"Ruffe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... ashamed to be called captain? An captains were of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you have earned them. You a captain! you slave, for what? for tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house? He a captain! hang him, rogue! he lives upon mouldy stewed prunes and dried cakes. A captain! God's light, these villains will make the word as odious as the word "occupy;" which was an excellent ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... You 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 ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the dark, lofty state chamber, lighted but little by six tall candles; there was the American in shirt and trousers, a smoking pistol in his hand; and there, advancing from the door of the powdering-room, a figure in doublet and hose, a ruff round its neck and no head! The head, sure enough, was there; but it was under the right arm, held close in the slashed-velvet sleeve of the doublet. The face looking from under the arm wore a pleasant smile. Both boys, I am sorry to say, screamed. The American fired again. The bullet ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... frequented her abode by night, And courted her, and spake her wond'rous fair; But ever somewhat did offend her sight, Either my double ruff or my long hair; My scarf was vain, my garments hung too low, My Spanish shoe was cut too ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... with a glance of intelligence. He looked at each mask,—harlequin, ape, bulbous-headed monster, or anything that was absurdest,—not knowing but that the messenger might come, even in such fantastic guise. Or perhaps one of those quaint figures, in the stately ruff, the cloak, tunic, and trunk-hose of three centuries ago, might bring him tidings of Hilda, out of that long-past age. At times his disquietude took a hopeful aspect; and he fancied that Hilda might come by, her own ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... through me. For how can a man consider a 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 its ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... 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 ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... I turn my view, All is strange yet nothing new; Endless labor all along, Endless labor to be wrong; Phrase that time has flung away, Uncouth words in disarray, Tricked in antique ruff and bonnet, Ode and elegy ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... a surprise. All at once, from what Dickenson judged to be some fifty feet away, there was the peculiar ruff! ruff! ruff! ruff! of some one walking slowly through the low scrub, which there was not unlike walking over a ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... researches of O. Ruff, who has applied these oxidations with important results in the ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross
... also true in other great portraits—in, for instance, the pictures of Rembrandt, Vandyck, and Frans Hals, especially where a face is relieved by the addition of a hand and the white of a ruff. Somewhere in that warm expanse of the face there can be found a pinhead of color, brighter and more dominating than any other brush touch on the canvas. It may be the high egg-light in the forehead, or the click on the tip of the nose, or a fold of the white ruff; but slight ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... 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 ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
... difficult search after the mere truth. The public who imposed these laws, this exacting public of women who read Plutarch and Plato, who judged the merits of great men as learnedly as the cut of a ruff, found at the very moment they most wanted him the author who could please them in the person of a novel writer, the famous Lyly. At twenty-five years of age, John Lyly, a protege of Lord Burghley, who was at this same time busy with his own architectural poem, ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... Whelp, with other ruff-island-like curs fetcht from among the Antipodes, which bite and barke at the fantasticall humourist and abuses of the time. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... daily to Sir Walter. In return for the fruit, 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, ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... flamed Dick, burying the grubby fingers of his right hand protectively in the fluffy mass of the puppy's half-grown ruff. "She's the ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... there 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 be, I ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... an old person of Bude, Whose deportment was vicious and crude; He wore a large ruff of pale straw-colored stuff, Which perplexed all ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... Gordon with her dark hair drawn back, in front, over a cushion, or some support 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 to mitigate the ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... sending messengers 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 us three hundred quarters of corn. Perchance ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... his dog to scour the woods, and the faithful animal ever had his eyes and ears open, and was sniffing the wind if a wolf or bear was about. On this afternoon in August the dog came running in with his hair in a ruff, and growling. ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... sallow guardsmen their horsetails have spread, Flaming out in their violet, yellow, and red; And behind go the lackeys in crimson and buff, And the chamberlains gorgeous in velvet and ruff; Next, in red-legged pomp, come the cardinals forth, Each a lord of the church and a prince of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... side the chapel contains a full-length effigy of Bishop Goldsborough (who died in 1604) robed in his white rochet, black chimero, with lawn sleeves, scarf, ruff, and skull-cap. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... people, For her appearance is altogether unlike that of others. But I will now describe the modest dress she is wearing:— First a bodice red her well-arch'd bosom upraises, Prettily tied, while black are the stays fitting closely around her. Then the seams of the ruff she has carefully plaited and folded, Which with modest grace, her chin so round is encircling. Free and joyously rises her head with its elegant oval, Strongly round bodkins of silver her back-hair is many times twisted Her blue well-plaited gown begins from ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... In the department of dress, she had a name in her own sex and age as illustrious as that of Brummel among dandies in the beginning of this century. As he was the inventor of the starched cravat, she was his precursor in the invention of the starched ruff, or, as it is generally said, of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... mill; and even the canal, along which the barges come and go, has a great white water-lily asleep on its olive-coloured face. Never was velvet on a monarch's robe so gorgeous as the green mosses that be-ruff the roofs of farm and cottage, when the sunbeam slants on them and goes. The old road out towards the common, and the hoary dikes that might have been built in the reign of Alfred, have not been forgotten by the generous adorning ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... palm the curled thing stirred, spread wings. A fledgling bird lay there, small soft body throbbing slightly. Half-hidden in a ruff of metallic feathers I glimpsed a grimly elongated beak. The pinions were feathered with delicate down less than a quarter of an inch long. They beat with delicate insistence against the Toymaker's ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... think of nothing else." Heinrich falls asleep, and has a vision of a wondrous cavern and a fountain, beside which grows a tall, light blue flower that bends towards him, the petals showing "like a blue spreading ruff in which hovered a lovely face." This blue flower, says Carlyle, is poetry, "the real object, passion, and vocation of young Heinrich." Boyesen gives a subtler interpretation. "This blue flower," he says, "is the watchword and symbol of the school. It is meant to symbolise the deep and nameless ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... fresh, and lighted the man's face dimly,—a long, pale face with gray mustache and pointed beard. He was all in black, so that his outline was lost in darkness; but I saw that round his neck was a short white ruff, and that heavy leather boots hung in folds, cavalier-fashion, from his knees. He wavered there in the dark, against the flicker of the bamboo shadows, like a picture by that Dutch fellow—What's-his-name-again—a very dim, shaky, ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... 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
... 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 below, twine themselves yearly about ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... hollow logs. Another, a small, brown bird, with modest plumage, surprised and delighted me, by a clear, full whistle, that sounded not unlike that of our own robin redbreast. We also saw numbers of a species of pigeon with black bills, slate-coloured bodies, and a ruff of white feathers about the neck. One of these Johnny brought down with his bow, besides wounding very seriously, (as he alleged), a considerable number of others. The woodpeckers and whistlers enjoyed a temporary immunity ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... apprentices of the city. The Lord Mayor and Common Council, in 1582, found it necessary to direct apprentices; "to wear no hat with any silk in or about the same. To wear no ruffles, cuffs, loose collar, nor other thing than a ruff at the collar, and that only a yard and a half long. To wear no doublets * * * enriched with any manner of silver or silke. * * * To wear no sword, dagger, nor other weapon but a knife; nor a ring, jewel of gold, nor silver, nor silke in any part ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... more of your shoulders behind," he said very gravely. "You might as well wear a standing ruff as such ...
— The American • Henry James
... not the only sign he bore of rich wine and good capon. The queen was a beautiful, dark-haired lady of some forty years, with a noble and gracious countenance. She was clad in no vesture of gold, but in sober black velvet. Her curls fell upon the loose ruff of lace around her neck. There were no jewels on or about her bare, white bosom. Her smile and gentle voice, when she gave me her bon-voyage and best wishes for the cause so dear to us, are jewels ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... Some tore a ruff, and some a gown, 'Gainat one another jostling; They flew about like chaff i' th' wind, For haste some left their masks behind, Some could not stay their gloves to find, ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... anything like it. He isn't much to look at, but when he speaks he can make the hair in the back of your neck stand out straight like the ruff of ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... 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 it most and fly from ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... band, and pantaloon, And ruff composed most duly; The squire he dropped his pen full soon, While as ...
— English Satires • Various
... that 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 ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... 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. ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... magnificent. She wore a dress, with a train, of silver brocade covered with gold bees; her shoulders were bare, but on her arms were tight sleeves embroidered with gold, the upper part adorned, with diamonds, and fastened to them was a lace ruff worked with gold which rose behind half up her head. The tight-fitting dress had no waist, after the fashion of the time, but she wore a gold ribbon as a girdle, set with thirty-nine pink gems. Her bracelets, ear-rings, and necklace were formed of precious stones and antique cameos. ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... time, Samantha. And I heard a feller a talkin' about it yesterday. You know they are a havin' the big political convention here, and he said, (he wuz a real cute chap too,) he said, 'if the wind wasted in that convention could be utilized by pipes goin' up out of the ruff of that buildin' where it is held,' he said, 'it would take a man up to the moon.' I heerd him say it. And now, who knows but they have got it all fixed. There wuz dretful windy speeches there this ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... with its dark brown mottled plumage and hoarse croaking note. These birds are very numerous in the reedy flats of the Murray, whence they call to one another like bull frogs. It is a higher bird than the above, with a ruff down the neck, which behind is naked. He has a fine bright eye, and darts with his bill with ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... and fastened with jewelled bands and ornaments. On each side of the red cheeks other braids were looped over the ears hung with broad earrings of filigree set with rough pearls and emeralds, or gold loops and pendants of coral, and an unexpected tulle ruff, like that of a Watteau shepherdess, framed the round chin above a torrent of necklaces, necklaces of amber, coral, baroque pearls, hung with mysterious barbaric amulets and fetiches. As the young things ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... bespeaks 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, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... brilliant in the billowy silken skirts, puffed sleeves, tight bodice, and wide ruff of Queen Elizabeth, and carried off well the character of that hot-tempered majesty, making no effort to disguise the fact that she was ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... black eyes were so vividly lustrous, that one might have fancied the delicate cap-border near them, in danger from their fire. Over her full-formed bust, she wore a clear, and stiffly-starched muslin habit-shirt of purest white, a beautiful lace-edged ruff around her throat, over her ample shoulders was thrown a fawn-coloured shawl, and she wore also, a silver gray gown of the material called Norwich crape, with an apron rivalling in whiteness cap, habit-shirt, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various
... you call it, is by a direct lie. My lie was no worse than yours. But I did not stop to argue about such matters. There is something else I wished to say. I want to tell you that you have greatly pleased the king with the new dance. Now teach him 'honor and ruff' and your fortune is made. He has had some Jews and Lombards in of late to teach him new games at cards, but yours is worth all of them." Then, somewhat hastily and irrelevantly, "I did not dance the new dance with any other gentleman—but I suppose ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... smoking tobacco from long silver pipes; and by them are Fenton and Wishington, who have both tried to follow Drake's path around the world, and failed, though by no fault of their own. The short, prim man, in the huge yellow ruff, is Richard Hawkins, ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... seeming equally stern in his court suit and hat, and Dame Markham, in stomacher and farthingale and ruff, with quite a look of alarm on their countenances, which was reflected from that of another of the old Markhams—all appearing either angry or startled at such a freak being played in ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... and black may have slipt in from the preceding description. I incline to believe it to be the Demoiselle, Anthropoides Virgo, which is frequently seen as far north as Lake Baikal. It has a tuft of pure white from the eye, and a beautiful black pendent ruff or ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... that he was "summat ruff," the gentleman at whose house Mr. Whittaker was staying nearly had a fit; and after he had at length recovered his gravity he ejaculated, "Well, I would have given a guinea to have seen ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... apartment is a collection of paintings by Portuguese artists, chiefly portraits, amongst which is that of Don Sebastian. I sincerely hope it did not do him justice, for it represents him in the shape of an awkward lad of about eighteen, with a bloated booby face with staring eyes, and a ruff ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... sleeves, faced with 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... home 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, ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... tabor, taborine. Associated Words: reveille, rappel, chamade, ruff, tattoo, ruffle, roll, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... above it part of the skin is blue and part scarlet. The bill is orange and black, and those curious lumps or carbuncles on its forehead are rich orange. At the lower part of the neck it wears a black ruff. The wing feathers and tail are black, and the lower part of the body white, and the rest a fine grey ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... been sent must have been carried from this place by negroes. The fact is I have made the negro men work, an made them go strait. That is what is the matter, an is the reason why my place is talk of the settlement. I have found among the negro men two or three hard cases an I have had to deal rite ruff, but not cruly at all. Among them Abram has been as triflin as any man on the place. Now, sir, what I have wrote you is truth, and it cant be disputed ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... time in preparation for a fancy ball that was to come off that night. The two young ladies attired themselves with much care, each with a view to effect. Margaret looked particularly to the assumption of a certain dignity, and her costume for the evening had been chosen with that end in view. A ruff, and her grand-mother's rich silk brocade, did give to her tall person all the dignity ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... fastened on the shoulder by an agraffe of superb diamonds. The breeches, reaching to the knee, were of 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 ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... pale-yellow, in the manner of a corselet with wide, up-and-down stripes, a stiff ruff and buttons of topaz. There is a narrow frilled stripe on the edge of the collar, and also on the close-fitting sleeves. The trunks are short, wide-slashed, and of a dead-green color with pale purple in the slashes. The hose is gray.—Those of the blue ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... expediency; or that one must "follow suit with the smallest, except when you have only two, neither of them better than the Jack. Then play the higher first, so that when the lower falls your partner may know you are out of the suit, and ruff it." ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... sense. A skilful 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 ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... if in the presence of 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
... with tearful eye upon that most bewitching of portraits, that of Mary Queen of Scots in costume of black velvet, time-honored ruff, and as reminder of her belief, the massive jet crucifix was suspended from the most perfect neck that was ever fashioned by the ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... brings up the subject of hammicks; show me a guy who can ride one all nite without being turned out, and I'll back him to ride the best tricky mule that P.T. Bamum ever trained. About the only way to do, when the nite is ruff, and the ship is rockin, is to sit down and wait until your hammick comes around, and jump on it and choke it into insensibility. I made out to do this better than the balance of the bunch, as I had had more practice, owing to the ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone
... originally from Angora, in Syria. It is much larger than the common cat; its hair is very long, especially about the neck, where it forms a fine ruff, of a silvery whiteness and silky texture, that on the tail is three or four inches long; these cats frequently spread their tails on their backs, as squirrels do. The colour is generally white, but sometimes light brown; they do not catch mice. This ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss
... That's rich. We call him 'Old Solemnity' in the bank; but he doesn't mean any harm by it—he just can't help it, that's all. If he had a stiff ruff about his neck, you could pose him for a picture of one ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... known portraits: the "Master 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 ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... the complete working of the spell. At last, however, a change came over mine host, or so it seemed to the dreaming chronicler. "He insensibly began to alter his appearance; his cravat seemed quilled into a ruff, and his breeches swelled out into a farlingale. I now fancied him changing sexes; and as my eyes began to close in slumber, I imagined my fat landlord actually converted into as fat a landlady. However, sleep made but ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... brocade; on dingy armor of those who had fought with Charlie Stuart; on stately mahogany, old pewters, and on portraits of the fighting Ravenels of days long gone. There was Malcom, who died music-mad; Des Grieux, the one with ruff and falcon, said to be a Romney; and that Francis, fourth of the name (whom the present Francis most resembled), who had lost his life, the story ran, for a queen ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... 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 shall ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... seized a dipper and a twelve quart pail and hurried up to the flooded deestrick, which we commenced to bail out like a sinkin' boat, Royal, Karen and Rosy helpin' me, and Ury havin' his first fears squenched by the overflow of water (which he expected he said would blow off the hull ruff and top story of the house), he and Philury ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... the price of oats, and discussing stale newspapers? There have you got, I hear into an old gallery that has not been glazed since Queen Elizabeth, and under the nose of an infant Duke and Duchess, that will understand you no more than if you wore a ruff and a coif, and talked to them of a call of serjeants the year of the Spanish armada! Your wit and humour will be as much lost upon them, as if you talked the dialect of Chaucer; for with all the divinity of wit, it grows out of fashion like a fardingale. I am convinced that the young men at White's ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... waited there as though he expected something to happen. Thoughts slipped through his mind quite casually, whether Hamlet were behaving well outside, what the old lady did when she was tired of dusting, who the stone figure lying near him might be, a figure very fine with his ruff and his peaked beard, his arms folded, his toes pointing upwards, whether the body were inside the stone like a mummy, or underneath the ground some-where; how strangely different the nave looked now from its Sunday show, and what fun ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... Arrangement in Black No. 3, apparently some pseudonym for our greatest living actor, for out of black smudgy clouds comes looming the gaunt figure of Mr. Henry Irving, with the yellow hair and pointed beard, the ruff, short cloak, and tight hose in which he appeared as Philip II. in Tennyson's play Queen Mary. One hand is thrust into his breast, and his legs are stuck wide apart in a queer stiff position that Mr. Irving ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... when her time came. She leaped and snapped, and faced overwhelming odds without wavering, but her race was run when the wolfhound's great weight bore her to the earth and his massive jaw closed about her ruff as a ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... engrossing it to the end of the dinner. This was the old Marechal de Bassompierre; he had preserved with his white locks an air of youth and vivacity curious to see. His noble and polished manners showed a certain gallantry, antiquated like his costume—for he wore a ruff in the fashion of Henri IV, and the slashed sleeves fashionable in the former reign, an absurdity which was unpardonable in the eyes of the beaux of the court. This would not have appeared more singular than anything else at present; but it is admitted that in every age ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... 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 never ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... their eyes centered on a masked woman, a woman whom no one else could identify. They, and certain habitual frequenters of the opera balls, could alone recognize under the long shroud of the black domino, the hood and falling ruff which make the wearer unrecognizable, the rounded form, the individuality of figure and gait, the sway of the waist, the carriage of the head—the most intangible trifles to ordinary eyes, but to them ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... iter, numeratque dies, spatioque viarum Metitur vitam, torquetur peste futura. [Footnote: Claud, in Ruff. 1. ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... it's rather amusing to watch them at it, too. Xanthippe with her Greek clothes finds it rather difficult; but for rare sport you ought to see Queen Elizabeth trying to keep her eye on the ball over her ruff! It really is one of the finest spectacles ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... region there is a distinct species of Tropidorhynchus, and there is always along with it an oriole that exactly mimics it. All the Tropidorhynchi have a patch of bare black skin round the eyes, and a ruff of curious pale recurved feathers on the nape, whence their name of Friar-birds, the ruff being supposed to resemble the cowl of a friar. These peculiarities are imitated in the orioles by patches of feathers of corresponding colours; while the different tints of the two species in ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... 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 and ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... demireps, upon those names "Sir J. R-yn-lds, in a domino; Mr. Cr-d-ck and Dr. G-ldsm-th, in two old English dresses," I had, so to speak, my heart in my mouth. What, YOU here, my dear Sir Joshua? Ah, what an honor and privilege it is to see you! This is Mr. Goldsmith? And very much, sir, the ruff and the slashed doublet become you! O Doctor! what a pleasure I had and have in reading the Animated Nature. How DID you learn the secret of writing the decasyllable line, and whence that sweet wailing note of tenderness that accompanies ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... there, And throw him in another thing or two If he demurs: the whole should prove enough To pay for this same cousin's freak. Beside, What's better, and what's all I care about, Get you the thirteen send for the ruff! Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he, The cousin! what does he to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... well. Above the mantelpiece, where rested an array of smoking-materials and a large silver cigarette-box, hung an ancestral-looking portrait, in a dull gilded frame, of an aged man, with a ruff round his neck, purchased for one guinea; there was a sofa and a set of chairs upholstered in a good damask: a black piano by Broadwood; a large oval gate-leg table; a bureau; shelves filled with very indiscriminate literature—law books, novels, Badminton, magazines and ancient school ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... mapped out to start. Call 'em 'The Trouble-hunter Twins, Ruff and Reddy.' If they catch on, the artist and me can keep 'em ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the door opened and a dejected apparition in a ruff and petticoats, like a rumpled remnant of a pre-war pageant, drifted in and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... and bone them, soak them in fair water four or five hours, then wash out the blood very clean, pair off the ruff of the mouth, and take out the balls of the eyes; then stuff them with sweet herbs, hard eggs, and fat, or beef-suet, pepper, and salt; mingle all together, and stuff them on the inside, prick both the insides together; ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... on to the tea-tables as did the Finesses and the Longspades. He remained close at Miss Todd's elbow, as though his friendship was of a more enduring kind than that of others, as though he were more to Miss Todd than Mrs. Fuzzybell, nearer than Miss Ruff who had just been assured at her entrance that the decks should be made ready for action almost at once. A lion-hearted old warrior was Miss Ruff,—one who could not stand with patience the modern practice of dallying in the presence of her enemies' guns. She had come there for a rubber of whist—to ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... men in armor at the Tower, frowning ferociously out of their helmets, and wielding their dreadful swords; that superhuman Queen Elizabeth at the end of the room, a livid sovereign with glass eyes, a ruff, and a dirty satin petticoat, riding a horse covered with steel: who does not remember these sights in London in the consulship of Plancus? and the wax-work in Fleet Street, not like that of Madame Tussaud's, whose chamber of death is gay and brilliant; but a nice old gloomy wax-work, full ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the stall of the 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 ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... 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 take de plate ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... slowly absorbed an ample pinch of snuff as if to quicken his reminiscences; he shook his laced ruff with his ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... 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 ceiling, those candlebra ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... 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 ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... somewhere which shapes Our latter ends, ruff hue 'em As we will. The only truble is to Find that course—and freeze ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... odd tremble 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 ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... that a young heiress of her rank should be dressed in accordance with the fashion of the day, but the young heiress longed to be released from the thraldom of fashion, the fatiguing, heavy brocade dresses, the hoops, the stiff ruff and the stomacher, the farthingale and high heeled shoes, and a thousand times more than all, did she desire to be released from the artificial and to her unsatisfactory life, from the flattery, the coquetry, the idle, envious tattle, and to be back again with Cecil, in her simple, ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... a good-humored, good-looking man, with immense bushy, red whiskers, a freckled, florid complexion, and sandy hair, rather inclined to scantiness towards the scalp of the head, which garnished the nape of his neck with a ruff of crisp little curls, like the ring on a monk's shaven crown. Notwithstanding this tendency to baldness, Jack could not be more than thirty, though his looks were some five years in advance. His face was one of those inexplicable countenances, which appear to be proper to a peculiar ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... enter 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 ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... reverence and silence. The contrast between the light and shade is as marvellous as that between death and life. Everything is painted with infinite pains; it is possible to count the little folds of the ruff, the wrinkles in the face, the hairs of the beard. It is said that the foreshortening of the corpse is incorrect, and that in some places the finish degenerates into hardness, but universal approval places the "Lesson in Anatomy" among the greatest ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... palace; there is an entrance from some point near the front of the church, but this we did not find. The papal guards, in the strangest antique and antic costume that was ever seen,—a party-colored dress, striped with blue, red, and yellow, white and black, with a doublet and ruff, and trunk-breeches, and armed with halberds,—were on duty at the gateways, but suffered us to pass without question. Finally, we reached a large court, where some cardinals' red equipages and other carriages were drawn up, but were still at a loss as to the whereabouts ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... success, he looked round for Lady Delacour, from whom he expected the honours of his triumph. She had left the room, but soon she returned, dressed in the character of Queen Elizabeth, in which she had once appeared at a masquerade, with a large ruff, and all the costume ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... hang round here," said the detective, "and don't stand holding yourself like a ramrod—like that gent out there with the ruff that must be taking the skin off his chin. I kinder thought I'd like to see the whole show, but we'd best go now and wait ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... hoop-petticoat, which swelled to the very point of explosion, and was bedecked all over with embroidery a little tarnished. Above the petticoat, and parting in front so as to display it to the best advantage, was a figured blue damask gown. A wide and stiff ruff encircled her neck, a cap of the finest muslin, though rather dingy, covered her head; and her nose was bestridden by a pair of gold- bowed spectacles with enormous glasses. But the old lady's face was pinched, sharp and sallow, ...
— An Old Woman's Tale - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... been a labourer in the fields of Switzerland and Holland, and have not disdained the humble profession of postillion and ploughman. I was a petit maitre at Paris, and an abbe at Rome. I put on, at Hamburg, the Lutheran ruff, and with a triple chin and a formal countenance I dealt about me the word of God so as to excite the envy of the clergy. My fate was similar to that of a guinea, which at one time is in the hands of a Queen, and at another is in the fob ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... out before, ole 'oman," he replied; "got a good ruff over de head now. Guess de white massar won't ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... 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 ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... The top of the head of the Tropidorhynchus has a scaly appearance from the narrow scale-formed feathers, which are imitated by the broader feathers of the Mimeta having a dusky line down each. The Tropidorhynchus has a pale ruff formed of curious recurved feathers on the nape (which has given the whole genus the name of Friar birds); this is represented in the Mimeta by a pale band in the same position. Lastly, the bill of the Tropidorhynchus ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... 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 trumpeters and the musicians, covered with gold and silver ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... that 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 face had ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... up on to the bridge, and paused again, the long hair about his neck rising like a ruff, and a strange glint in his eyes; and the holder of the bridge never moved. Red and Gray stood thus, face to face: the one gay yet resolute, the other motionless, his great head slowly sinking between his forelegs, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... them worlds below worlds; a third, going deeper, might, Actaeon-like, surprise the bare soul. A curiously wrought net of gold caught her dark hair in its meshes, and pearls were in her ears, and around the white column of her throat rising between the ruff's gossamer walls. She fingered the racket, idly listening the while for a foot-fall beyond her round of trees. Hearing it at last, and taking it for her brother's, she looked up with a proud and ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... garden wall.... And, when I was a child, somebody killed a little dog down by the causeway. He is here in the garden, now, trotting gaily about the lawn—such a happy little dog!—and Hafiz has folded his forepaws under his ruff and has settled down to watch him. Don't you see how Hafiz watches, how his head turns following every movement ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... 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 Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... of these two terrific weapons protruded the huge horn goggles which served as sockets for the great, cold, implacable lizard-eyes. Behind the horns, outspreading like a vast ruff from three to four feet wide upwards and laterally, slanted a smooth, polished shield of massive shell like the carapace of a giant turtle, protecting the neck and shoulders from ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... his acquaintance. He was still on rigid duty at his post. He had regained his good looks. His bright, keen face set off by his white ruff and pricked ears made a dog to catch the eye anywhere. But he gave me no second glance, once he found my legs were not those he sought, and in spite of my friendly overtures during the ten months following ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... with my host. The congregation, including their pastor, wore the costume of the middle ages; it was a most curious and interesting sight. I am never a good hand at describing the details of dress, but I know my impression was that the pastor—wearing a ruff, I think, or something like it—might just have walked out of a picture, such as one knows so well of the old Puritans in Cromwell's time. The dress of the peasants, though unlike the English fashion of any period, had an old-world look. The married women wore white kerchiefs ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... to his usual 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... poetess. It harmonized with the occupant, a little, bony, meagre figure, wearing a tight-fitting blue-flowered chintz dress. Upon the gray hair, which, parted in the middle, encircled the low forehead, was a cap, which had lost its whiteness and was, therefore, more in harmony with the ruff about her yellow, thin neck. Her sharp, angular features were redeemed by large, dark eyes, flashing with marvellous brilliancy from under the thick, gray eyebrows, and with quick, penetrating glances she sometimes turned them to the ceiling thoughtfully ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... beard for him; persuading him it grows thicker and thicker, blacker and blacker; she washes his ruff, stiffens it, plaits it, tries it upon his neck, removes the hair from under it, pinches it with thumb and fore-finger, pretending that he hath moiled it, puts her hand all the way round it, SETTING IT TO RIGHTS, ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... monument to Christopher Blackhall, who died in 1635, and his four wives, who are kneeling one behind the other. The dates of their deaths are very clearly marked by the different fashions of their dresses—a compact and upstanding ruff adds to the stiff precision of the first wife's appearance; while the sloping lines of a 'Vandyke' collar embellish the ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... unbearable, 'speciallie to Father, that we are impatient to be off. Mother, intending to turn Chalfont into a besieged Garrison, is laying in Stock of Sope, Candles, Cheese, Butter, Salt, Sugar, Raisins, Pease, and Bacon; besides Resin, Sulphur, and Benjamin, agaynst the Infection; and Pill Ruff, and Venice Treacle, in Case ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... of charming appearance had halted. Her glance was troubled, her manner ill at ease. To herself she kept repeating: "Did I tell Hudson to be here at a quarter to eleven, or a quarter past? Will she get the telephone message to bring the ruff? Without the ruff it would be absurd to be photographed. Without her ruff Mary Queen of ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... dress cramping her too much for sleep, and her weary aching eyes gathering a few impressions in a passive way. On the walls hung dimly seen portraits strangely familiar to her. The man in a green dressing gown with floating hair had a face she knew; so had the lady in the yellow ruff. And was that not the old crest, the Delavie butterfly, with the motto, Ma Vie et ma Mie, carved on the mantelpiece? Thus she knew that she must be in Delavie House, and felt somewhat less desolate as she recognised several portraits as duplicates of those at the Great House ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pearls—almost equal to her neck in beauty of colour—descended upon her bosom. From time to time she elevated her head with the undulating grace of a startled serpent or peacock, thereby imparting a quivering motion to the high lace ruff which surrounded ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... 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 ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... his face in 's ruff, as I have seen a serving-man carry glasses in a cypress hatband, monstrous steady, for fear of breaking; he looks like the claw of a blackbird, first salted, and then ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... had already got out of it, and was slowly coming towards them, supporting herself on a black crutch-handled staff. As she drew nearer they could see that she was a woman of great age. She wore a large ruff, a laced stomacher, wide quilted petticoats, and a pointed hat with a broad brim. Her expression was severe, but not unkindly, while she evidently considered herself ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... and an enormous leg-of-mutton hand, which he now stretched out of the wide sleeve of his gaily-chequered jacket in welcome. Behind him a tall, lean figure showed, or rather, hid itself—the slender neck feathered with a fine white cambric ruff, and the thin, pale face strangely adorned with an incredibly long nose, which peered with anxious curiosity in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the chancel was rebuilt, but the Fauconberg monuments in it were replaced. Sir William Belasyse, who received the Newburgh property from his uncle, the first owner, died in 1603, and his fine Jacobean tomb, painted in red, black and gold, shows him with a beard and ruff. His portrait hangs in one of the drawing-rooms of the Priory. The later monuments, adorned with great carved figures, are all interesting. They encroach so much on the space in the narrow chancel that a most curious method for lengthening the communion-rail has been ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... not to do so no more, an' said suthin' to himself about devourin' widders. So I didn't darst to go up agin, he looked so kind o' furce an' sharp, till, last night, I reck'n'd the snow would sift in through the old ruff, an' I went up to offer him a comf'table for his bed. I knocked; but he didn't make no answer, so I pushed the door open an' went in. It was a good while sence I'd seen the inside o' the room,—for when he heerd me comin' up, he'd open the door a crack an' peek ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough |
