"Brawl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... difficulty, like that of his predecessor, was that the great lords preferred to hold their own against him individually with the help of their armies of retainers, instead of exercising political power in Parliament. In his first Parliament an angry brawl arose. The lords who in the last reign had taken the side of Gloucester flung their gloves on the floor of the House as a challenge to those who had supported Richard when he compassed Gloucester's death; and though Henry succeeded in keeping the ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... my counsel. That we take ship and sail back to the King in London. There we will tell all this tale. It is a far cry from Straumey to London town, and there we shall sit in peace, for the King will think little of the slaying of an Orkney Earl in a brawl about a woman. Mayhap, too, the Lady Elfrida will not set great store by it. Therefore, I say, let us fare ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... indignantly. "I do not know how long you have been here, for I did not hear you approach, but unless you have but this instant come upon the scene you must be fully aware that it was your boatswain who started this disgraceful brawl. His behaviour ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... southern rapine to renew, Far in the distant Cheviots blue, And, home returning, fill'd the hall With revel, wassel-rout, and brawl."* ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Accordingly, by her commandment, Dioneo took a lute and Fiammetta a viol and began softly to sound a dance; whereupon the queen and the other ladies, together with the other two young men, having sent the serving-men to eat, struck up a round and began with a slow pace to dance a brawl; which ended, they fell to singing quaint and merry ditties. On this wise they abode till it seemed to the queen time to go to sleep,[26] and she accordingly dismissed them all; whereupon the young men retired to their chambers, which were withdrawn ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Southern slime Was cast upon our Northern hands; The curse of murder, craft, and crime Clung to our fame in foreign lands: Men thought us prompt to thieve or brawl— And we may ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... troubles of her reign the young Queen steered her skilful and dauntless way with the tact of a woman and the courage of a man. An insurrection in the North, headed by the Earl of Huntly under pretext of rescuing from justice the life which his son had forfeited by his share in a homicidal brawl, was crushed at a blow by the lord James against whose life, as well as against his sister's liberty, the conspiracy of the Gordons had been aimed, and on whom, after the father had fallen in fight and the son had expiated his double offence on the scaffold, the leading ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... dramatist, Greene achieved a considerable reputation. But his improvident habits and a life of constant debauchery brought his career to a close, amidst poverty and remorse, at the early age of thirty-two. He died in a drunken brawl, leaving in his works the evidence of talents and qualities which the degradation of his life had failed ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... quarrelling as if engaged with a successful gamester, is imitated from the character of Carlo, in Jonson's "Every Man out of his Humour," who drinks with a supposed companion, quarrels about the pledge, and tosses about the cups and flasks in the imaginary brawl. We have heard similar frolics related of a bon-vivant of the last generation, inventor of a game called solitaire, who used to complain of the hardship of drinking by himself, because the toast came ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... fell. That was just it. What was his life? Insignificant; no good to anyone; a mere festivity. It would end some fine day in his getting his skull split with a champagne bottle in a drunken brawl. At such times, too, when men were sacrificing themselves to ideas. But he could never get any ideas into his head. His head wasn't worth anything better than to be split by ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... after one moment's pause to gather breath, said in a clear deep trumpet voice, 'Walter Stewart of Albany, on one condition I grant thee thy life. It is that thou take the most solemn oath on the spot that no spulzie or private brawl shall henceforth stain that hand of thine while thy father holds the power in Scotland. Take that oath, thou livest: refuse it, and—' He held up the deadly little dagger called ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... along with blows in the neck. At times brawls would spring up between the drunken, trouble-making company and the porters of all the establishments, who had gathered on the run for the relief of a fellow porter—a brawl, during which the window-panes and the decks of grand-pianos were broken, when the legs of the plush chairs were wrenched out for weapons, blood ran over the parquet floor of the drawing room and the steps of the ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... a wild life, came to his end in a tavern brawl: he had endeavored to use his dagger upon one of the waiters, who turned it upon him, and gave him a wound in the head of which he ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... had of any mob-spirit stirring was when three obvious Zionist Jews were rather roughly hustled by some Hebron men, who pride themselves on their willingness to brawl with any one. Two Sikhs interfered at once, and Goodenough, who was ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... is dead than I am," were his first words. "You recollect me telling you of a drunken brawl in a street off the Strand, where a fellow, as drunk as a lord, was for claiming a pretty girl as his wife; only I had followed her out of Ridley's agency-office, and was just in time to protect her from him—a girl I could have fallen in ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... vigour of open-air life. They looked anything but the fit comrades for a swashbuckling tavern hero. They were as stiff as pokers, they said not a word, they showed not a sign of interest in the affair—rather like two soldiers on guard than ready seconds in a drunken brawl. Once in the upper room they made their arrangements with solemn care, locking the door, clearing a sufficient space, and setting the candles so that the light fell fairly. Harry was taken aside, helped out of his coat, asked ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... added with a haughtier smile 'And as to precontracts, we move, my friend, At no man's beck, but know ourself and thee, O Vashti, noble Vashti! Summoned out She kept her state, and left the drunken king To brawl at ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... this juncture Bud uttered a sort of snort and, placing his hands over his heart, ducked down as if a sudden pain had seized him.) "But imagine my pain and astonishment when I was informed that the drunken brawl I was witnessing was but a nightly and common occurrence. I may say I remained for a few minutes, partly out of curiosity, as I wished to see all kinds of life in this new world for the sake of a book I am thinking of ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... aloofness was all very well, but this conversation was developing into a vulgar brawl. The ghosts of dead and gone Marlowes, all noted for their courtesy to the sex, seemed to stand beside his chair, eyeing him reprovingly. His work, they seemed to whisper, was becoming raw. It was time to jerk the interchange of thought back into the realm ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... not withhold for pleasure vain and cruel That which has long been mine, Nor overheap with briefly burning fuel A fire of flame divine, Nor yield the key for life's profaner voices To brawl within ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... our shame none of the nobler meaning attaches here. Freedom to speak what hopes and ideals we may have; to act openly for what cause we will; to allow that freedom to others—that liberty is denied. There are but too many places where to differ openly from the priest in politics is to provoke a brawl, where to speak as here with the fearlessness of print would be to endanger life. With what scorn one hears the aspiration from public freedom from lips that are closed with the dread by their own hearthside! Let freedom arise where first it is possible in the hearts of men, in their thoughts, ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... plays are very numerous. There is little need to remind the reader, for instance, of the hand-to-hand encounters of Macbeth and Macduff, Posthumus and Iachimo, Hotspur and the Prince of Wales, Richard and Richmond. Romeo has his fierce brawl with Tybalt, Hamlet his famous fencing scene, and there is serious crossing of swords both in "Lear" and "Othello." English audiences, from an inherent pugnacity, or a natural inclination for physical feats, were wont ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... out that there was a fight at the Bayton House between Dr. Dalton and Sheriff Bottlesby, and that Judge McGullet and Captain McWriggler were there to see fair play. If you are both very desirous to have your names figuring in the papers as participants in such a disgraceful brawl, you had better retire to some other quarters, as I am determined it shall not take place in my establishment, ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... that something really important had happened in the centre of this excitement. We wormed our way to the front, with the cunning which is known only to cockneys, and once there we soon learned the nature of the difficulty. There had been a brawl concerned with some six men, and one of them lay almost dead on the stones of the street. Of the other four, all interesting matters were, as far as we were concerned, swallowed up in one stupendous ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... winds, Nor with the brawling of the winds of air Mingles its liquid body. It doth leave All there—those under-realms below her heights— There to be overset in whirlwinds wild,— Doth leave all there to brawl in wayward gusts, Whilst, gliding with a fixed impulse still, Itself it bears its fires along. For, lo, That ether can flow thus steadily on, on, With one unaltered urge, the Pontus proves— That sea which floweth forth with fixed tides, Keeping one ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... Buckingham, stained by every crime, at once coward and bully, haughty in his arrogant insolence, and yet stooping to intrigues that would have disgraced the veriest rogue from the hulks. In the course of what seems to have been rather a riotous brawl, than an honourable duel—a brawl in which seconds as well as principals took part, and in which more than one life was lost—the King's First Minister killed Lord Shrewsbury, the husband of his ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... the thought of a possibly fatal termination to the night's adventure. He groaned at the mockery of having found his life only to lose it now, when it was more precious to him than it had ever been, and to lose it in a silly brawl with semi-savages. He cursed himself impotently and rebelliously for ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... him chief, who, for twelve long years, has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast that the broad empire of Rome could furnish, and yet never has lowered his arm. And if there be one among you who can say that, ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him step forth and say it. If there, be three in all your throng dare face me on the bloody ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... what might have been expected. The crowd, irritated by the non-appearance of Wilkes, still more irritated by the presence of the soldiery, threatened, or was thought to threaten, an attack upon the prison. Angry words were followed by blows; the brawl between the mob and the military became a serious conflict. A young man named Allan, who seems to have had nothing to do with the scuffle, was killed in a private house by some of the soldiers who had forced an entrance in pursuit of one of their assailants. Then the Riot Act was read; ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Michilimackinac, and rivalships and jealousies of course ensued. The trade was injured by their artifices to outbid and undermine each other; the Indians were debauched by the sale of spirituous liquors, which had been prohibited under the French rule. Scenes of drunkeness, brutality, and brawl were the consequence, in the Indian villages and around the trading houses; while bloody feuds took place between rival trading parties when they happened to encounter each other in the lawless depths of ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... success the while. Our Norham vicar, woe betide, Is all too well in case to ride; The priest of Shoreswood—he could rein The wildest war-horse in your train; But then, no spearman in the hall Will sooner swear, or stab, or brawl. Friar John of Tillmouth were the man: A blithesome brother at the can, A welcome guest in hall and bower, He knows each castle, town, and tower, In which the wine and ale is good, 'Twixt Newcastle and Holyrood. But that good man, as ill befalls, Hath seldom left our castle walls, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... gaze upon her and she winced. But she clearly was enjoying the quarrel. It stimulated her taut nerves. The house behind her was empty. She felt free to brawl. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... shot. John Porter escaped, and took to the swamp. Four of posse wounded; one, William Hannay, killed. Circulated description of John Porter through the country. Tall and lean; when fifteen years old shot a man in a brawl, and went North. Has been absent thirteen years. Assumed the appearance of a Northern man and speaks with the Yankee twang. Father was absent at the time of attack. Captured three hours after. Declares he knows nothing about doings of the gang. ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... seemed imminent, but, 'Afore thee and me comes to that,' the elder answered, 'I want thee to have fair warnin'. It's unbecomin' in a man to brawl over the maid he wants to marry—— I'm a man as never changed nor halted nor turned aside from anything he set his mind upon. I've been courtin' Miss Fellowes now this three year. It stands to reason as a frivolish young chap like you can mek ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... the Downs for a ride, Where is she gone, where is she gone? She looks for another to trot by her side: And I—am left all alone! And whenever I take her down stairs from a ball, She nods to some puppy to put on her shawl: I'm a peaceable man, and I don't like a brawl: Where is she gone, where is she gone? But I would give a trifle to horsewhip them all: ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... belted, the Captain wore, cropped almost close, his red hair, the fiery filaments of which, when under the reflection of certain lights, might have given the impression as though his face had been rubbed with phosphorus. Two teeth lost in a night orgy and brawl, he did not exactly remember now, caused him to spit out indistinct words which one could not always understand. He was bald only on the top of his head, like a tonsured monk, with a crop of short, curly hair, golden and shiny, around this ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... Instead of the cursing and swearing, the scoffing, debauchery and drunkenness, instead of the pride and vanity, the torpitude of one quarter and the violence of another, yea, for all the bustle and the pomp, the hurly-burly and the brawl which there unceasingly bewildered men, and for the innumerable and unvarying sins, there was nothing to be seen here but sobriety, kindness and cheerfulness, peace and thankfulness, compassion, innocence and contentment ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... on the fifteenth of each month. Again, the Parthian monarchs of the Arsacid house styled themselves brothers of the sun and moon and were worshipped as deities. It was esteemed sacrilege to strike even a private member of the Arsacid family in a brawl. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... called him last time. He is that one of my friends and fellow sinners who was plugging along nicely at the Bar in 1914, and was just about to take silk, when he changed his mind, came to France and got mixed up in what he calls "this vulgar brawl on the Continent." After nearly three years of systematic warfare in the second line he has at last achieved the rank of full lieutenant, which is not so bad for a growing lad of forty-five; and is running one of those complicated but fascinating side-shows which, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 27, 1917 • Various
... and humiliation of the occasion, which had happened in his fourteenth year, when a motherly woman at Paddington Station had called him "dearie" and publicly embraced him, on the erroneous supposition that he was her nephew, Philip. He must proceed cautiously. A brawl with an innocent waiter, coming on the heels of that infernal episode with the policeman, would give people the impression that assailing the lower orders had ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... crime, Of passions fierce and fell, black ignorance, and madness, Malice, and lust of gold! O visionary Gladness! Where hast thou lured me, where? And was it then for me, A worshipper of love, of peace, and poesy, To brawl with sworders vile, wretches who stab for hire! Was it for me to tame the restive courser's fire To shake the rein, or wield the mercenary blade! And yet, what shall I leave?—A trace that soon shall fade, Of blind and senseless zeal; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... Charles's representative, "is founded on avarice and lies;"[434] and again "there cannot be so much hatred and so many devils in hell as among these cardinals". "The Papacy is in great decay" echoed the English envoy Clerk, "the cardinals brawl and scold; their malicious, unfaithful and uncharitable demeanour against each other increases every day."[435] Feeling between the French and imperial factions ran high, and the only question was whether an adherent of Francis or Charles would secure election. Francis ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... all Which thou dost best and dearest call; Then let the darts of envy fall, Let ruffian malice ban and brawl. ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... great genius of Fielding, when in long after years harnessed to the drudgery of a London magistrate, held no porter's brawl or beggar's quarrel too ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... [Crossing, C.] At difference? fie! Is this a time for quarrels? Thieves and rogues Fall out and brawl: should men of your high calling, Men, separated by the choice of Providence From the gross heap of mankind, and set here In this assembly, as in one great jewel, T' adorn the bravest purpose it e'er smiled on; Should you, like ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... grace of the gods, he interfered in a brawl at Pithom and killed an Egyptian. Before he could be taken he fled into Midian, and the secrets of our order ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... a pretty anecdote for the history of the Emperor Joseph, had he been discovered in a street brawl with a carman," said he to himself. "A little more, and my imperial face would have been pounded into jelly by that Hercules of a fellow! It is not such an easy matter as I had supposed, to mix on equal terms ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... even the political—fabric of Europe, the free action of her statesmen and people was clogged by no uneasy sense that the national genius was in conflict with artificial, self-imposed restrictions. She plunged into the brawl of nations that followed the discovery of a new world, of an unoccupied if not unclaimed inheritance, with a vigor and an initiative which gained ever-accelerated momentum and power as the years rolled by. Far and wide, in every sea, through every clime, her seamen and her colonists ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... fete, which derives its name from the little mountain-flowers, an inconceivable transport and freedom; and yet no private brawl mingled among the cries of public rejoicing; a few lancers on horseback, ornamented with their shining cuirasses, maintained here and there order among ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... what he's going for. One last big alley fight. One last brawl. When they cut him down—do you suppose they'll stop with him? They'll kill us, and then they'll go in and stamp Earth flat! You know it as well as ...
— The Stoker and the Stars • Algirdas Jonas Budrys (AKA John A. Sentry)
... I shall go!" said Alleyne hurriedly, as Hordle John began to slowly roll up his sleeve, and bare an arm like a leg of mutton. "I would not have you brawl ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shall be—I don't know where; and those who made you deputy will look upon you as a thief who robbed and killed his mother.... Oh, get mad if you want to—beat me up even; people at the other tables are already looking at us.... Why not top the whole business off with a saloon brawl? But just the same, everything I've been saying to ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... didn't kill him. He went home from the White House this evening, apparently sound enough, after a long, stiff, nasty conference with the President. Ingersoll wanted to go to Berlin and call a showdown at the International conference there, and he had a policy brawl with the President, and the President wouldn't let him go, sent an undersecretary instead, and threatened to kick Ingersoll out of the cabinet unless he quieted down. Ingersoll got home at 4:30, collapsed at 5:00, and he was dead before ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... a brawl.—There was that in the Admiral that would have when it could outward no less than inward magnificence. He could go like a Spartan or Diogenes the Cynic, but when the chance came—magnificence! With ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... said Hildegarde. "Poor Kit! he was a great dramatist; the next greatest after Shakspeare, I think,—at least, well, leaving out the Greeks, you know. He was a year younger than Shakspeare, and died when he was only twenty-eight, killed in a tavern brawl." ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... we travel downwards from our heights, And keep descending where the rivers go, We reach a wide and level country, where Our mountain torrents brawl and foam no more, And fair large rivers glide serenely on. All quarters of the heaven may there be scann'd Without impediment. The corn grows there In broad and lovely fields, and all the land Is like a garden ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... said he, "you have attained your end, and have certainly chosen a particularly delicate moment for your intrusion. I would not brawl in the presence of death, but I can assure you that if I were a younger man your monstrous conduct would not pass ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... all of which had been a bit thick, this, in his opinion, achieved the maximum of thickness. It was the extreme ragged, outside edge of the limit. To brawl with a fellow-man in a public street had been bad, but to be brawled with by a girl—the shot was not on the board. Absolutely not on the board. There was only one thing to be done. It was dashed undignified, no doubt, for a fellow to pick up the old ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... a peaceful soul, despite his military training. His short record on the force had been noteworthy for his ability to disperse several incipient riots, quiet more than one brawl, and tame several bad men without resorting to rough work. But there was a rankling in his spirit which overcame the geniality which had been reigning in his heart so short a ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... the winds that raced above the city smoke. Now the Cowgate and the Canongate would be given over to the drama of the disorderly night; the slum-dwellers would foregather about the rotting doors of dead men's mansions and brawl among the not less brawling ghosts of a past that here never speaks of peace, but only of blood and argument. And Holyrood, under a black bank surmounted by a low bitten cliff, would lie like the camp of an invading and terrified army.... She stopped and said, "Yon about Holyrood's ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... like a fool or a half-grown boy. I conceived a contempt for that shaven, scrawny skipper—I remember it well. That he should drink himself drunk like a boy unused to liquor! Faugh! 'Twas a sickening sight. He would involve himself in some drunken brawl, I made sure, when even I, a child, knew better than to misuse the black bottle in this unkind way. 'Twas the passage from Spain—and the rocks of this and the rocks of that—and 'twas the virtues of a fore-and-after and the vices of an English square rig for the foremast. He'd stand by the square ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... was received with acclamations of transport by some of the rebels; others made objections. Quarrels arose: a ruffianly scene of violence and brawl ensued, in which several were killed and wounded on both sides; but the party for the expedition to San Domingo ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... 'A case of that unbridled brawling which is, alas, but too common in our London streets. These two, possibly till now the closest friends, fall out over some point, probably of the most trivial nature, and what happens? They brawl. They—' ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... misanthrope and a profligate ruffian: we read, that he was banished from Rome, for a murder committed in a drunken brawl; and that he died at last of debauchery and want. Caravaggio was perfect in his gamblers, robbers, and martyrdoms, and should never have meddled with Saints and Madonnas. In his famous Pieta in the Vatican, the Virgin is an old beggar-woman, the two Maries are fish-wives, in "maudlin sorrow," ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... hands—of the people in Arezzo sure to be thrust into the pie with the ignoble object of plucking out for their own advantage such plums as they could secure. Florentine convoys were never safe from attack on the highroads that neighbored the Aretine dominion, and if any brawl broke out between Florence and one of her neighbors, a brawl never provoked by Florence, too magnanimous for such petty dealings, but always inaugurated by the cupidity or the treachery of her enemies, the Aretines were sure to be ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Such Yadavas who have been left behind in Dwarka have been spared, but the greater part of the race is dead. He therefore makes ready for his own departure. Balarama, who has helped Krishna in the brawl, goes to the sea-shore, performs yoga and, leaving his body, joins the Supreme Spirit. Sesha, the white serpent of eternity, issues from his mouth and hymned by snakes and other serpents proceeds to the ocean. 'Bringing an offering of respect, Ocean came to meet him; and then the ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... form, and to take every noxious form. The bravery which finds outlet in duels they showed constantly; the bravery which finds outlets in street fights they had shown from the day when the Duke of Orleans perished in a brawl, to the days when the "Mignons" of Henry III fought at sight every noble whose beard was not cut to suit them. The pride fostered by lording it over serfs, in the country, and by lording it over men who did not own serfs, in the capital, aroused bravery of this sort and plenty of it. But ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... the part of the magistrate. That name, again, of magistrate, increased his offence and pointed its moral: he, a conservator of the laws—he, a dispenser of equity, sitting even at the very moment on the judgment seat—he to have commenced a brawl, nay to have fastened a quarrel upon a man even then of some consideration and of high promise; a quarrel which finally tended to this result—shoot or be shot. That commissioner's situation and state of mind, for the succeeding night, were certainly not enviable: like Southey's erring painter, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... man's mind and deed. I care not what the sects may brawl. I sit as God holding no form of creed, But ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... that Pietro sallied out in such hot haste; else, from all I hear, the Black Brothers of the Miserecordia might even now be bearing to Santa Maria, or the tomb, a prince of Holy Church, a son of the house of Medici, slain in a vile street brawl." ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... high-born youth Antinoues mark'd; he laugh'd Delighted, and the suitors thus address'd. Oh friends! no pastime ever yet occurr'd Pleasant as this which, now, the Gods themselves Afford us. Irus and the stranger brawl As they would box. Haste—let us urge them on. He said; at once loud-laughing all arose; The ill-clad disputants they round about Encompass'd, and Antinoues thus began. 50 Attend ye noble suitors to my voice. Two paunches lie of goats here on the fire, Which fill'd with fat and blood ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... unless it be that goodly one at the incoming of a flood. The school-house stands beside a stream, not very large, called Lowman, which flows into the broad river of Exe, about a mile below. This Lowman stream, although it be not fond of brawl and violence (in the manner of our Lynn), yet is wont to flood into a mighty head of waters when the storms of rain provoke it; and most of all when its little co-mate, called the Taunton Brook—where I have plucked the very best cresses that ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... to solve a problem that threatened to develop into a disastrous brawl. Danger sharpens a brave man's wits, but love makes him fey. To succor Iris was now his sole concern. He swung a couple of the excited sailors out of his way and managed to stem the torrent of Coke's ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... to see the king," said she. "Little Caskoden's friend, Brandon, has been arrested for a brawl of some sort over in London, and Sir Edwin and Lady Jane have importuned me to obtain his release, which I have promised to do. Perhaps your grace will allow me to petition you in place of carrying my request to the king. You are quite as powerful as his majesty in London, and I should like to ask ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... in a den Crowded with tawdry girls and squalid men, Who hoarsely laugh and curse and brawl and fight: I wake from daydreams to ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... brawl - Youth is the sign of them, one and all. A smouldering hearth and a silent stage - These are a type ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... to wrangle amongst each other—a practice which of late years has become so much a legal fashion, that some of our Westminster Hall heroes, forgetting their clients' quarrels in their own, suddenly convert themselves into a new plaintiff and defendant, and brawl forth such ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... bark among the dimpling eddies of a whirlpool! And thus it fared with the worthies of Pavonia, who, little mistrusting the guileful sense before them, drifted quietly on, until they were aroused by an uncommon tossing and agitation of their vessels. For now the late dimpling current began to brawl around them, and the waves to boil and foam with horrible fury. Awakened as if from a dream, the astonished Oloffe bawled aloud to put about, but his words were lost amid the roaring of the waters. And now ensued a scene of direful consternation. At one time they ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... on this particular morning, the meal was nearly over. Mr. Jackson had disappeared, taking his correspondence with him; Mrs. Jackson had gone into the kitchen, and when Mike appeared the thing had resolved itself into a mere vulgar brawl between Phyllis and Ella for the jam, while Marjory, who had put her hair up a fortnight before, looked on in a detached sort of way, as if these ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... years of age, found a devoted friend in Monsignore Querro, a cousin of the family well placed at court, who assisted him in the burglary of the Cenci palace. Rocco was killed by Amilcare Orsini, a bastard of the Count of Pitigliano, in a brawl at night. The young men met, Cenci attended by three armed servants, Orsini by two. A single pass of rapiers, in which Rocco was pierced through the right ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... the guard that night, with a charge from Othello to keep the soldiers from excess in drinking, that no brawl might arise, to fright the inhabitants, or disgust them with the new-landed forces. That night Iago began his deep-laid plans of mischief: under colour of loyalty and love to the general, he enticed Cassio to make rather too free with the bottle ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... sweetly modulated voice was as pleasant to the ear as the bray of a Spanish jackass. Her hair hung to her waist and was the convenient nesting place for several English sparrows. She was slightly cockeyed from birth and had had her nose squashed in a saloon brawl. She carried herself with the graceful dignity of an African orang-utan and was always much sought after, having a quaint habit of slapping every new male she met a resounding whack on the back that loosened their bridge work. Being ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... the authors of past centuries. Ignatius Donnelly has been trying for the last three years to inveigle us into a discussion as to the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. We have declined to participate in any public brawl with the Minnesota gentleman, for the simple reason that no good could accrue therefrom to anybody. If there were an international copyright law, there would be some use in trying to find out who wrote these plays, in order that ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... (drawing BECKET aside). O my good lord. Speak with them privately on this hereafter. You see they have been revelling, and I fear Are braced and brazen'd up with Christmas wines For any murderous brawl. ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... last sadly and reluctantly away from the station, and walked across to Waterloo Bridge, brooding over all that had occurred, and cursing himself for his stupidity in allowing himself to be drawn into a vulgar brawl, when he might have attained his end so much better by quiet observation. It was some consolation, however, that he had had one fair crack at Ezra Girdlestone. He glanced down at his knuckles, which were raw and bleeding, with a mixture of satisfaction and ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of understanding. Jernyngham, stamped with dissipation and injured in a brawl, and his small homestead where everything was in disorder and out of repair, were hardly likely to create a favorable impression on his English relatives. Besides, there was Mrs. Jernyngham. The effect of her appearance and conversation might ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... cat, messmates for life, Were often falling into strife, Which came to scratching, growls, and snaps, And spitting in the face, perhaps. A neighbour dog once chanced to call Just at the outset of their brawl, And, thinking Tray was cross and cruel, To snarl so sharp at Mrs. Mew-well, Growl'd rather roughly in his ear. 'And who are you to interfere?' Exclaim'd the cat, while in his face she flew; And, as was wise, he ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... be, his bitterest enemies had never accused him of lack of physical courage. Indeed, he had been—in the rollicking days of old that were gone—celebrated for the display of very opposite qualities. He was an amateur at manly sports. He rejoiced in his muscular strength, and, in many a tavern brawl and midnight riot of his own provoking, had proved the fallacy of the proverb which teaches that a bully is always a coward. He had the tenacity of a bulldog—once let him get his teeth in his adversary, and he would hold on till he died. In fact he was, as far as ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... an audience at the foot of Barclay street. It will afford me unbounded pleasure if I may tell them that the meeting will not be disturbed; that you have decided to apply to politics the same spirit of fair play that you would demand in a street brawl." ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... Cassio's discharge from the lieutenancy by involving him in a drunken brawl. Cassio beseeches Desdemona to intercede with Othello for him. Iago hints to Othello that she has good reason to wish Cassio to be restored. He suggests that Cassio is her lover. Partly by fortune, partly by craft, ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... Launch a scoop'd leaf, and sail away, Stretch'd at our ease, or crouch below, Or climb the green transparent prow, Stooping where oft the blue bell sips The passing stream, and shakes and dips; And when the heifer came to drink, Quick from the gale our bark would shrink, And huddle down amidst the brawl Of many a five-inch waterfall, Till the expanse should fairly give The bow'ring hazel room to live; And as each swelling junction came, To form a riv'let worth a name, We'd dart beneath, or brush away Long-beaded webs, that else might stay Our silent course; in haste retreat, Where whirlpools near ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... heavy military boots of guardsmen; the tavern waiters trotting along with a pyramid of hot dishes on their head; the flowerpots falling from high window ledges; night, with the shuttered shops, the silence broken by some sudden street brawl, the darkness shaken by a flare of torches as some great man, wrapped in his scarlet cloak, passes along from a dinner-party with his long train of clients and slaves: these scenes live for us in Juvenal, and are perhaps the picture of ancient Rome that ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... Gideon. He does not refute opponents, but curses enemies. Yet his rage, even when most delirious, is always a Miltonic rage; it is grand, sublime, terrible! Mingled with the scurrilities of the theological brawl are passages of the noblest English ever written. Hartley Coleridge explains the dulness of the wit-combats in Shakspeare and Jonson, on the ground that repartee is the accomplishment of lighter thinkers and a less earnest age. So of Milton's ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... image of the crucified Christ. Olaf admired this shield and desired to buy it. Thangbrand loved money more than ornament, and he sold the shield to the king for a very large sum. Finding himself suddenly rich, the priest went off to enjoy himself. He fell into a drunken brawl with a certain viking, who challenged him to fight. A desperate duel was fought and the viking was killed. Great ill feeling was aroused against Thangbrand by this unpriestly incident, and he went back full of penitence ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... with her, dashed in her skull with a heavy weapon, and finally in a delirium of passion ripped up her body. When two nobles had a quarrel, they fell upon one another then and there like drunken navvies, and Potemkin had an eye gouged out in a court brawl. Such horrors give us a measure of the superior humanity of Versailles, and enable us also in passing to see how duelling could be a sign of a higher civilisation. The reigning passions were love of money and the gratification ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... skill elate, Their aimless mischief turns to deadly hate. Perverted spirits; reckless, and unblest; Ye slaves to lust; ye duellists profess'd; Vainer than woman; more unclean than hogs; Your life the felon's; and your death the dog's! Fight on! while honour disavow your brawl, And outraged courage disapprove the call— Till, steep'd in guilt, the devil sees his time, And sudden death shall close a life ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... hills of Habersham, And oft in the valleys of Hall, The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl, And many a luminous jewel lone —Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, Ruby, garnet and amethyst— Made lures with the lights of streaming stone In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, In the beds of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... in the hills of Habersham, And oft in the valleys of Hall, The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook stone Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl; And many a luminous jewel lone (Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, Ruby, garnet, or amethyst) Made lures with the lights of streaming stone In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, In the beds ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... a brawl with a steamer with a yellow funnel, blue top and black band, lying at a pier among dhows. The shore took a hand in the game with small guns and rifles, and, as E14 manoeuvred about the roadstead "as requisite" there was a sudden unaccountable explosion which strained her very badly. "I ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... Alexander, the eleventh laird, who was executed as a spy at Brest in 1769. A peculiarly handsome youth, who succeeded to the estates in 1760, he started life as an ensign in the 49th Foot in 1766. He narrowly escaped being run through in a brawl at Edinburgh, and, taking a hair of the dog that had nearly bitten him, he fatally pinked a butcher in the city of Cork in 1767. He escaped to La Rochelle, and ultimately got into touch with Lord Harcourt, our Ambassador in Paris. Harcourt sent the reckless lad to have a look at the fortifications ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... "I was marveling why thou didst not come, and was thinking perchance 'twould be better to go outside and listen for the sound of a distant brawl." Then observing the small court sword which hung by the other's side, he continued, pointing toward it: "Thou art but lightly equipped. I wonder much that thou dost go so poorly prepared; but," he added, loosening ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... nodded, indifferently. She had seen the young miner on several occasions; once she had been rendered an invaluable service when he rescued her from a brawl in which a dozen toughs had ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... effect of a schoolmaster entering the play-room of his pupils was that blow administered. Women pulled down their sleeves and laid prim hands against their ruffled side locks. Men looked at their watches. There was nothing of the effect of a brawl about it; it was purely the still panic produced by the sound of the ax of the fly cop, Conscience hammering at the gambling-house doors of ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... Buccaneer went on, he was lashing his passion with a repetition of the injuries and baseness of his adversary, as a lion lashes himself with his tail to stimulate his bravery; but the Protector demanded if Hugh Dalton knew before whom he stood, and dared to brawl in such presence. Silenced, but not subdued, he retreated, and contented himself with secret execrations ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... distress—"Fear not, foolish! Should not all slaves stand together? Body of Bacchus! Did they do so, there would shortly be no slaves! But that is as it must be. As for Nicodemus, know you what place his wine-shop is? A drinking den where violent men gather to brawl and gamble. No fit one, truly, for a maid! Rather, stay you here, and when this unloved comrade of yours arrives, why, I'll hear of it, and ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... foremost there is the Lord St. Leger, who was killed in a Dublin street brawl a hundred years ago, who will come driving home at midnight headless in his coach, and the coachman driving him also headless, carrying his head under his arm. That is not a very pleasant thing to see enter as the gates swing open of themselves to ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... of trouble that he could have spared himself for all of me!" grunted Krech, feeling his forehead. "I must look like the happy end of a barroom brawl. Why ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... sit on doorsteps and pavements, or collect in the small parks and open spaces, seeking fresh air. The language on such occasions is apt to be in keeping with the weather, for the heat excites men's tempers, and leads to unpleasant remarks and retorts that are still less courteous, until a brawl frequently terminates the proceedings. The neighbouring hospitals anticipate scalp wounds and bruises after a hot ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... over the Mediterranean, Corsica, Sardinia, Africa and the Levant, but has scarcely a glimpse of the continent of Italy. No river bears its products to her expectant wharves; only the most insignificant mill-streams brawl idly down to her harbor and the adjacent shore; steep, naked mountains rise abruptly behind her, scarcely allowing room for her lofty edifices and narrow streets; while from only a few miles back the waters are hurrying to join the Po and be borne away by that ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... he would not have the lady insulted, there was a hoarse loud laugh. He was about to order Tordu as ringleader into custody, but Ridley said to him aside, "Best not, sir; his fellows will not lay a finger on him, and if we did so, there would be a brawl, and we might come ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... set out with a clear sky and fair wind, and had had one of the most fortunate voyages of any they had yet made on the Breton coast, when, just as they were within sight of the Point de Ray, which raises its bare and jagged head three hundred feet above the noisy waves which brawl at its base, an ominous cloud suddenly overspread the heavens, and the symptoms of a coming storm were but too apparent. With silent awe the solitary mariners beheld, sailing heavily along the darkening sky, two birds, of sable plumage, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... conditions which I could not be expected to recognize as dangerous beforehand, of a mistake not of my causing, for which I was in no way to blame. I knew that every man of both clans, and most of all the head of each clan, would consider nothing except that I had participated in a roadside brawl in which men of their clan had been roughly handled, some of them by me personally, and from which their men had fled in confusion, routed partly ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... last saw Paragot he had not the patience to arrange these far off memories. Verona! To me the word recalls immemorable associations—vistas of narrow old streets redolent of the Renaissance, echoing still with brawl and clash of arms, and haunted by the general stock in trade of the artist's historical fancy. But did Verona appeal to Paragot's romantic sense? Not a bit ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... he murmured something about my being "a stupid young idiot," but I decided not to hear it. What would be the use, I asked myself, of my hearing it? That we should brawl like a couple of manants over less than nothing? (I was very fond of the word manants, and often used it for meeting awkward junctures.) Perhaps I should have said something more had not, at that moment, a door slammed and the professor (dressed in a blue frockcoat, and shuffling ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy |
