"Fencing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... discharged huge stones. It is said, that, when the first one was exhibited, an athlete exclaimed, "Farewell henceforth to all courage!" Montaigne relates, that the old knights, in his youth, were accustomed to deplore the introduction of fencing-schools, from a similar apprehension. Pacific King James predicted, but with rejoicing, the same result from iron armor. "It was an excellent thing," he said,—"one could get no harm in it, nor do any." And, similarly, there exists an opinion now, that the combined powers of gunpowder ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... fencing," said Leo, "and consider the facts. It has seemed to me that the Khania Atene is not happy with ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... up the shaded path at a very brisk stride. He had been playing at fencing with old Mamercus, and his face was all aglow with a healthy colour; there was a bright light in his eye. When he saw Cornelia in the doorway he gave a laugh and broke into a run, which brought him up to her panting ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... the clothing is suffocation, and the perspiration soon makes one a mass of grime; if in winter, it is not so unbearable, for a comfortable fencing can be made against ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... a while, then turned his attention to the fencing job out on the prairie. There was a mile of north-and-south fence to be built, and he set at once to work digging post holes well on the inside of ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... session presented several insistent public questions which seemed to have imposed their cumulative worry on his morning hours; later had come an acrimonious hearing over the removal of an incompetent district attorney; then a quarter-hour's fencing with the press correspondents, who wanted to know things which it was inexpedient to tell; and, finally, a rasping conference with the Boss, who, using the ball as a cover for one of his rare pilgrimages to Albany, had, throughout the day, held levee in his hotel parlors with such vogue ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... distance apart from each other, they wore still connected together, and all held firmly in their places, by two iron rails which passed through them all, one near the top, and the other near the bottom, of the palisade, all along the range. They thus formed a fencing so heavy and strong that even the elephants could not ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... with him that she gave him all she could, and placed all in one receptacle. Such was Cliges, who combined good sense and beauty, generosity and strength. He possessed the wood as well as the bark; he knew more of fencing and of the bow than did Tristan, King Mark's nephew, and more about birds and hounds than he. [228] In Cliges there ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... my youth, had some experience that way; and I am fain to blush at the reputation I obtained. His honour, my father, took me to London at the age of twenty; and, sparing no expense in my education, gave fifty shillings to one Monsieur Dubois to teach me fencing and poetry, in twenty lessons. In vacant hours he taught us also the laws of honour, which are different ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... can fall much lower than this last character in intellect or morals: yet how are his weaknesses nursed and dandled by Sir Toby into something 'high fantastical', when on Sir Andrew's commendation of himself for dancing and fencing, Sir Toby answers: 'Wherefore are these things hid? Wherefore have these gifts a curtain before them? Are they like to take dust like Mistress Moll's picture? Why dost thou not go to church in a galliard, and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a jig! I would ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... better accepted when it comes in a pleasing form:" the person of Crichton was eminently beautiful; but his beauty was consistent with such activity and strength, that in fencing he would spring at one bound the length of twenty feet upon his antagonist; and he used the sword in either hand with such force and dexterity, that scarce any one had courage ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... not a word, being resolved to cheat her as he had done before. He went to find out little Day, and saw him with a little foil in his hand, with which he was fencing with a great monkey, the child being then only three years of age. He took him up in his arms and carried him to his wife, that she might conceal him in her chamber along with his sister, and in the room of little Day cooked up a young kid, ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... for the clerk of the kitchen, and told him that she intended that night to sup out of little Day. He answered never a word, being resolved to cheat her as he had done before. He went to find little Day, and saw him with a foil in his hand, with which he was fencing with a monkey, the child being but three years old. He took him up in his arms and carried him to his wife, that she might conceal him in her chamber, along with his sister; and, in the room of little ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... knowledge be aided and accelerated by a school in which, for reasonable terms, the beginner could learn the adjuncts of the art he has chosen, such as ease of carriage, how to speak properly (let us drop that misused word elocution, which only suggests the schoolgirl's recitation), fencing, production of voice, dancing, etc., not forgetting how to make up? Then let the tyro go into the provinces, where he must gain a certain amount of experience with constant change of theatres and of audience week by week. Who will say that this ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... excellent mimics; and one of them imitated the English drummer so cleverly on an old tin-can, as to excite roars of laughter among all who witnessed the performance. Some of their dances are extraordinary, more resembling a fencing-match than movements of the light fantastic toe; and the following description of a dance after nightfall is curious:—'On seeing a number of lights along the beach, we at first thought they proceeded from a fishing-party, but on looking through a night-glass, the group was seen to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... across the plateau together, and knelt by the side of the old man. At first I could not find the wound, though there was blood enough upon his face and fencing-habit. But presently I discovered that his scalp had been cut from above the eye backwards to the crown of his head—a shallow, ploughing scratch, no more, though it had ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... tribe had always been averse to the selling of their land. They said truly enough that the money the white men gave for it was soon spent, but the land was gone for ever, and the settlers were fencing in 40,000 additional acres every year. They called a meeting on the banks of Lake Taupo to discuss the question. A large number of chiefs were present, and they agreed to form a Land League, all members of which undertook to sell no more land to white ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... belonged to them; but these periodicals certainly initiated that exposure and condemnation of cruelty in vivisection—which in England led to an agitation for reform. Sir William Osler's replies, however, suggest something more than mere word-fencing; he was evidently surprised to hear it intimated that medical journals like these could ever have been found attacking vivisection in any way. Of the strong attacks which appeared in these organs of medical opinion less than forty years before, he had apparently never heard. Now, when men like ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... march being concluded, the sheikh and Bombay arrange the camp, issuing cloths to the porters for the purchase of rations, the tents are pitched, the Hottentots cook, some look after the mules and donkeys, others cut boughs for huts and fencing, while the Beloochs are supposed to guard the camp, but prefer gossiping and brightening their arms, while Captain Grant kills two buck antelopes to supply ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... Venice ruled the world. The walls were draped with Venetian silks and Spanish velvets, against which were placed Moorish plaques, Dutch brass sconces holding clusters of candles, barbaric spears, bits of armor, pairs of fencing foils, old cabinets, and low, luxurious divans. Thrust up into the skylight, its gaff festooned with trawl-nets, drooped a huge sloop's sail, its graceful folds breaking the square lines of the ceiling; and all about, suspended on ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... all exhibiting notable originality in conception and mastery of art, the first two illustrating them best. They add a dramatic power that makes them masterpieces. Both belong to the period when fencing was most skillful, ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... snaffle in Malachi Daly's mouth [my brown horse], I'd be afeared of nothing, sir; but if it comes to fencing, with that cruel bit,—but sure, you've a light hand, and let him have his head, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... see that you are at least as young as you are noble, if not more so, and I shall therefore not press my acquaintance upon you so far as to take your life. But I shall tell you plainly, sir, that I am a fencing-master by my profession, and if you do not immediately dissolve into air, or, to put it better, melt away with all your company, I will lard you, in the space of thirty seconds, with fifteen flesh wounds in fifteen ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... John Hancock was arrested at Boston—for a "misdemeanor;" I suppose, "obstructing an officer," or some such offence.[105] The government long sought to procure indictments against James Otis—who was so busy in fencing out despotism—Samuel Adams, and several other leading friends of the colony. But I suppose the judge did not succeed in getting his brother-in-law put on the grand-jury, and so the scheme fell through. No indictment for that "misdemeanor" then. Boston had the right men to ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... general was, and himself, at first but slenderly followed, hurried to the rescue. Soon after, the rest, upbraiding one another with baseness in forsaking their officers, marched down, and falling upon the Parthians, drove them from the hill, and compassing Crassus about, and fencing him with their shields, declared proudly, that no arrow in Parthia should ever touch their general, so long as there was a man of them left alive to ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... say so," replied Sir Henry quietly. "But come, suppose we two enemies, in a political sense, leave off fencing and come, down to the matter of fact. Hilary, my boy, I am very grateful to you for your reticence the other day. You saved ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... kind of fence or defence, and you will find some virtue in it; but in the iron railing none. There is, first, your castle rampart of stone—somewhat too grand to be considered here among our types of fencing; next, your garden or park wall of brick, which has indeed often an unkind look on the outside, but there is more modesty in it than unkindness. It generally means, not that the builder of it wants to shut you out from the view of his garden, but from the view of himself: it is a frank ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... with Charles the Wrestler, and for Touchstone's description of the diverse shapes of a lie, were clearly drawn from a book called 'Saviolo's Practise,' a manual of the art of self-defence, which appeared in 1595 from the pen of Vincentio Saviolo, an Italian fencing-master in the service of the Earl of Essex. None of Shakespeare's comedies breathes a more placid temper or approaches more nearly to a pastoral drama. Yet there is no lack of intellectual or poetic energy in the enunciation ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... the other by the river Thames, which it was necessary to cross at the outset. Here and there between the road and the river were houses, the gardens and grounds of which were surrounded by walls and fencing extending to the river-banks. The tow-path was on the further side. It chanced that after three miles had been traversed, another tricycle caught up the writer and passed him. Dan was ahead, mistook this machine ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... tall, gaunt, long-bearded, and sour-faced, was a Southerner, a cattleman of bad reputation with the alfalfa farmers farther down the valley. He was a notable survivor of the "good old days of the range," and openly resented the "punkin rollers" who were rapidly fencing all the lower meadows. Watson was his brother-in-law, and together they had controlled the upper waters of the Shellfish, making a last stand in the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... undertakes it, shall undertake a harder task then Hales offered to thy view and censure; I with thee as much in the perusal of it, and so might that in his printed Book [called the private School of defence] undertook by it to teach the Art of Fencing, and was laught at for his labour. Not but that something usefull might be observed out of that Book; but that Art was not to be taught by words; nor is the Art of Angling. And yet, I think, that most that love ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... out to the ranch seemed endless. I thought we were trekking clear up to the North Pole. At first there was what you might call a road, straight and worn deep, between parallel lines of barb-wire fencing. But this road soon melted into nothing more than a trail, a never-ending gently curving trail that ribboned out across the prairie-floor as far as the eye could see. It was a glorious afternoon, one of those opaline, blue-arched autumn days when it should have been a joy merely to be alive. ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... seen our dragoon officers perform fencing and managing their horses so dexterously that every muscle seemed trained to its fullest power and efficiency, and perhaps had they been brought up as Makombwe they might have equalled their daring and consummate skill: but we have no sport, except perhaps ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... not, might tell both for and against her. Granting that she lacked true dignity, native refinement, might it not have been expected that artfulness would supply their place? Artful fencing would have stamped her of coarse nature. But coarseness she had never betrayed; he had never judged her worse than intellectually shallow. Her self-surrender might, then, indicate a trait worthy of admiration. Her subsequent behaviour ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... cutting a telegraph road through the scrub that they had found some over 300 yards long. They seem to retain the same circumference throughout their whole length, and, as the bushman puts everything to some use, the lawyer is divested of his husk, and takes the place of wire in fencing, being rove through the holes bored in the posts as though they were ropes. It is almost needless to add that this cane derives its 'soubriquet' of "lawyer" from the difficulty experienced in getting free if once ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... Grinder's End or Chorley Bottom, the fox is safe to head for Saworth. Oh! I see you're up to the whole thing, Mrs. Fairlegh; we shall have you showing all of us the way across country in fine style to-morrow. 1 expect there'll be some pretty stiff fencing though, if he should take the line you imagine, but I suppose you don't mind anything of that sort; with a steady, well-trained hunter (and a lady should never ride one that is not), there's very little ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... cried Bouchereau, his eyes opening wider and wider; "a man who passes his mornings in the shooting gallery and fencing room, and has a duel regularly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... farther Letters, of eloquently pressing solicitation on the part of the Lady, and earnest advising, as well as polite fencing, on the part of Friedrich, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... buy a fi' cent perfume. 'Tain't my way. There's jest one chance for me. It's the big boodle. I'm all in for that. Right up to my ear-drums." He laughed and spat. "There's a mighty big world to buy, an' when you got your fencing set up around it, why, there ain't a deal left outside that's worth corrallin'. I'd say it's only the folk who fancy the foolish house need to try an' buy a big pot on a pair o' deuces. If you stand on a 'royal' you can grab most anything. I ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... the great sculptor Steinbock and Hortense Hulot. Between a lover on his promotion and a lady who hesitates long before becoming his mistress, there are contests, uttered or unexpressed, in which a word often betrays a thought; as, in fencing, the foils fly as briskly as the swords in duel. Then a prudent man follows the example of Monsieur de Turenne. Thus the Baron had hinted at the greater freedom his daughter's marriage would allow him, in reply to the tender Valerie, who ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... pioneer farmer in Australia owns. They make no attempt at adornment, but build plain, substantial houses, containing mostly about six rooms. The roofs are mostly flat, and the frontages plain to ugliness. They do no fencing, except where they go in for ostrich breeding. When they farm for feathers they fence with wire about six feet in height. This kind of farming is very popular with the better class of Boers, as it entails very ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... desire of the club that the Author of Waverley, with whom it was supposed that he had the means of communicating, would accept of the seat at the club vacated by the death of Sir Mark Sykes. Scott got through the affair ingeniously with a little coy fencing that deceived no one, and was finally accepted as the Author of Waverley's representative. The Roxburghe had, however, at that time, done nothing in serious book-club business, having let loose only ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... of buying at least a thousand head of sheep and fencing off a portion of the ranch for ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... It was only a sophism, or what the fencing-master calls a feint. I withdraw it therefore. But see how disputing can make even honest men unjust and malicious. ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... further education should be carried on at home under private tutors. He studied music under able masters, one in thorough-bass, and one in execution. He played and sang, and he composed spirited settings for songs. He read voraciously. He took lessons in dancing, riding, boxing, and fencing, and is said to have shown himself exceptionally active and vigorous. He kept up his interest in art, and he practiced drawing from casts. He found time also for various friendships. For Miss Eliza and Miss Sarah Flower, two ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... plain enough," said he. "No fencing about that! How did I know? Because when you saw Sir Gilbert I wasn't five feet away from you, and what you saw, I saw. ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... proposals considered, and preliminary plans drawn. Therefore when on that day the city was swept by fire, obviously it was the opportune moment for the requisite changes in the rebuilding. For a brief period enthusiasm waxed warm. It helped to mitigate the blow, this fencing with fate. Let the earth shake, and fires burn, we will have here our city, better and more beautiful than ever—and more valuable—an imperial city of steel it shall be, and thus will we get even with the misfortunes of ...
— Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam • Hubert Howe Bancroft
... much sense." George kicked his boots against the fencing to warm his toes. "It's half the ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... feeleth and the blood that he seeth. Lancelot bringeth off his knights like as the wild-boar goeth among the dogs, and Kay dealeth him great buffets of his sword when he may catch him, and Lancelot him again, and so they depart, fencing in ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... three ways whereby we get these complex ideas of mixed modes:—(1) By experience and OBSERVATION of things themselves: thus, by seeing two men mixed wrestle or fence, we get the idea of wrestling or fencing. (2) By INVENTION, or voluntary putting together of several simple ideas in our own minds: so he that first invented printing or etching, had an idea of it in his mind before it ever existed. (3) Which is the most ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... settled Lowrie by striking his mighty heavy weapon from his hand; but this victory was of no account in the general action when Harry's rapier went spinning over his head, and he went down on his back before the vigorous fencing of Yaspard. He was on his feet, however, in time to witness the final roll over of Bill and Gibbie. They had reached the water's edge, and the incoming tide washed over them, putting a most effectual stop to their wrestling-match. Choking with sand, and wet with spray, they let go ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... little of this fencing with each other, in which he satisfied himself that my ignorance was not affected, he took a sudden resolution, as if it were a relief to him to ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... efforts to do so would bring down upon their employer the wrath of the duffers. Result, all the fences on the station would be fired for a dead certainty, and the destruction of more than a hundred miles of heavy log fencing on rough country like Bruggabrong was no picnic ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... objectionable, morality in this latitude being much like that of the average European capitals, that is, at a very low ebb, as viewed from our stand-point. There are also public exhibitions of acrobats in wrestling, fencing, and the like, while others are devoted entirely to sleight-of-hand tricks, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... he was obliged to find his pleasures chiefly in those bodily exercises which were the samurai's early and constant preparations for war,—archery and riding, wrestling and fencing. Playmates were found for him; but these were older youths, sons of retainers, chosen for ability to assist him in the practice of martial exercises. It was their duty also to teach him how to swim, to handle ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... continued Heywood. "If only out of vanity. Fencing,—oh, I hate the man, and the art's by-gone, if you like, but he's a ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... for a few minutes; but his absence did not interrupt our conversation. There was not much to be made out of it on either side, for we were only fencing with one another. I learned nothing about Olivia's friends, and I was satisfied he had learned ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... friend with the peg made himself a fixture in the school, than he took me down, not a peg or two, but a good half-dozen. He ridiculed my poetry—he undervalued my drawing—he hit me through my most approved guards at my fencing—he beat me hollow at hopping, though it must be confessed that I had the advantage with two legs; but he was again my master at "all-fours." He out-talked me immeasurably, he out-bragged me most heroically, and out-lied me most inconceivably. Knowing nothing either ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... to continue fifteen days yearly. It soon became the resort of the idle, the dissipated, and the profligate, insomuch that the peace-officers were frequently opposed in the performance of their duty; and, in the year 1702, John Cooper, one of the constables, was killed, for which a fencing-master, named Cook, was executed. (See also No. 20.) The fair was revived under George I., but was finally abolished through the exertions of the sixth ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... a chronicler, became so accustomed to seeing honor satisfied in this manner that they paid little attention to these meetings, pursuing their own humble duties, indifferent to the follies of fashionable society. The fencing schools flourished—what memories cluster around that odd, strange master of the blade, Spedella, a melancholy enigma of a man, whose art embodied much of the finest shading and phrasing peculiar to himself; from whom even ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... this point, Ensign Dave was perilously near to breaking his word as to believing Surigny. It looked to him as if the Frenchman were "fencing" in order ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... it!—it was a thing to see. And so, while now and then one of her special gentlemen friends would interpose, and draw the strokes upon himself; yet her delicate, womanly fencing was so pretty, so novel; it was such sport to watch the little hands turn off and parry Kitty Fisher's rude thrusts; that few masculine hearts were unselfish enough to forego it. There were actual wagers out as to how long 'the Duchess' could carry ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... had something far more important on her mind than fencing with Grover Cleveland—an interview with President Theodore Roosevelt. Here was a man eager to right wrongs, to break monopolies, to see justice done to the Negro, a man who talked of a "square deal" for all, and yet woman suffrage ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... troops were accustomed probably differed but little from those which were in vogue with the armies of the Ancient Empire; they consisted in wrestling, boxing, jumping, running either singly or in line at regular distances from each other, manual exercises, fencing, and shooting at a target; the war-dance had ceased to be in use among the Egyptian regiments as a military exercise, but it was practised by the Ethiopian and Libyan auxiliaries. At the beginning of each campaign, the men destined ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... called and it was agreed that each man should build fence in proportion to the amount of stock he owned, and that the public corral should be used for the estray pound. But no stock was to be put into the pound until all the fencing was done and the gates set up. I at once completed my fencing, but the grumblers had no time to work; they were too busy finding fault. The whole thing was a subterfuge, and was meant to bother me. There was no need of a pound, as our cattle were herded in daytime and ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... hat gone, his white coat sadly rent and gashed, flecked, too, with red, M. Beaucaire, wary, alert, brilliant, seemed to transform himself into a dozen fencing-masters; and, though his skill appeared to lie in delicacy and quickness, his play being continually with the point, sheer strength failed to beat him down. The young man was laughing ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... Providence over me, and the great hopes I had of being effectually and speedily delivered; for I had an invincible impression upon my thoughts that my deliverance was at hand, and that I should not be another year in this place. I went on, however, with my husbandry; digging, planting, and fencing, as usual. I gathered and cured my grapes, and did every necessary thing ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... young man, smiling with pleasure at hearing himself praised; "I am still young and inexperienced, and am quite ashamed of my bungling style of fencing." ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... Except boating there was not much doing out of doors, and for that reason the season was favourable for work. Studies, which used to be bear-gardens now suddenly assumed an appearance of respectability and quiet. Books took the place of boxing-gloves, and pens of fencing-sticks. The disorderly idlers who had been in the habit of invading at will the quarters of the industrious were now given to understand they must "kick-up their heels" elsewhere. They might not want to grind, ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... two hundred head of swine, ranging in size from pigs just weaned to 250-pound porkers ready for market, living in peace and contentment in one building, eating and sleeping and sharing the forage pastures together. Of course this means a big saving in buildings and fencing and a great reduction in ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... no novice in the art of fencing, but she was no match for him. Moreover, she could not meet the pitiless eyes that stared straight into hers. They distracted her. They terrified her. Yet every moment seemed to her to be something ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... afraid of tackling any ruffian who interfered with him in a defile; Troels Lund, then studying theology, later on the esteemed historian, who was always refined, self-controlled, thoughtful, and on occasion caustic, great at feints in the fencing class; and Emil Petersen, then studying law (died in 1890, as Departmental Head of Railways), gentle, dreamy, exceedingly conscientious, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... prodigal; he adorned the poops of galleys with precious stones, and constructed arduous works with no other purpose than caprice; he often dressed like a woman, and generally appeared with a golden beard; he devoted himself to fencing, driving, singing, and dancing, and was ruled by gladiators, charioteers, and actors. Such was the man to whom was intrusted the guardianship of an empire. No wonder ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... I see myself doing it. Big pink placards on the Mall: "Mrs. Hauksbee! Positively her last appearance on any stage! This is to give notice!" No more dances; no more rides; no more luncheons; no more theatricals with supper to follow; no more sparring with one's dearest, dearest friend; no more fencing with an inconvenient man who hasn't wit enough to clothe what he's pleased to call his sentiments in passable speech; no more parading of The Mussuck while Mrs. Tarkass calls all round Simla, spreading horrible stories about me! ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... there must be moral equality or else no respect; and hence between parent and child intercourse is apt to degenerate into a verbal fencing-bout, and misapprehensions to become engrained. And there is another side to this, for the parent begins with an imperfect notion of the child's character, formed in early years or during the equinoctial gales of youth; to this he adheres, noting only ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Resolved that Juan should be quite a paragon, And worthy of the noblest pedigree (His sire was of Castile, his dam from Aragon): Then for accomplishments of chivalry, In case our lord the king should go to war again, He learn'd the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery, And how to scale a ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... young kinsman, and at once accepted his services and that of his companion. Harry Drury was not unused to arms. He had been taught fencing as a part of his education, and would use the singlestick, arquebus, and crossbow, while the fashion of every gentleman wearing a sword had rendered it necessary that this weapon should be handled skilfully. The ...
— Hayslope Grange - A Tale of the Civil War • Emma Leslie
... gloomy, and unsociable; a hunter wants no neighbour, he rather hates them, because he dreads the competition. In a little time their success in the woods makes them neglect their tillage. They trust to the natural fecundity of the earth, and therefore do little; carelessness in fencing often exposes what little they sow to destruction; they are not at home to watch; in order therefore to make up the deficiency, they go oftener to the woods. That new mode of life brings along with it a new set of manners, which I cannot ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... finally interested by such unusual tactics. The second phase was the dangerous one for Rita, and during a certain luncheon at Romanos her fate hung in the balance. Sir Lucien realized that he was in peril of losing his head over this tantalizingly pretty girl who gracefully kept him at a distance, fencing with an adroitness which was baffling, and Sir Lucien Pyne had set out with no intention of doing anything so preposterous as falling in love. Keenly intuitive, Rita scented danger and made a bold move. Carelessly rolling a ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... chair and listened without doubt or hesitation. Yet how long I could have controlled myself I know not, for his Grace made light of scruples that night and set bounds at nought. At first Mistress Barbara was merry with him, fencing and parrying, in confidence that he would use no roughness nor an undue vehemence. But on he went; and presently a note of alarm sounded in her voice as she prayed him to suffer her to depart and return to the Duchess, who must have need ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... had ever heard of the Chevalier d'Orrain. Here in Paris I felt I was safe, and I consequently determined to fix my abode in the great city. I hired an apartment in the Rue des Lavandieres, and established myself there, giving out that I was a fencing-master. No pupils came; but at any rate there was peace and contentment. I formed no acquaintances except one, a certain Camus, a glove-maker, who had an apartment above mine. For some reason or other this man forced ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... came through some villages to a small town of the name of Bakewell. The whole country in this part is hilly and romantic. Often my way led me, by small passes, over astonishing eminences, where, in the deep below me, I saw a few huts or cottages lying. The fencing of the fields with grey stone gave the whole a wild and not very promising appearance. The hills were in general not wooded, but naked and barren; and you saw the flocks at a distance grazing on ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... levelled to his mind, and then his movements were as quick as they had hitherto been slow. In a moment he stood erect in the half-fencing attitude of a gunner, and his linstock at the touch-hole: a huge tongue of flame, a volume of smoke, a roar, and the iron thunderbolt was on its way, and the colonel walked haughtily but rapidly back to the ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... proficiency in fencing was considered particularly neat, and became the favorite song of the studio, to be howled in ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... than a thousand feet of lumber to patch up the cowsheds beyond the Moseley pasture, and an entirely new building with an improved dairy would require only about two thousand more. All the old material would come in good for fencing, and could be used with the new post and rails. Don't yo' think it would be better to have an out-and-out ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... I come, and do nothing more to the {112} vineyard. And follow this order of mine and you shall have your freedom from me. And the master of the servant went abroad. Now when he had gone the servant took and fenced the vineyard, and when he had finished the fencing of the vineyard he saw that the vineyard was full of weeds. Therefore he reasoned in himself, saying: I have finished this order of the Lord; I will next dig this vineyard, and it will be better when it is dug, and having no weeds ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... crowds, the brilliant dresses of the ladies, and the enthusiasm evoked; but whether it will ever supersede the really national fiesta is to be doubted. The upper classes also affect polo, tennis, and croquet, and go in a good deal for gymnastics, fencing, and fives. ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... no mean waterman. The exercise of a favourite art, combining skill with muscular effort, is conducive to peace of mind. A swim, a row, a gallop over a country, a fencing-bout or a rattling set-to with "the gloves" bring a man to his senses more effectually than whole hours of quiescent reflection. Ere the perspiration stood on Dick Stanmore's brow, he suspected ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... with this plan, and the eldest decided to be a farrier, the second a barber, and the third a fencing master. They fixed a time when they would all meet at home again, ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... Although fencing is a military exercise, it is so commonly practised by the Japanese 'yaconinierie,' or 'soldiery,' who comprise a large portion of the population, and is entered into by them in so spirited a manner, that it deserves to be classed as ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver
... commit either murder, adultery, or theft, but they are fearfully addicted to lying—the vice of slaves. Their prevarication and procrastination are at times almost maddening. I have seen men and women actually fencing with questions put to them by the excellent priest who dwells at Letterfrack, Father McAndrew, who was obliged to exercise all his authority to obtain a straight answer concerning the potato crop grown on a patch of conacre ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... above Cook Street to Wharf Street, and would to-day were it not that Hibben & Co.'s building or stores stand in the way. On July 7th, as already mentioned in this article, the Gazette stated that there was great dissatisfaction at the fencing of the vacant lot on Broadway (Broad Street), opposite View, which they stated was used as a "cabbage patch," and there was talk of pulling the fence down. All the agitation seems to have amounted to nothing, for not only was the fence not pulled down, but J. J. Southgate, ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... proceed to describe the unsuccessful attempt of poor Jack to obtain something from the female slave to satisfy hunger. The planter's house was situated on an elevated spot on the side of a hill. The fencing about the house and garden was very crookedly laid up with rails. The night was rather dark and rainy, and Jack left me with the understanding that I was to stay at a certain place until he returned. I cautioned him before he left me to be very careful—and ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... carried to Vincennes[377], where he was permitted to see no body, and denied the use of pen and ink. For six days he was not suffered to walk in the garden. The Prince had two brothers at Paris, Maurice and Edward, who came there to learn Riding and Fencing. They were narrowly watched, and ordered not to leave Paris; and their Governor was charged to attend them wherever they went. About a month after the Elector's confinement, they were permitted to see him[378]; but it was in presence of witnesses: the Elector was also suffered to walk sometimes ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... dark line of five-foot fencing, and the great iron gate, with its massive lock, without pausing and racking my brain as to what the secret might be which was shut in by that inscrutable barrier. Yet, with all my conjectures and all my observations, I could never ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... right glad to see ye. Jake, your brother, has been savin' up a homestead for ye—and I reckon he's told you that a mighty purty fight goes with it. You see it's this way: The man that has the water has the grass and the circle, for by fencing in the river here controls the grass for twenty miles. They can range the whole country; nobody else can touch 'em. Williams, of the Circle Bar, controls the river for twenty miles here, and has fenced it in. Of course he has no legal right to more than a section or two of it—all ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... the barometer, the captain gets his old accordion and squeezes out the Russian National Hymn, while Bush and I go on deck to inhale a few breaths of pure fresh fog, and chaff the second mate about his sea-serpent. In reading, playing checkers, fencing, and climbing about the rigging when the weather permits, we pass away the day, as we have already passed away twenty and must pass twenty more before we can hope to ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... once quarrelled carry themselves distantly, and are ever ready to break the truce. To speak truth there must be moral equality or else no respect; and hence between parent and child intercourse is apt to degenerate into a verbal fencing bout, and misapprehensions to become ingrained. And there is another side to this, for the parent begins with an imperfect notion of the child's character, formed in early years or during the equinoctial gales of youth; to this he adheres, noting ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sisters to exchange. "The young woman's opinion is not asked." When the young man is ready to "propose" to the girl he has bartered his sister for, he walks up to her equipped as for war—ready to parry her "love-taps" if she feels inclined that way. "After a little fencing between the pair the woman, if she has no serious objections to the man, quietly submits." If she has "serious objections," what happens? The same writer tells ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Milanese who was in our company, and had the ways and manners of a perfect fool. This man screamed out that he had nothing in the world to do with me, and parried the point of the partisan with a little stick he held; but this availed him naught: in spite of his words and fencing, he received a flesh wound in the mouth. Messer Cherubino wore the habit of a priest; for though he was a clockmaker by trade, he held benefices of some value from the Pope. Ascanio, who was well armed, stood his ground without trying to escape, as the Milanese had ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... reached the station at Exeter, I found Thompson and the gray team just starting for the farm with the second load of wire fencing. I had ordered fifty-six rolls of Page's woven wire fence, forty rods in each roll. This fence cost me seventy cents a rod, $224 a mile, or $1568 for the seven miles. Add to this $37 for freight, and the total amounted to $1605 for the wire to fence my land. I got this facer as I climbed ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... decreed that it was policy to be quite passive, and provoke no word of Mrs. Chump by making any allusion to Besworth, and by fencing with the mention ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... know the piano well enough to read and play an accompaniment after a fashion, and I have had some good teaching for the voice, and some experience in singing, at home and abroad. In fact, I come nearer to a market there, I think, than in any other direction perhaps. I have given some time to fencing in various schools, and before I left home Billy Williams would sometimes speak encouragingly of my progress with the gloves. There! That is my list, and not a dollar in it from beginning to ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... like a blazing oblong-box, filled with light, but without window or chimney. Two men were fencing in the illumination of some twenty candles stuck all round the mildewed white walls on lumps of clay. There was a blaze of silver things, like an altar of a wealthy church, from a black, carved table in ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... to?" queried Uncle Billy, fencing for time in which to prepare a quasi-truthful reply. "He—he don' b'long to ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... chance of saving them. Let us wait here. Fortunately their firearms are useless, and they must trust to the sword. Just fancy you are engaged in a fencing bout in the courtyard, Monsieur Edmond, and ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... trembling in a transport of maniac fury with which an inexplicable fear ran cross-odds as warp and woof. The other had totally deluded him until the climax brought its accusation, and now the unmasked plotter took refuge in bluster, fencing ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... endorse the administration of President Cleveland, favor the free and unlimited coinage of silver on the present basis, denounce the fencing of large bodies of public land, and insist upon the strict enforcement of the ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... greater part of my life. Though timid I was not wanting in courage. At an early age I would fight boys even older than myself. Later I have risked my life many times in various parts of Europe. As regards sports, I can do a little of everything: swimming, riding, fencing, shooting,—a little of each. Cricket and football I also played passably, but sports never interested me much. Literature became and is the passion of my life and for some years has remained ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... for Vivian. Nothing can exceed the attention which is paid to the pupils. There are sixteen young ladies, all the daughters of clergymen, merely to attend to the morals and the linen; terms moderate: 100 guineas per annum, for all under six years of age, and few extras, only for fencing, pure milk, and the guitar. Mrs. Metcalfe has both her boys there, and she says their progress is astonishing! Percy Metcalfe, she assures me, was quite as backward as Vivian; indeed, backwarder; and so was Dudley, who was taught at home on the new system, by a pictorial alphabet, and ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... familiarity enabled me to cope with the situation. I was very fond of the lessons in French literature, in geography, and above all, in history, and I made progress in these subjects. I became passable at Latin and mathematics and at horsemanship and fencing. I was an expert at fire-arms drill and took much pleasure in the manoeuvres of the school battalion which was commanded by a ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... at any time, but she certainly looked very pretty indeed as she turned toward the visitor—her bright hair tumbled, her face flushed with exercise, her eyes sparkling merrily. She held a fencing-mask in one hand, and a foil, lightly ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... Ray in a flutter of amaze. That carriage is coming nearer every instant, driving like mad, Brent on the back seat and a whip-lashing demon on the box. There will be no time for love-tales once that burly warrior returns to his own. Yet she is fencing, parrying, holding him at bay, for his heart is bubbling over with the torrent of its love ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... the chest were some fencing-sticks, a couple of old pistols, a box with some tarnished medals once the pride of a soldier's heart, a bundle of letters, and, last of all, a worn portfolio tied with ribbon; and inside was written, in the handwriting of Alison Hunter, Marjory's grandmother, "Chronicles of the ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... must you be stabbed by a soldier? Mass, that's true! when was Bobadill here, your captain? that rogue, that foist, that fencing Burgullion? I'll tickle ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... stifled unhappiness, she not only studied with extreme concentration, but, with a healthy instinct, spent a great deal of time in the gymnasium. It was a delight to her to be able to swim in the winter-time, she organized the first water-polo team among the co-eds, and she began to learn fencing from the Commandant of the University Battalion. He had been a crack with the foils at West Point, and never ceased trying to arouse an interest in what seemed to him the only rational form of exercise; but fencing at that time had no intercollegiate vogue, and of all the young men and women at ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... him on to go straight to the point. No fencing, said this inward monitor, no circumlocution—get to it, straight out. And Stoner thrust his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a copy of the reward bill. He opened it before his employer, watching ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... if I bade him. At a word from his old chum Vautrin he will pick a quarrel with a scamp that will not send so much as five francs to his sister, poor girl, and" (here Vautrin rose to his feet and stood like a fencing-master about to lunge)—"turn him off into the dark!" ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... for his strength; then, in the gay world, for his good looks. But now the weight of years was making him heavy. Tall, with broad shoulders and full chest, he had acquired the protruding stomach of an old wrestler, although he kept up his fencing every day and rode his horse with assiduity. His head was still remarkable and as handsome as ever, although in a style different from that of his earlier days. His thick and short white hair set off ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... considerable terrace, surmounted as the parapet of the latter was with iron railings rising sufficiently to protect the place for familiar use and covert contemplation (we ever so fondly used it,) and yet not to the point of fencing out life. A blest little old-world refuge it must have seemed to us, with its protuberantly-paved and peculiarly resonant small court and idle communs beside it, accessible by a high grille where the jangle of the bell and the clatter of response across the stones ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... after a certain degree of fencing—which seems inseparable from the practice of medicine—told Henry plainly he feared the very worst if this went on; Mrs. Little was on the brink of jaundice. By his advice Henry took her to Aberystwith in Wales, and, when he had settled her there, went ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... while to pray to their God!"[1099] Of resistance there was little, so far were the Huguenots from having collected arms and prepared for such a conspiracy as was imputed to them. If a Huguenot teacher of fencing killed one or two of his assailants, or if a few gentlemen at different places kept them at bay awhile with stones or other missiles, this, so far from proving their evil intentions, on the contrary, furnishes undeniable proof of the very different results that ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... same hut, same yard, and a not much wider clearing in the gully, and a little more fencing—the women rather more haggard and tired looking, the settler rather more horny-handed and silent, and Uncle Abe rather more philosophical. The men had had to go out and work on the stations. With the settler and his wife it ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... he is the only one of my family that has done anything to relieve me in my position. So when anybody comes to pick a quarrel with Finot, he finds old Giroudeau, Captain of the Dragoons of the Guard, that set out as a private in a cavalry regiment in the army of the Sambre-et-Meuse, and was fencing-master for five years to the First Hussars, army of Italy! One, two, and the man that had any complaints to make would be turned off into the dark," he added, making a lunge. "Now writers, my boy, are in different corps; there is the writer who writes and draws his pay; ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... course adapted to the tastes of the people. Debate, both political and forensic, was almost the daily bread of the people of Athens. The Athenian loved smart repartee and display of the power of fencing with words. The thrust and parry of wit in the single-line dialogues (stichomythia) pleased them more than it pleases us. Rhetoric had a practical interest when not only the victory of a man's ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... and anger of Laertes for the death of his father and Ophelia the king, Hamlet's wicked uncle, contrived destruction for Hamlet. He set on Laertes, under cover of peace and reconciliation, to challenge Hamlet to a friendly trial of skill at fencing, which Hamlet accepting, a day was appointed to try the match. At this match all the court was present, and Laertes, by direction of the king, prepared a poisoned weapon. Upon this match great wagers were laid by the courtiers, as both Hamlet and Laertes were known to ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... would sweeping, and scrubbing, and moving furniture about. But you're born to a life of ease, my dear, so those things are out of the question for you. But fencing lessons would be good for you—and fashionable, too, which would double their ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... professional gambler, who lives one knows not how! Nonsense! It is as if one should fight a duel with a fencing-master." ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... and fencing with right, The reins in his teeth, like a handless young Hun, What is his fate in the terrible fight? The thousands hath slain him, yet Custer ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... motive was gratitude to us, and affection excited by compassion. No white man would have laboured harder. When the wheat and Indian corn was in the ground, he with his horses helped Sam and us to bring in stuff for fencing and to put it up. All this time he slept outside our tent, under shelter of a simple lean-to of birch bark. Another day he disappeared, and we saw him in the evening coming up the river towing some timber. He brought a heavy log up on his shoulders. ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... of "five-room, modern cottages with bath," and of "ONLY $500.00 down and balance payable monthly," and of ten-acre "ranches" and five-acre "ranches"—he who had been used to numbering acres by the thousand and to whom the word "ranch" meant miles of wire fencing and beyond that miles ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... learning. For growing on a sudden conceited with his own abilities, puffed up with the vanity of having excelled his equals, he began to addict himself to acquire higher accomplishments, grew fond of music, delighted in dancing-schools, would needs be taught fencing and riding, and from the studies preparative to making a grave rabbi, jumped all of a sudden to the qualities necessary ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... interview within the palace between Jesus and Herod, for he would not be deterred from entering, as the Jews were, and there seems to have been no other impediment in the way. The passage has three stages—the fencing between the Sanhedrists and Pilate, the 'good confession before Pontius Pilate,' and the preference of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... rose higher about him. His one regret was that he had been so hasty in casting his snuff box from him, for he was missing its familiar stimulus. At his side the Marquis was fighting desperately, fencing with his left arm, and in the hot excitement seeming oblivious of the pain his ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... you can carry it through excellently," said the Foreign Secretary, still fencing. "It will be good practice, if you succeed, for—any future duties in the career which ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... Five to Eighteen Hundred Eight Byron spent at Cambridge. The arts in which he perfected himself there were shooting, swimming, fencing, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... 'of leisure' are generally devoted to sport—hunting, yachting, horseback riding, fencing—or to travel, or to dilettantisme in the arts, and their activity, unproductive for themselves, provides an immense number of persons with profitable ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... soldiers had, each individually, the greatest skill and dexterity in the use of their arms. Strength and agility of body were of the highest consequence, and commonly determined the fate of battles. But this skill and dexterity in the use of their arms could be acquired only, in the same manner as fencing is at present, by practising, not in great bodies, but each man separately, in a particular school, under a particular master, or with his own particular equals and companions. Since the invention of fire-arms, strength and agility of body, or ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... Jourdain, his wife. Lucile, their daughter. Nicole, maid. Cleonte, suitor of Lucile. Covielle, Cleonte's valet. Dorante, Count, suitor of Dorimene. Dorimene, Marchioness. Music Master. Pupil of the Music Master. Dancing Master. Fencing Master. Master of Philosophy. Tailor. Tailor's apprentice. Two lackeys. Many male and female musicians, instrumentalists, dancers, cooks, tailor's apprentices, and others necessary for ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere
... allowed himself to respond. He had no wish to obtrude his musical and artistic doings upon his father until a more definite modus vivendi had been brought about; but he could no longer lend himself passively to being made an absurdity by the over-enthusiasm of his sister. Fencing, now, was a manly art of which his father ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... ensure that the information he had sold should be useless to the purchasers; but this crime had nothing to do with his murder. The denouement was rather startling. When we went to Ormrod's house next day we found that he had gone. His wife, after fencing with us a little, was perfectly open. She had arranged to go away with Bridwell and had visited him that day to talk over final arrangements. It was the first time she had ever been to the flat. Yesterday, a telegram had come for her husband. He opened it in her presence, and ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... bright and intellectual people was more than even Paul could stand. He left Athens a lonely man, without founding a church. It was the last city in the world to receive his doctrines,—that city of grammarians, of pedants, of gymnasts, of fencing masters, of play-goers, and babblers about words. "As well might a humanitarian socialist declaim against English prejudices to the proud and exclusive fellows of Oxford ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... according to his estimate of the money required for the coming year, there would be a million and a-quarter of it diverted from its intended purpose—the relief of the destitute. "The Government cannot," he says, "by act of Parliament compel drainage or fencing; but they can compel the owner of land to employ the poor, and make those who refuse to employ them on productive labour pay for their employment on public works." Appeals to public spirit, social duties, and so forth, have no effect; nothing will avail but an appeal to self-interest. Make it, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... the best comrade in the camp, whether one wished to go hawking, or wanted a hand at fencing, or only asked for a quiet game of chess by the leaping firelight. Her ringing laugh, her frank glance, and her beautiful glowing face made all other maidens seem dull and lifeless. Alwin dimly felt that hating her was going to be ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... was there last didn't do right by it. He worked the land too hard, and didn't put on it anywhere near what he had ought to; I guess you'll find it pretty poor in some places. He was trying to get all he could out of it, I s'pose. There's a good deal of fencing to be done ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... engaging. Bertin was very sober and serious, but one had only to glance at him to perceive a very heat of wrath masked under his heavy countenance. Vaucher was intent, wary, full of careful purpose. Their blades touched. 'All'ez!' There were a couple of moments of fencing, of almost formal escrime, and then Vaucher lengthened his arm and attacked. Bertin stepped back a pace, and, as Vaucher advanced, he slashed with a high open cut, and it was over. Vaucher threw up both hands ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... remarkable; I am well read in the Scriptures, the classics, and ancient history; was acquainted with geography; could draw; learnt fencing, riding, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... a crestfallen expression. "It's done for, Stephen. I'm sorry to say the whole concern seems to be mashed up into a kind of wire-fencing!" ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... of fencing had not, at that time, reached the perfection it afterwards attained. The swords used were long and straight, and sharpened at both edges; and were used as much for cutting as thrusting. In single combat on foot, long daggers were generally held in the left ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty |
