiftly along the ground: when not provoked or disturbed it moves quietly about, with its frill lying back in plaits upon the body: but it is very irascible and, directly it is frightened, elevates the frill or ruff and makes for a tree; where if overtaken it throws itself upon its stern, raising its head and chest as high as it can upon the forelegs, then doubling its tail underneath the body and displaying ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... bravely accoutred. A doublet of crimson cloth, with the crown, the Royal Cipher G. R., and a wreath of laurel embroidered in gold, both on its back and front; a linen ruff, well plaited, round my neck, sleeves puffed with black velvet, trunk-hose of scarlet, rosettes in my slashed shoes, and a flat hat with a border of the red and white roses of York and Lancaster in satin ribbon,—these ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala |
