"Winnowing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Durdun Dagh, and reached the village of Koord Keui, on his lower slope. As there was no place for our tent on the rank grass of the plain or the steep side of the hill, we took forcible possession of the winnowing-floor, a flat terrace built up under two sycamores, and still covered with the chaff of the last threshing. The Koords took the whole thing as a matter of course, and even brought us a felt carpet to rest upon. They came ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... you kill a skald? This boy has hearkened Odin sing Unto the clang and winnowing Of raven's wings. His heart is thralled To music, ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... some twenty or thirty girls, in colored skirts, laced bodices, and big straw-hats, were threshing the maize on the big red brick threshing-floor, while others were winnowing the grain in great sieves. Young Alvise III. (the old one was Alvise II.: every one is Alvise, that is to say, Lewis, in that family; the name is on the house, the carts, the barrows, the very ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... with the gloriously audacious faith of youth which has just discovered a true apostle. "Pater puts you on to the inner meaning of everything—in art, I mean. He doesn't wander about in the air like Ruskin, though, of course, if you get your mental winnowing machine in proper working order you can get the good grain out of Ruskin. 'The Stones of Venice' and 'The Seven Lamps' have taught me a lot. But you always have to be saying to yourself, 'Is this gorgeous nonsense or isn't it?' whereas ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... his vocation in a stone cottage that stood among the nutty hedgerows near the village of Raveloe, and not far from the edge of a deserted stone-pit. The questionable sound of Silas's loom, so unlike the natural cheerful trotting of the winnowing-machine, or the simpler rhythm of the flail, had a half-fearful fascination for the Raveloe boys, who would often leave off their nutting or birds'-nesting to peep in at the window of the stone cottage, counterbalancing a certain awe at the mysterious ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... excited by the damnable practices of the Papists has called up men's souls, and awakened their eyes to the dangers of their state.—He himself—for he will give up brother and wife to save himself—is not averse to a change of measures; and though we cannot at first see the Court purged as with a winnowing fan, yet there will be enough of the good to control the bad—enough of the sober party to compel the grant of that universal toleration, for which we have sighed so long, as a maiden for her beloved. Time and opportunity will lead the way to more thorough reformation; and that will be done without ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... intensity of down-pour; light in itself, and dark with shutting out all sight of everything—a close-at-hand confusion, and a distance out of measure. The horse, with his wise snow-crusted eyes, took in all the winnowing of light among the draff, and saw no possibility of breaking through, but resolved to spend his life as he was ordered. No power of rush or of dash could he gather, because of the sinking of his feet; the main chance was of bulk and weight; and his rider ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... one corner of the fireplace. There was no harm done, only Job lost his patience, and cried, and for five minutes there was a perfect Bedlam of baby-screams, chopping-knives, and mortar-pestles, and in the midst of it, the sound of the hired men winnowing grain in ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... of these stables, took from off a chest the portion of oats destined for his horse, and, pouring it into a winnowing basket, shook it as ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... leaning in a crowd Self-crushing and self-fettering; gleams are caught From some far centre set by God to keep His brave world spinning, or some drifting isle Of swift wildfire shot out by the wide sweep Of wings demoniac, Far winnowing and black, Our cheated souls to 'wilder and beguile. Only the years, the imperturbable, Impassionate years, can sheave the scattered rays Into one sun, these mingled arrows tell Each to its quiver, the divine and fell, And life's lone meteors ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... see after the ducks and chickens, and watch all the threshing and winnowing," said Edwin, the ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... steatite, or soapstone, others from a rough basic rock, and many of them were exceedingly well made and finely shaped; results requiring much patience and no small artistic skill. Oftentimes these mortars were made in the solid granite rocks or boulders, found near the harvesting and winnowing places, and I have photographed many such ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... far more than this, however. It was the dull newspaper season, and the case had turned out to be a thoroughly "journalistic" one. So they questioned and interviewed every one concerned, and after cleverly winnowing the chaff, which in this case meant the dull, from the gleanings, most of them gave several columns the next morning to the story. Peter's speech was printed in full, and proved to read almost as well as it had sounded. The reporters were told, and repeated the tales without much attempt ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... Or how of you should love possess his fill? After the fulness of all rapture, still,— As at the end of some deep avenue A tender glamour of day,—there comes to view Far in your eyes a yet more hungering thrill,— Such fire as Love's soul-winnowing hands distil Even from his inmost arc ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... Internet Use E. Internet Filtering Technology 1. What Is Filtering Software, Who Makes It, and What Does It Do? 2. The Methods that Filtering Companies Use to Compile Category Lists a. The "Harvesting" Phase b. The "Winnowing" or Categorization Phase c. The Process for "Re-Reviewing" Web Pages After Their Initial Categorization 3. The Inherent Tradeoff Between Overblocking and Underblocking 4. Attempts to Quantify Filtering Programs' Rates of Over- and Underblocking 5. Methods of Obtaining Examples of Erroneously ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
... tide half covered with the flood; trusses of hay, now rotten, and Norway deals, scattered about as if they had no owner—iron ploughs and rusty harrows—cases of door-frames and windows that had once been glazed—heaps of the best slates half tumbling down—winnowing-machines broken to pieces—blocks of Roman cement, now hard as stone, wanting nothing but the staves and hoops—Sydney cedar, and laths and shingles from Van Diemen's Land in every direction; whilst on the high ground are to be seen pigs eating through the flour-sacks, and kegs ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... strictly true out of which, from the half-true or not provable, his Prussian Majesty has appointed a 'Commission,'" fit people, and under strict charges, I can believe, "Commission takes (to Friedrich's own knowledge) a great deal of pains;—and it does not want for clean corn, after all its winnowing. Plenty of facts, which can be insisted on as indisputable. 'Such and such Merchant Ships [Schedules of them given in, with every particular, time, name, cargo, value] have been laid hold of on the Ocean Highway, and carried into English Ports;—OUT of which his Prussian Majesty ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... home provinces (Kinai), and the same sovereign encouraged the cultivation of sorghum, panic-grass, barley, wheat, large white beans, small red beans, and sesame. It was at this time that the ina-hata (paddy-loom) was devised for drying sheaves of rice before winnowing. Although it was a very simple implement, it nevertheless proved of such great value that an Imperial command was issued urging its wide use. In short, in the early years of the Heian epoch, the Throne took an active part in promoting agriculture, but this wholesome interest ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... lawful to do upon the sabbath day." The accusers doubtless had in mind the rabbinical dictum that rubbing out an ear of grain in the hands was a species of threshing; that blowing away the chaff was winnowing; and that it was unlawful to thresh or winnow on the Sabbath. Indeed, some learned rabbis had held it to be a sin to walk on grass during the Sabbath, inasmuch as the grass might be in seed, and the treading out of the seed would be as the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... he came to that very dark House where Cancer the Crab lies so still that you might think he was asleep if you did not see the ceaseless play and winnowing motion of the feathery branches round his mouth. That movement never ceases. It is like the eating of a smothered fire into rotten timber in that it is noiseless and ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... wonders of the season here. I went over to Mustapha's island to spend the day in the tent, or rather the hut, of dourrah-stalks and palm-branches, which he has erected there for the threshing and winnowing. He had invited me and 'his worship' the Maohn to a picnic. Only imagine that it rained! all day, a gentle slight rain, but enough to wet all the desert. I laughed and said I had brought English weather, but the Maohn shook his head and opined ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... army than that which was encamped under Dundalk. It was necessary to be severe. Six of the conspirators were hanged. Two hundred of their accomplices were sent in irons to England. Even after this winnowing, the refugees were long regarded by the rest of the army with unjust but not unnatural suspicion. During some days indeed there was great reason to fear that the enemy would be entertained with a bloody fight between the English soldiers and their ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... bid for it!" shouted the auctioneer, when the farm implements came to be sold. A wave of laughter went through the crowd; it was an old harrow which was put up. The winnowing-machine he called a coffee-grinder. He had something funny to say about everything. At times the jokes were such that the laughter turned on Lars Peter, and this was quickly followed up. But Lars Peter shook himself, and took it as it came. It was the auctioneer's profession to say funny things—it ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the moon. The reason assigned for this, is as follows. Once, when the elephant-faced god Pulliar was dancing before the gods, the moon happening to see him, laughed at him, and told him that he had a large stomach, an ear like a winnowing-fan, etc. This so enraged him, that he cursed her. This curse was inflicted on the ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... Sinhalese story, with three variants, which is definitely connected with our tales, and confirms my belief that the "False-Proofs" cycle is native to southern India. In Parker's main story the false proofs are five,—ass (voice), two winnowing-trays (ears), two bundles of creepers (testicles?), a tom-tom (eye), and two elephant tusks (teeth). In variant b the false proofs are drum (roar), deer-hide rope (hair), ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... a thrashing-machine, could its pleasures have been comparable to that of lying in the straw and watching the grain dance from the sheaves under the skilful flails of the two strong men who belaboured them? There was a winnowing-machine, but quite a tame one, for its wheel I could drive myself—the handle now high as my head, now low as my knee—and watch at the same time the storm of chaff driven like drifting snowflakes from its wide mouth. Meantime the oat-grain was flowing in a silent ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... ruddy wheat, The thumping of the flail, The winnowing within the barn By whirling round ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... legal suasion, its course has been a spiral one. It will never accomplish its mission in this world, until it strikes the air with equal vans, each wing keeping time with the other, both together winnowing the earth of the tempter and ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... blustering vassals AEolus had pent, In ever-during prisons. Phosphor' bright, Most splendid 'midst the starry host of heaven; Admonitor of labor, now was risen; When Perseus bound again on either foot, His winnowing wings; girt on his crooked sword; And cleft the air, on waving pinions borne. O'er numerous nations, far beneath him spread, He sail'd, till Ethiopia's realms he saw; Where Cepheus rul'd. There ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... her slipper. On the plume of a pine, a bird was sending its last call after the bright hours, while out of the firs came the tumult of plainer kinds as they mingled for common sleep. The heavy cry of the bullbat fell from far above, and looking up quickly for a sight of his winnowing wings under the vast purpling vault she beheld the ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... the material infinities of the universe, its exploring of stellar space, its exhuming of secular time, its harnessing of invisible forces, this new mortal knowledge, its sudden burst, its brilliancy and amplitude of achievement, thought winnowing the world as with a fan; the vivid spectacle of vast and beneficent changes wrought by this means in human welfare, the sense of the increase of man's power springing from unsuspected and illimitable resources,—all ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... to a decision in these cases, it seemed on the whole preferable to take the risk of including too much rather than the opposite, and to leave the task of further winnowing ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Batch among the soiled women of Swamp's End in the same tale and of the tawdry Millie Slade face to face with the curate in The Mother is again reminiscent of Harte's technique. Like Dickens and like Bret Harte, Duncan was a frank moralist. His chief concern was in winnowing the souls of men and women bare of the chaff of petty circumstances which covered them. His stories all contain at least a minor chord of sentiment, but are usually free from the sentimentality which mars some of Harte's sketches. He is not ashamed to employ pathos, but his tragic situations ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... instruction in Latin from the village priest and from a neighboring curate, but he made good use of what he learned. He worked on the farm with his father and his men, ploughing, harrowing, sowing, reaping, mowing, winnowing—in a word, sharing actively and contentedly in all the work that belongs to the farmer's life. And in the long winter evenings or in the few hours of rest that the day afforded, he would hungrily devour the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... Future of Turkey.—The entry of Turkey into the great war marks a further stage in the winnowing process from which we hope that a regenerated Europe will emerge. Two of the main causes of the war are the Turk and the Magyar, whose effete and tyrannous systems have each in its own manner and degree long kept South-Eastern ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... with its ten separate processes, has been left far behind. In a modern shoe factory in the United States there are sixty-four distinct processes. Grain, in the elaborate machinery of a steam flour mill, passes through a score of different stages, cleaning, winnowing, grinding, etc. The American machine-made watch is the product of 370 separate processes. The organisation of a modern textile factory provides a dozen different processes contributing to the spinning or weaving of cotton or silk. New processes of cleaning, finishing, and ornamenting ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... those 'pure eyes and perfect judgment,' not to frighten, but to enforce the thought of the need for whole-hearted and glad service, and of the worthlessness of external acts of apparent worship which have not such behind them. What a deal of seeming wheat would turn out to be chaff if that winnowing fan which is in Christ's hand were applied to it! How small our biggest ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... us. No brother could be kinder. Ah! how brightly, how vividly deeds of kindness stand out on the dark background of sickness and sorrow! I never, never can forget that era of my existence, when the destroying angel seemed winnowing the valley with his terrible wings,—when human life was blown away as chaff before a strong wind. Strange! the sky was as blue and benignant, the air as soft and serene, as if health and joy were revelling in the green-wood shade. The gentle rustling of ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the parang; for making bottle-shaped receptacles for rice; for securing the axe to the handle, etc. Women were doing the same work with bamboo, first drying the stalks by standing them upright before a fire. These fine bamboo strings are later used in making winnowing trays and for various kinds of beautifully plaited work. When employed in this way, or on other occasions, the women smoke big cigarettes as ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... the younger, was still more pleased in his heart. He caused Shihi netsu-hiko to put on ragged garments and a grass hat and to disguise himself as an old man. He also caused Ukeshi the younger to cover himself with a winnowing tray, so as to assume the appearance of an old woman, and then addressed them, saying: "Do ye two proceed to the heavenly mount Kagu, and secretly take earth from its summit. Having done so, return hither. By means of you I shall then divine whether my undertaking will be successful ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... mule, crushing in its perpetual journey the already baked coffee-berry, until the crisp husk peels off and exposes a couple of whity-brown, hard, oval seeds, upon which are inscribed two straight furrows. There are winnowing-machines, for separating the chaff from the already milled grain. In that outhouse a group of dark divinities are engaged in the difficult process of sieving and sorting. See with what exceeding dexterity Alicia, Ernestina, and Constancia—the black workers have the whitest of ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... the frost-spangled air the warm, crimson waves of his hate. I only could peer and shudder and fear—'twas ever so ghastly and still; But I knew over there in his lonely despair he was plotting me terrible ill. I knew that he nursed a malice accurst, like the blast of a winnowing flame; I pleaded aloud for a shield, for a ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... constitutional government. Wherever the people rule the public welfare is ever endangered whenever radical changes are to be introduced, unaccompanied with a vigorous opposition. A healthy opposition is the winnowing fan that separates the politician's chaff from the patriot's wheat, presenting the most desirable of the substantial element needed. At the convention in 1868 at Fort Yale, called by A. Decosmos, editor of The British Colonist, and others, for the purpose of getting an expression of ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... is the ballot-box and electoral winnowing-machine they have at St. Edmundsbury: a mind fixed on the Thrice Holy, an appeal to God on high to witness their meditation: by far the best, and indeed the only good electoral winnowing-machine,—if men have souls in them. Totally worthless, it is true, and even hideous and poisonous, if men ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... and wins so rapid a success—leads religion at last to its destruction, as Christ seems to have warned His own disciples. Science has been the slowly advancing Nemesis which has overtaken a barbarised and paganised Christianity. She has come with a winnowing fan in her hand, and she will not stop till she has thoroughly purged her floor. She has left us the divine Christ, whatever may be the truth about certain mysterious events in His human life. But ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... this season they swing in the long strong wind, thro' the lonesome Golden afternoon, shunned by the foraging gulls. Near about sunset the crane will journey homeward above them; Round them, under the moon, all the calm night long, Winnowing soft gray wings of marsh-owls wander and wander, Now to the broad, lit marsh, now to the dusk of the dike. Soon, thro' their dew-wet frames, in the live keen freshness of morning, Out of the teeth of the dawn blows ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... track of him which has not yet been followed out by us. Do not our household servants talk of sifting, straining, winnowing? And they also speak of carding, spinning, and the like. All these are processes of division; and of division there are two kinds,—one in which like is divided from like, and another in which the good ...
— Sophist • Plato
... To Demeter of the winnowing-fan and the Seasons whose feet are in the furrows Heronax lays here from the poverty of a small tilth their share of ears from the threshing-floor, and these mixed seeds of pulse on a slabbed table, the least of a little; for no great ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... high-priced new variety, in hope of obtaining the ideal strawberry; and they so often get a good thing among the blanks that they seem disposed to continue indefinitely this mild form of speculation. In the final result merit asserts itself, and there is a survival of the fittest. The process of winnowing the wheat from the chaff is a costly one to many, however, I have paid hundreds of dollars for varieties that I now regard as little better than weeds. From thorough knowledge of the best kinds already in cultivation, the propagator should not impose any second- rate kind on the public. And yet ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... be a bear, and jump at you as you go by," said Poppy, when they were tired of playing steam-engine with the old winnowing machine. So she got up on a beam; and Nelly, with a peck measure on her head for a hat, and a stick for a gun, went bear-hunting, and banged away at the swallows, the barrels, and the hencoops, till the bear ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... in water for several days until completely blanched; it is then once more dried by the fire or in the sun, passed under a large wooden roller, and through a hair sieve. When it has become white and fine, it is placed in a kind of linen winnowing-fan, which is kept damp in a peculiar manner. The workman takes a mouthful of water, and "spirts it out like fine rain over the fan;" the meal being alternately shaken and moistened until it assumes the character of small globules. These are stirred round in large flat pans, until ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... o'clock. Opening the window, Roma heard the music of a band. At that a spirit of defiance took possession of her, and she put on her hat and cloak. As she passed through the empty drawing-room, the auctioneer, who was counting his notes with the dry rustle of a winnowing machine, looked up with his ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... selecting them, I have sought to accept the author's point of view and manner of treatment, and to measure simply the degree of success he had in doing what he set out to achieve. But I must confess that it has been difficult to eliminate personal admiration completely in the further winnowing which has resulted in this selection of sixty-three stories. Below are set forth the particular qualities which have seemed to me to justify in each case the inclusion of a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... replied the superintendent. "There were a good many bad fellows, but I flatter myself that there are very few now in proportion to the number of men on the line. We are constantly winnowing them out, purifying the ore, as it were, so that we are gradually getting rid of all the dross, and leaving nothing but sterling metal on the line. Why, Mr Tipps, you surely don't expect that railways are to be exempted from black sheep any more than other large companies. Just look at ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne |
