"Foil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is the originality? There is nothing in what I am treating as this phase of our author's thought to separate it from the old-fashioned rationalism. There must be a reason for every fact; and so much reason, so fact. The reason is always the whole foil and background and negation of the fact, the whole remainder of reality. "A man may feel good only by feeling better. . . . Pleasure is ever in the company and contrast of pain; for instance, in thirsting and drinking, the pleasure of the one is the ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... except that she was much younger, being barely eighteen years of age; but there were not wanting indications that her charms would one day even surpass those of the lovely Mrs Henderson Mrs Gaunt was a petite blonde, very pretty and engaging, and an excellent foil to Mrs Henderson, the two ladies being of exactly opposite types of beauty. Of the children no more need be said than that they were light-hearted, joyous, and just well-behaved enough to show that their parents did not intend to spoil them if ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... unsuccessful in getting his play represented. Remonstrance merely irritated Tobias. His new novel was but a fainter echo of his old novels, a panorama of scoundrelism, with the melodramatic fortunes of the virtuous Monimia for a foil. If read to-day, it is read as a sketch of manners, or want of manners. The scene in which the bumpkin squire rooks the accomplished Fathom at hazard, in Paris, is prettily conceived, and Smollett's indignation at the British system of pews in church is edifying. ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... Lawrence. A fine portrait of the City wit: his face is lit up with good nature, such as proved in the Baronet's career, a surprising foil to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various
... the hills; the stream that gathered its three forks at this point roared over its rocks; the stunted willows were in full leaf; the thick, soft moss of every dark shade of green and yellow and red made a foil for innumerable brilliant flowers. The fat, gray conies chirped at us from the rocks; the ground-squirrels, greatly multiplied since the wholesale destruction of foxes, kept the dogs unavailingly chasing hither and thither whenever they ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... personage I noted his absolute likeness, adorning one of the walls. The rooster was faithfully depicted a la Rembrandt at half-length in the stirring guise of a fencer, foil in hand, and wearing enormous gloves. The execution of this masterpiece left something to be desired; but the whole betokened a certain spirit and verve, on the part of the sitter, which I found difficulty in attributing to the being ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... full well that her friend would resent the slightest semblance of love-making on the part of any man on board. Already her astonishment at Elsie's unlooked-for vivacity was yielding to the humor of meeting such a rival. The Count might serve as a foil, but the real quarry now was the captain. That very night there would be a moon. And the sea was calm as a sheltered lake. Isobel's lips parted in a delighted smile as she tried to imagine Courtenay deserting her to discuss those celebrities whom Elsie had made the most of. And how she would play ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... symmetry improves them. Whenever the materials of ornament are noble, they must be various; and repetition of parts is either the sign of utterly bad, hopeless, and base work; or of the intended degradation of the parts in which such repetition is allowed, in order to foil others more noble. ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... distance. The principal garden constituted a square, and was divided with mathematical precision, according to the formal taste of the time, into smaller squares, with a broad well-kept gravel walk at each angle. These plots were arranged in various figures and devices—such as the cinq-foil, the flower-de-luce, the trefoil, the lozenge, the fret, the diamond, the crossbow, and the oval—all very elaborate and intricate in design. Besides these knots, as they were termed, there were labyrinths, and clipped yew-tree walks, and that indispensable requisite to a garden at the period, a ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... heart can see without instruction; he seemed to mistrust me. If I had not had the inward support of my great love he would have made me awkward and stupid by affecting to believe that I knew nothing of life. He presented me in society under the expectation that my dulness would be a foil to his qualities. Had I not remembered the sorrows of my childhood I might have taken his protecting vanity for brotherly affection; but inward solitude produces the same effects as outward solitude; silence within our souls enables us to hear the faintest sound; the habit of taking ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... the Society as out of date? You do not think, as is sometimes said, that the establishment of the Grosvenor took away the raison d'etre and original intention of the Society—that of being a foil to the Royal Academy?" ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... poesy, they, the others, are of the earth earthy. As a result of their appearance on the scene, there are some powerful contrasting passages in the book. Archangias, the coarse and brutal Christian Brother who serves as a foil to Abbe Mouret; La Teuse, the priest's garrulous old housekeeper; Desiree, his 'innocent' sister, a grown woman with the mind of a child and an almost crazy affection for every kind of bird and beast, are all admirably portrayed. Old Bambousse, though one sees but little of ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... the Duc de Nivernois, who dined at Claremont. The Gallery is not advanced enough to give them any idea at all, as they are not apt to go out of their way for one; but the Cabinet, and the glory of yellow glass at top, which had a charming sun for a foil, did surmount their indifference, especially as they were animated by the Duchess of Grafton, who had never happened to be here before, and who perfectly entered into the air of enchantment and fairyism, which is the tone ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... district fell under the sway of Ranjit Singh at Lahore, and passed with the rest of the Punjab into the possession of the British after the second Sikh war. The Golden Temple is so called on account of its copper dome, covered with gold foil, which shines brilliantly in the rays of the Indian sun, and is reflected back from the waters of the lake; but the building as a whole is too squat to have much architectural merit apart from its ornamentation. Marble terraces and balustrades surround the tank, and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... country and elsewhere, to equal that piece of workmanship, or else acknowledge themselves his underlings and vassals. For many days had Mimer himself toiled, alone and vainly, trying to forge a sword whose edge the boasted armor of Amilias could not foil; and now, in despair, he came to ask the help ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... the knife between her and me. If she succeed, it must be with you. I will do anything to foil ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... all printed from large, clear type on a superior quality of flexible paper and bound in English vellum cloth, assorted colors, containing charming female heads lithographed in twelve colors, as inlays; the titles being stamped in harmonizing colors of ink or foil. Cloth, ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... fiend has told them that? how came they to suspect? Confusion! it will foil all my plans, and my vengeance will be incomplete. At least this one victim must not escape, and yet I had sooner he should escape than any other member of the house. Poor boy! the sins of the fathers are heavy upon the children, as these Christians have ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... have found and been not unwilling to find his face chiefly expressive of a kind of empty alertness; but when it was turned to her its quite pleasantly modelled features glowed and it was transfigured. So far as she was concerned, with Sir Isaac as foil, he was real enough and good enough for her. And by the virtue of that unlovely contrast even ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... possibly hear a word or so that would give hope of a future for the idea. Kruesi, when he had nearly finished it, asked what it was for. I told him I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb,' etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. I was never so taken aback in my life. Everybody was astonished. I was always afraid of things that worked the first time. Long experience proved that there were ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... Maclaren; and it was at Maclaren's he first met Alfred Bates Richards, who became a life friend. Richards, an undergraduate of Exeter, was a man of splendid physique. A giant in height and strength, he defeated all antagonists at boxing, but Burton mastered him with the foil and the broad-sword. Richards, who, like Burton, became a voluminous author [47] wrote long after, "I am sure, though Burton was brilliant, rather wild, and very popular, none of us foresaw his ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... started in very suddenly to explain about the Christmas tree. There were lots of little pencils on the table. And blocks of paper. And nice cold, shining sheets of tin-foil. There was violet-colored tin-foil, and red-colored tin-foil—and green and ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... nine!" said Hugh. "I began to learn two years ago, and I have outgrown my first foil, and the Colonel has given me a new ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... come to my wedding, Ursula, and I must choose your dress for you; of course father will pay for it, but I promise you it shall be pretty, and suitable to your complexion. I mean to have eight bridesmaids. Jocelyn will be one, of course, and I shall get that tall, fair Grace Underley to act as a foil to her bigness. I shall not ask poor Lesbia to be one; it would be too trying for her, and I know you will not care about it; but you must come for a week, and see all my pretty things, and help poor mamma, for she has only ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... brightness always—except when I hold the package of tobacco in front of it at this spot," he said wonderingly, half to himself. "If I remember my science right, ultra-violet light would make the radium on the dial glow; and the lead in the tin-foil of the tobacco wrapping would screen it ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... blue States. Roxbury wax-work, climbing Red berries Thickets; N. E., Middle States. Seneca snakeroot White Rocky soil; N. E., West, South. Sheep-laurel Crimson Hill-sides, pastures. Common. Shrubby cinque-foil Yellow Wet grounds; N. E. Common. Silver-weed Yellow Brackish marshes and meadows; New England, West. Small cranberry Rose-color Peat bogs; N. E., Middle States. Spotted wintergreen Pink and white Open woods; Middle States. Staghorn sumac Greenish ...
— Harper's Young People, June 8, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... drawn with slight and grudging strokes, sufficient for the minor part she is evidently to play. Lucy at Bretton is a mere foil to little Polly. Charlotte Bronte distinctly stated in her letters that she did not care for Miss Snowe. "Lucy must not marry Dr. John; he is far too youthful, handsome, bright-spirited, and sweet-tempered; he is a 'curled darling' of Nature and ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... No, no, my lads. Infantry drill; clubs and dumb-bells; singlestick and foil; riding with a military seat; but—use of the gloves! Oh dear no! What do you think ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... Nay, he made this foil of his so very widely known, that third parties took it up, and handled it on some occasions with considerable briskness. It was one of the most exasperating attributes of Bounderby, that he not only sang his own praises but stimulated other men ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... The Devil I can foil, but not my friends! Strange allies to his cause! Well, dusk was long My portion; now all gathering storms of hate Are less than naught to me. Six months ago, When here I stood that memorable night, My gloom was starless; now one fiery star Pierces it. And ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... popular writers, the degraded scolding of enemies that does not emanate from passion but out of greedy hankering for the applause of the masses, and which continually nauseates us amid the piety of this hour! Because our statemen failed to discover and foil shrewd plans of deception is no reason why we may hoist the flag of most pious morality. Not as weak-willed blunderers have we undertaken the fearful risk of this war. We wanted it. Because we had to wish it and could wish it. May the Teuton devil throttle those ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... of placing very delicate gray lines against a series of heavy black strokes exemplifies some of the possibilities of such variety. Observe, in Fig. 6, what significance is imparted to the heavy lines on the roof of the little foreground building by the foil of delicate gray lines in the sky and surrounding roofs. This conjunction was employed early by Mr. Herbert Railton, who has made a beautiful use of it in his quaint architectural subjects. Mr. Railton's technique is remarkable also for the varied direction of line and ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis
... both an admirable picture in himself, and an admirable foil to those characters which are most unlike him—above all to the "Parson" and the "Clerk of Oxford," the representatives ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... image is inverted. At present we may illustrate and expand the subject thus: In front of our camera is a large opening (L, fig. 2), from which the lens has been removed, and which is closed at present by a sheet of tin-foil. Pricking by means of a common sewing-needle a small aperture in the tin-foil, an inverted image of the carbon-points starts forth upon the screen. A dozen apertures will give a dozen images, a hundred a hundred, a thousand a thousand. But, as the apertures ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... word appears to be derived from the same root as Paup-puk-ke-nay, a grasshopper, the inflection iss making it personal. The Indian idea is that of harum scarum. He is regarded as a foil to Manabozho, with whom he is frequently brought in contact in aboriginal ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... Smith's party assault with the fourth cut. Bravo! performed with perfect precision." And so he went on. Each time, however, that Jones's division had to assault, he saw that Blackall endeavoured to take some undue advantage of Ernest, who with equal regularity contrived quietly to foil him. Ernest kept his eye on his opponent's, but said nothing, and in no other way showed that he was aware of his evil intentions. Blackall at length began to lose his temper at his own failures: he ground his ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... formal speech he began on his statement of the action of the naval affairs committee in buying control of the Altacoola land to foil attempts to rob the Government. As he had predicted, the Senate did "sit up." The Senate did agree that a new ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... inopportune moment, and who will give us because we are His friends, and He ours! The very ugliness of character ascribed to the owner of the loaves, selfish in his enjoyment of his bed, in his refusal to turn out on an errand of neighbourliness, and in his final giving, thus serves as a foil to the character of Him to whom our prayers ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... many other | | substances. | | | | Organic matter, as | Gives a brown color to the acid. | a piece of straw | | in a carboy of acid | | | Hydrochloric acid | Arsenic | Marsh's test. | | | Some yellow samples | Reinsh's test; a small piece of | contain no iron, | copper foil becomes coated | but an organic salt,| on boiling in dilute acid. | and give an alkaline| | ash on ignition of | | the residue after | | evaporation | | | Calcium chloride | Calcium hydrate | The clear filtered solution made | | with distilled water is alkaline | | to test ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... to is the once-famous description of the condemned Felon in the "Letter" on Prisons. Macaulay had, as we know, his "heightened way of putting things," but the narrative which he cites, as foil to one of Robert Montgomery's borrowings, deserves the praise. It shows Crabbe's descriptive power at its best, and his rare power and insight into the workings of the heart and mind. He has to trace the sequence ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... sprung. And on their track, astir with wild desire, Like falcons fierce closing on doves that flee, Shall speed the suitors, craving to achieve A prey forbidden, a reluctant bride. Yet power divine shall foil them, and forbid Possession of the maids, whom Argive land Shall hold protected, when unsleeping hate, Horror, and watchful ambush of the night, Have laid the suitors dead, by female hands. For every maid shall smite a man to death, Dyeing a dagger's ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... round Cynthia's waist, and his other hand raising one of hers to his lips. He looked admirably handsome—strong, protecting, devoted. And Cynthia, in her fragile appealing prettiness, was a delicious foil, a perfect complement to the picture. But now, under stress of emotion—small blame to a man who was making a vow of eternal fidelity!—under stress of emotion, as, on a previous occasion, under that of indignation, the Captain had ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... of the Glen!" said Bolton, "thy brow is more withered, as well as mine, since we met last, but thy tongue holds the touch better than my arm. This boy of thine gave me the foil sorely this morning. The Brown Varlet has turned as stout a trooper as I prophesied; ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... said Perry to Red, as they tugged at their respective ends of a snapper. "Then it's more fun. They always act 'fraid cat, and scream when it goes off." He unrolled the little cylinder of paper which had been concealed in the foil wrapping. "My hat's pink. ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... shall have to bring some pressure to bear upon Greece," said the younger man. "We cannot permit that. Bulgaria must get in the game sooner and thus foil such ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... at her with surprise. "We are fencing—and I hate it. Once at West Point I was fencing with a man, my friend; the button broke off my foil and I hurt him seriously. He fell dead beside me in the trenches ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... that can have many meanings, and I am sure that in using it, I did n't place the same construction that you did in hearing it. But let that pass. I apologize. What I should have said was that, if you will pardon me, she used you, as young women will do, as a foil against her fiance in a time of petty quarreling ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... art. He was acting as porter on Mansfield's car, when he was making a tour of the country. This porter was an exceedingly intelligent man. He appreciated Mansfield's achievements and played up to his humor in using him as a foil while always acting. When they were in a station William never left the car, but remained on guard for the ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... Feelings were so outraged by this Brutal Treatment that he left the Farm that Day and accepted a position in a Five and Ten-Cent Store, selling Kitchen Utensils that were made of Tin-Foil and Wooden Ware that had been painted in Water Colors. He felt that he was particularly adapted for a Business Career, and, anyway, he didn't propose to go out on No Man's Farm and sweat ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... distinction between the first Edison patent, and the Bell and Tainter patent of 1886 was the method of recording. Edison's method was to indent the sound waves on a piece of tin-foil (wax was included as a recording material in his English patent); the Bell and Tainter improvement called for cutting or "engraving" the sound waves into a wax record, with ...
— Development of the Phonograph at Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory • Leslie J. Newville
... beautiful with the austere and almost unearthly beauty of the youthful dead. The lips were slightly parted, the eyes half closed and drowsy, shaded with sweeping lashes; and a wealth of dark hair in massive plaits served as a foil to ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... which is shown at i, is a soft rennet cheese made from cow's milk. It is made at Neufchatel-en-Bray, France, and not at Neufchatel, Switzerland. This variety of cheese is wrapped in tin-foil and sold in small packages. It is used chiefly for salads, sandwiches, etc. As it does not keep well after the package is opened, the entire contents should be ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2 - Volume 2: Milk, Butter and Cheese; Eggs; Vegetables • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... "Foil, Elrigmore!" he cried. "But we're soldiers and lads of the world, and you need hardly be so canny. You see MacCailein's points as well as I do. His one weakness is the old one—books, books,—the curse of the Highlands and every man of spirit, say I. He has the stuff in him by nature, for none ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... Nubian as black as ink, and as shining as if he had been polished with a shoe-brush) entered the kitchen of the hotel, and asked for the largest knife they had. The head-cook gave him a sort of carving-knife, some eighteen inches long, sharp as a razor, and pliant as a foil. The negro looked at it, shook his head as if in doubt whether it would do, but nevertheless took it up stairs with him. Presently he brought it down again, and asked for a larger one. The cook opened all his drawers, and at last found a sort of cutlass, which he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... a real stimulus to me in all the years I have been personally associated with it through the various exhibitions held along with those of modern painting at the gallery of the Photo-Secession, or more intimately understood as "291". Photography was an interesting foil to the kind of veracity that painting is supposed to express, or rather to say, was then supposed to express; for painting like all other ideas has changed vastly in the last ten years, and even very much since the interval created by the war. I might have ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... beautiful and used to command. Her dark eyes were still brilliant and glittered humorously and shrewdly from beneath their bushy brows. The lean, veined neck, bedecked with diamonds, was still poised proudly on the bent shoulders. Her wrecked beauty was a perfect foil for the fresh loveliness of the young girl who, with a splendidly attired cavalier, followed closely ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... fine cloak over the monk, and the fellow looked as if he had stolen it. I must have looked like a man who has been to a dance and has spent the rest of the night in a disorderly house, though the only foil to my reasonable elegance of attire was the bandages round ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... handy for squeezes, and may be saved from chocolate for this. Press it firmly on a coin or seal with a tuft of wool, or beat it with a soft tooth-brush, being careful to avoid creases. The foil should then be floated on water, hollow back up, and blazing sealing-wax dropped into it to back it. The resulting positive can ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... hundred and fifty thousand. Several of the daimios were converted to the new faith, and Nobunaga, who hated and strove to exterminate the Buddhists, received the Christians with the greatest favor, gave them desirable sites for their churches, and sought to set them up as a foil to the arrogance ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... she keeps her word, and I am lost; Yet let not my ambition shew it to her; For, after all, she does it but to try me, And foil my vowed design.—Madam, I see You're come to court; the robes you wear become you; Your air, your mien, your charms, your every grace, Will kill at least ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... of the man who had just declared war against her, her surprise gave place to a mingled feeling of impatience and anger. She drew her foot back with a sudden movement, but unfortunately the foot went one way and the slipper another. A fencing-master, who sees his foil carried ten steps away from him by a back stroke, could not feel more astonishment than that felt by Madame de Bergenheim. Her first movement was to place her foot, so singularly undressed, upon the ground; an instinctive horror of the damp, ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... corroborated by the attitude toward Sally adopted by Mrs. Standish in her capacity as close friend, foil, and confidant of Mrs. Artemas. In the course of those three days the girl had not been insensible to intimations of a strong, if as yet restrained, animus in the mind of the older woman. In alarm and regret she did her futile best to discourage this gentleman without being overtly discourteous. ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... long in Rome, proposed to illuminate the church as at Rome on Good Friday, with lights disposed overhead in the form of a cross, and carried out his idea. A cross fourteen feet long, covered with silver-foil and hung with six hundred glass lamps, was suspended overhead in the middle of the church, and diffused so bright a light that one could everywhere clearly read the text-books. The musicians and singers, ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... his very high boots, and his shirt-bosom was broad and none too clean, and his flowered silk waistcoat was cut so low that two buttons sufficed to keep it in place. He wore a flowing, black necktie, glistening foil-back studs, and rings ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... thoroughly opposed to instigating or participating in a policy of competitive armaments. Nor does preparation mean a policy of militarizing. Our people and industries are solicitous for the cause of 0111, country, and have great respect for the Army and Navy and foil the uniform worn by the men who stand ready at all times for our protection to encounter the dangers and perils necessary to military service, but all of these activities are to be taken not in behalf of aggression but in behalf of peace. They are the instruments by which we undertake ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... not guess what he will do? Thou child! Abet thee! Nay! he would set his foot upon thy plan and foil thee at once with ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... full five hundred tons, more than double the size, in fact, of he Rose, though not so lofty in proportion; and many a bold heart beat loud, and no shame to them, as she began firing away merrily, determined, as all well knew, to wipe out in English blood the disgrace of her late foil. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... of paper with careful copying out of passages taken at random from the volumes beside him. A Latin grammar was ordinarily on the table—a book which the young gentleman had brought back from school free from thumb-marks. Occasionally a fencing-foil lay among these evidences of study, while the small aquaria, the cases of stuffed animals with fancy backgrounds and the numerous bird-cages had been thrust aside ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... virtues I have liked several women; never any With so full a soul, but some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owned, And put it to a foil.' ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... important additions in 1679. The Second Part, after an interval of seven years, followed early in 1685. Between the two parts appeared two of his most celebrated works—the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman," published in 1680, originally intended to supply a contrast and a foil to "The Pilgrim's Progress," by depicting a life which was scandalously bad; and, in 1682, that which Macaulay, with perhaps exaggerated eulogy, has said, "would have been our greatest allegory if the earlier allegory ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... transmitting a signal through water which fills a rubber tube; first of all the tube is distended, and its compression, or secondary effect, really transmits the impulse. A remedy for this is a condenser formed of alternate sheets of tin-foil and mica, C, connected with the battery, B, so as to balance the electric charge of the cable wire (Fig. 60). In the first Atlantic line an impulse demanded one-seventh of a second for its journey. This was reduced when Mr. Whitehouse ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... day was the hunted black called upon to foil a new ruse. Sometimes it was a game of hide and seek among the buttes, and again it was an early ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... ordinary squaw costume, with short, narrow petticoats, and embroidered metasses, or leggings. When going out, they fold a blue blanket over all, and put on a regular, unpicturesque, stove-pipe hat, with a band of tin-foil around it,—which makes them look like one of those mulatto coachmen one sees now and then on the box of a bonton barouche, with his silver-mounted hat and double-caped blue box-coat. The young girls are disposed to innovations upon the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... primeval innocence and pastoral simplicity. Nature seemed to have prepared it for their reception with all that luxuriant bounty, which characterises her most favoured spots. The inclosure by which it was bounded, of ragged rocks and snow-topt mountains, served but for a foil to the richness and fertility of this happy plain. It was seated in the bosom of North Wales, the whole face of which, with this one exception, was rugged and hilly. As far as the eye could reach, you might see promontory rise above promontory. ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... 'By way of foil, I suppose,' said Elizabeth; 'still, saving your presence, Helen, I think that if Lucy had all the sense you ascribe to her, she might keep things ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Sun with harvests in its heat, And that, sky-hidden, makes the moon at night, An earth-ward cascade for its leaps of light, More real, or a world force more complete, Than Faith and Hope, that brake through clouds with sight Of evil's foil and ultimate defeat. ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... is that in the cast of the composition which suggests that its object may have been quite as much to raise disgust at the elders' crime as to raise admiration at Susanna's purity; in fact that the whiteness of her character was designed as a foil to make more prominent the blackness of her oppressors. On this account Jer. xxix. 23 might perhaps be taken as a verse which gave his cue to the writer. But these are points on which opinions will inevitably ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... dark, for a moment, against the blue sky behind it; then the fleeting cloud which shadowed it passed on, and the face of the column brightened into such luminousness that the sky behind sank to the complexion of a dark foil. ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... doubt that Paris is the objective, or that the Germans are still striving to carry out their programme in its entirety, which is the extension of their empire over Europe and Asia Minor. The immediate object of the Allies is to foil this design, and only after we have accomplished that can we think of assuming the offensive and crushing Prussian militarism. We have not compassed that end; the battlefields are still in the Allies' countries, and the initiative ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... a girl with a temperament that is at once a match and foil for his own. She should have a sense of humor, a gift for light and ironic speech that can stir him without irritating him, because he is perhaps of a cautious disposition, and hence would be well matched with one a little bit impulsive, each exercising the proper influence upon ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Logan to wear in one of the tableaux. Ranald, with a huge sheet of cardboard and the library shears, was manufacturing a pair of giant scissors, half as long as himself, which a blonde in blue was waiting to cover with tin foil. She was singing coon songs while she waited, to the accompaniment of a mandolin, and in such a gay, rollicking way, that every one was keeping time either with hand ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Frenchman, both stationed in the vicinity, instructed, and "Squig" kindly let me take her lessons when she was on leave. Fencing is one of the best tests I know for teaching you to keep your temper. When my foil had been hit up into the air about three times in succession to the triumphant Riposte! of the little Frenchman, I would determine to keep "Quite cool." In spite of all, however, when I lunged forward it was with rather a savage stamp, which he would ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... town Swings wide his windows new day after day, Sets all his wares around in arch array To please the taste of passers up and down,— His hoard of handy things of trite renown, Of sweets and spices and of faint perfumes, Of silks and prints,—and at the last illumes His tiny panes to foil the evening's frown; So Nature spreads her proffered treasures: such As daily dazzle at the morning's rise,— Fair show of isle and ocean merchandise, And airy offerings filmy to the touch; Then, lest we like not ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... coatings are large, close together, and the charged surfaces not directly exposed; but when the potentials are very high, the loss may be more or less considerable at, or near, the upper edge of the foil, where the air is principally acted upon. If the jar be immersed in boiled-out oil, it will be capable of performing four times the amount of work which it can for any length of time when used in the ordinary way, and the loss ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... the bell at the door of Mrs. Wilson's home she did not know that her approach had been watched. She meant to be very careful during her interview, for she realized that she and Ruth were endeavoring to foil two ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... her to foil van Heerden, and after—to dissolve the marriage?" asked the lawyer, shaking his head. "I don't like that solution, Beale—I tell you frankly, I don't like it. You're a good man and I have every ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... where there is so much fighting, the students make it a point to keep themselves in constant practice with the foil. One often sees them, at the tables in the Castle grounds, using their whips or canes to illustrate some new sword trick which they have heard about; and between the duels, on the day whose history I have been writing, the swords were not always idle; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ship, and who fights with Laertes in the grave; the Hamlet of the catastrophe, an omnipotent fate, before whom all the court stands helpless, who, as the truth breaks upon him, rushes on the King, drives his foil right through his body,[36] then seizes the poisoned cup and forces it violently between the wretched man's lips, and in the throes of death has force and fire enough to wrest the cup from Horatio's ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... No, no, too eagerly my soul deceives Its powerless self: I know this cannot be. O let me then by some sweet dreaming flee To her entrancements: hither sleep awhile! Hither most gentle sleep! and soothing foil For some ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... be off in the sun and ripen a fresh emission of germs. How does she lay her eggs, the origin of the loathsome maggot that battens poisonously on our provisions, whether of game or butcher's meat? What are her stratagems and how can we foil them? This is what I propose ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... and well-deserved prominence was not being given to the use of tin foil and its combinations, the author decided to present a brief historical resume of the subject, together with such practical information as he possesses, before the profession in order that it may have the satisfaction of saving more teeth, since that is the pre-eminent function ...
— Tin Foil and Its Combinations for Filling Teeth • Henry L. Ambler
... o'ermatch'd in wit. In him all beauties of this age we see, Etherege's courtship, Southerne's purity, The satire, wit, and strength of manly Wycherly. 30 All this in blooming youth you have achieved: Nor are your foil'd contemporaries grieved. So much the sweetness of your manners move, We cannot envy you, because we love. Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he saw A beardless consul made against the law, And join his suffrage to the votes of Rome; Though he with Hannibal was overcome. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... guardian. For them her breast was soft and warm and infinitely tender. She fed and warmed them, she was their wise and watchful keeper. She was always at hand with food when they hungered, with wisdom to foil the cunning of their foes, and with a heart of courage tried to crown her well-laid plans for them ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... apocryphal sayings and doings of Esop the fabulist—the manner of his death being the only circumstance for which there is any authority. The idea of his bodily deformity is utterly without foundation, and may have been adopted as a foil to his extraordinary shrewdness and wit, as exhibited in the anecdotes related of him by Planudes. That there was nothing uncouth in the person of Esop is evident from the fact that the Athenians erected a fine statue of him, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... need Thy presence every passing hour; What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power? Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be? Through cloud and sunshine, oh, abide ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... every drop of water, lay them on a clean baking-board and mash them while hot with a rolling-pin, adding about one cup of flour. When thoroughly mashed, break in two eggs, salt to taste, and flavor with grated nutmeg. Now flour the board thickly and foil out this potato dough about as thick as your little finger and spread with the following: Heat some fresh goose fat in a spider, cut up part of an onion very fine, add it to the hot fat together with one-half cup of grated bread crumbs. When brown, spread over the dough and roll just as you would ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... day is so constituted that a revealment to him of coming events in detail would be injurious; and experience proves that such disclosures, when made to him in dreams or otherwise, are profitless, as he always fails to foil the evil of which ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... ANTONIUS. And may be foil'd like Tarquin, if you follow Not the dry light of Rome's straight-going policy, But the fool-fire of love or lust, which well May make you lose yourself, may even drown you In the good ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... precise. An effect of a good deal of nose glasses. Black, heavy rims. A wide, black tape. Head perpendicular, drawn back against the neck. Grave, scholarly face, chiselled with much refinement of technique; foil to the studious complexion, a dark, silken moustache. Holding our thumb-nail sketch up to the light, we see ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... a perfect foil for him. Tipene was exceedingly tall and slender, like all his race, and very dark. His eyes were almost womanly in their softness, and he had the nervous grace of a thoroughbred—which is an Earth animal of particularly high breeding, raised for show purposes. ...
— The Death-Traps of FX-31 • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... know that gold never looks so well as on the foil of their dark skins. Dick found in his trunk a string of gold beads, such as are manufactured in some of our cities, which he had brought from the gold region of Chili,—so he said,—for the express purpose of giving them to old Sophy. These Africans, too, have a perfect passion ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... fitting, the other characters are very much subordinate to the principal figure, but in their way they are no less life-like; the braggart—that inevitable foil to the hero in a saga—was never better represented than in the Gisli of our tale; the thrall Noise, with his carelessness, and thriftless, untrustworthy mirth, is the very pattern of a slave; Snorri the Godi, little though there is of him, ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... Wrist, with this Difference only, that in Seconde, the Wrist must be raised higher, in order to oppose the Adversary's Sword; but in both these Thrusts the Thumb Nail must be turned directly down, and the Edges of the Blade of the Foil ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... hands of the king. Compare the conduct of the two when they are brought into collision, and the final impression they leave. The readiness with which Hamlet undertakes to fence for his uncle's wager is one of the most surprising strokes in the play. What! with the foil in his hand, no plot, no project, not even a word, not a look between him and Horatio that the occasion might be improved! What absolute freedom from the malice which in another mind is preparing his death. The treachery ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... don't mind telling you. You know I tried to mark Merriwell for life by punching my foil through the mask that protected his face while we were engaged in a fencing bout. I had prepared my foil for that in advance by fixing the button so I could remove it, and by sharpening the point of the foil. I wanted to spoil the fellow's ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... highest form. It is of no use to ape it or to contend with it. Somewhat is possible of resistance, and of persistence, and of creation, to this power, which will foil all emulation. ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... dress that a gentleman ever appears in; and during a pause she happened to notice Colonel Colquhoun, who had stepped back to judge the effect of some drapery he was putting up. Mr. Price was a little behind him, and two of the younger men, the three making an excellent foil to Colonel Colquhoun. Evadne was struck by the contrast. The outside aspect of the man still pleased her. There was no doubt that he was a fine specimen of his species, a splendid animal to look at; what a pity he should have ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... me more than toil? Can swaying of sere sedge along the slope, Or the dull lisp of oaken limbs that foil The sun's ensheathing fervor, interfuse My vacant being with far meanings whose Soft airs blow from the hidden seas of Hope? Or can the wintry sumac sably stooping So charm and lift my heart from heartless drooping When other healings all were asked in vain? Yes—there are witcheries ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... that he was always in possession of it, and made nothing of it,—that he imbibed it with mother's milk,—and that I, the wretched Tommy, am most abjectly behindhand in not having done the same. I ask, why is Tommy to be always the foil of Mr. Barlow to this extent? What Mr. Barlow had not the slightest notion of himself, a week ago, it surely cannot be any very heavy backsliding in me not to have at my fingers' ends to- day! And yet Mr. Barlow ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... haply beautiful as these, Which now I gaze on; but which, wanting thee, Want half their charms, for, to thy poet's thought, More deeply glow'd the heaven, when thy fine eye, Surveying its grand arch, all kindling glow'd; The white cloud to thy white brow was a foil; And, by the soft tints of thy cheek outvied, The dew-bent wild-rose ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... amusement, answered these artless inquiries as best he could; they came as a refreshing foil to the sweet but melancholy memories of the past. They were interesting, too, from this very pretty but very ignorant little girl in this backward little Southern town. She was a flash of sunlight through a soft gray cloud; a vigorous shoot from an old moss-covered stump—she was life, ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... was a capital foil to Lady Georgina's acidulous soprano. It seemed to disarm her. She turned to me with a benignant wave of her hand. 'Miss Cayley,' she said, introducing me; 'my nephew, Mr. Harold Tillington. You've heard me talk of poor Tom Cayley, Harold? This ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... correct location, and he illustrates the discovery by referring to a great number of authors and scientists whose development he observed. His most decisive fact is the case of a patient who lost the memory of names entirely, but not the power of speech, by a thrust from a foil, which penetrated through the face, the posterior inner part of the front lobe, at its junction with the middle lobe, thus wounding the internal part of the organ of language, but not reaching the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... therefore will make a war against the witnesses all the time of their prophesying in sackcloth, which will be a thousand two hundred and threescore days (Rev 12:6). In all which time they shall give him the foil, and overcome him by their faith and testimony; and be proclaimed more than conquerors over him, through the Christ that loved them. But now in this second war he overcomes them, 'he overcomes ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... who with undaunted hearts, immortal mitred Few! For Truth's dear sake, the Tyrant foil'd to whom ye still were true—[37] Rejoice! Who knows what scatter'd thoughts of yours were buried seeds, Slow-springing for th' oppress'd and poor, and ripen'd ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... while repairs to the piers were in progress. The summit is exactly equidistant from the west porch and the end of the Lady Chapel. The most effective, if not the most picturesque view, is from the north, where the sturdy campanile makes a good foil to the graceful spire. Until the enormous bulk of the new Liverpool Cathedral rose above the great city in the north, Chichester was the only English cathedral visible from ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... and temperate proceedings of the British Parliament were set off to the greatest advantage by a foil. The wretched government of Lewis the Fifteenth had murdered, directly or indirectly, almost every Frenchman who had served his country with distinction in the East. Labourdonnais was flung into the Bastile, and, after years of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and flavor to the action of special ferment bodies which carry on the ripening process. Neufchatel is a soft cheese made from sweet milk to which the rennet is added at a high temperature. After pressing, it is kneaded and worked, and then put into packages and covered with tin foil. ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... the stones set in foil, and six in number," continued the methodical chatelain, whose eye now lighted with the ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... the young officer, "this unconscionable man has just left about half a tumbler foil, and I do not intend he shall have more. Waunangee," he pursued, after filling and presenting him with the glass, "that is the lady of the house," pointing to Mrs. Elmsley, "you must ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... selected foliage.—Nymph, 't is thine The warning story on its leaves to find, Proud Daphne's fate, imprison'd in its rind, And with its umbrage veil'd, great Phoebus' power Scorning, and bent, with feet of wind, to foil His swift pursuit, till on Thessalian shore Shot into boughs, and rooted to the soil.— Thus warn'd, fair Maid, Apollo's ire to shun, Soon may his Spray's and VOTARY's ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... impassive; he lifted his foil carelessly and swung it; the hiss that followed might have been construed as a challenge. John Steele ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... snow, and bearing its little harvest of curious fruit—sweet-cake rings and stars and two gingerbread men hanging by pack-thread from the white and green branches, the Noah's Ark lodged in one crotch, the very amateur snow-shoes in another, and the lost toys wrapped up, transfigured in tobacco-foil, dangling merrily before ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... assumption is just as impossible as the other. According to Mr. Feis, Shakspere detested such a creed and such conduct as Hamlet's, and made him die by poison in order to show his abhorrence of them—this, when we know Hamlet to have died by the poisoned foil in the earlier play. On that view, Cordelia died by hanging in order to show Shakspere's conviction that she was a malefactor; and Desdemona by stifling as a fitting punishment for adultery. The idea ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... and from thy birth my friend, Dorset, to thee this fable let me send: With Damon's lightness weigh thy solid worth; The foil is known to set the diamond forth: Let the feign'd tale this real moral give, How many Damons, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... his caustic jests. Yet in truth his success on these occasions belonged quite as much to the king as to the wit. We read that Commodus descended, sword in hand, into the arena against a wretched gladiator, armed only with a foil of lead, and after shedding the blood of the helpless victim, struck medals to commemorate the inglorious victory. The triumphs of Frederic in the war of repartee were of much the same kind. How to deal with him was the most puzzling of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in nitric acid, if evaporated, affords a salt which produces an effect on tin that will surprise you, and I have prepared some from the solution we made before, that I might show it to you. I shall first sprinkle some water on this piece of tin-foil, and then some of the salt. —Now observe that I fold it up suddenly, and press it ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... her reserves of emotional power to fine effect. Miss LILIAN BRAITHWAITE made her Lady Broughton nearly credible and less "unsympathetic" than was just. Mr. DANIELL is new to me. He played one of those difficult foil parts ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... break me of. It was still worse at the fencing-school, where, after three months' practice, I made but very little progress, and could never attempt fencing with any but my master. My wrist was not supple enough, nor my arm sufficiently firm to retain the foil, whenever he chose to make it fly out of my hand. Add to this, I had a mortal aversion both to the art itself and to the person who undertook to teach it to me, nor should I ever have imagined, that ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... is most nearly akin to the drama, with which we should be disposed to identify it if the characters of the prologue and epilogue were introduced as dramatis personae in action. But their doing and enduring are presupposed as accomplished facts, and employed merely as a foil to the dialogues, which alone are the work of the author. Perhaps the least erroneous way succinctly to describe what in fact is a unicum would be to call it ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... chosen champion ended here her lays, "And all the nymphs unanimous, exclaim'd;— "The Heliconian goddesses have gain'd. "Vanquish'd, the others rail'd. When she resum'd:— "Is not your punishment enough deserv'd? "Foil'd in the contest, must you swell your crime, "With base revilings? Patient now no more, "To punish we begin; what anger bids, "We now perform.—Loud laugh'd the scornful maids, "Our threatening words despis'd, and strove ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... Norman translator at least takes leave of me with the grace of a gentleman: although his thrusts have been occasionally direct and severely intended. The foil which he has used has not always had the button covered. The candid reader will, however, judge how these thrusts have been parried; and if the "hits" on the part of my adversary, have been sometimes "palpable," those of the original author will not (it is presumed) be deemed feeble or unimpressive. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... and abstract rational deductions entice you. But, to return to the SPECIAL CASE we were talking about just now. I must tell you that we have to deal with reality, with nature. This is a very important thing, and how admirably does she often foil the highest skill! Listen to an old man; I am speaking quite seriously. Rodion"—(on saying which Porphyrius Petrovitch, who was hardly thirty-five years of age, seemed all of a sudden to have aged, a sudden metamorphosis had taken place in the whole of his person, nay, in his very voice)— ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... unfortunate of her sex. For her part, Mlle. Binesco did not regard Mlle. Bjornsen as a very womanly woman, but respected her integrity and business-like methods, and felt her to be, perhaps, an effective foil to herself. It may be observed that there are in this world mental females, mental males, and mental neutrals. You may know them by their conversation. The mental females, or womanly women, are apt to talk about clothes, ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... dark and very beautiful eyes to her stony parent, then they dropped, and she began tracing figures and arabesques on the polished floor with the point of her foil. "That is partly how," ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... Out of the nacre of any mussel or oyster-shell you might cut, at your pleasure, any quantity of small flat circular discs of the prettiest colour and lustre. To some extent, such tinsel or foil of shell is used pleasantly for decoration. But the mussel or oyster becoming itself an unwilling modeller, agglutinates its juice into three dimensions, and the fact of the surface being now geometrically ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the worth of his productions by the generous meed of praise given by his contemporaries is a venial offense in the time of the troubadours and minnesingers. Charisi was particularly happy in his use of the "mosaic" style, and his short poems and epigrams are most charming. Deep melancholy is a foil to his humor, but as often his writings are disfigured by levity. The following may serve as samples of his versatile muse. The first is addressed ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... ascribe my inability to rise, till, hearing me complaining of my leg, he examined it, and found that my foot was gangrened. An accident of my early days was the cause of this new trouble. At Soreze I had my right foot wounded by the unbuttoned foil of a schoolfellow with whom I was fencing. It seemed that the muscles of the part had become sensitive, and had suffered much from cold while I was lying unconscious on the field of Eylau; thence had resulted a swelling which explained ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... right, Leach, you may be right; do as foil would be done by is the golden rule after all. But, here comes Mr. John Effingham; so I fancy ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... about Mr. Merwyn, Arthur. I have my own personal score to settle with him. He has made a good foil for you and my other friends, and I have learned to appreciate you the more. YOU have won my entire esteem and respect, and have taught me how quickly a noble, self-sacrificing purpose can develop manhood. O Arthur, Heaven grant that we may ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... affairs had already progressed a long way. She had come to Briar Hills, flattering Jerry, of course, that they could be alone, intriguing meanwhile with Channing Lloyd, a wild fellow, according to Jack Ballard, who at thirty could have unprofitably shared his omniscience with the devil. A fine foil for Jerry! ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... the Schoolmaster, the Screech-Owl, Hoppy, and the other wretches whose misdeeds blacken these pages, form the foil; while Fleur-de-Marie, Clemence d'Harville, Miss Dimpleton, and Mrs. George are the gems which will be seen to shed their luster and charm over the no less interesting pages of the Second Division of this work, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... studies; individuality of form or color he was wholly indifferent to. The looseness of execution in his latest works has not even the apology of having been attempted on scientific principles; he did not work upon a particular point of a picture as a focus and leave the rest obscure, as a foil to enhance it, on a principle of unity; on the contrary, all is equally obscure and wild alike. These last productions are a calamity to his reputation; yet we may, perhaps, safely assert that since Rembrandt ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... GLASS. Pour some mercury on a tin foil, smoothly laid on a flat table, and rub it gently with a hare's foot. It soon unites itself to the tin, which then becomes very splendid, or is what they call quickened. A plate of glass is then cautiously, passed upon the tin leaf, in such a manner ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... wrestlers; who if they come in robustuously, and put for it with a great deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows: when many times their own rudeness is the cause of their disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. I deny not, but that these men, who always seek to do more than enough, may some time happen on some thing that is good, and great; but very seldom; and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest of their ill. It sticks out, perhaps, and is more eminent, ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... over North America picked up his speech, which was made by spreading the beam from an eighty-foot diameter parabolic reflector and aiming it at Earth from a hundred thousand miles out. It was a collapsible reflector, made of thin foil, like the ones ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the same level way as before. 'Here is your patron, your master. He is willing to take you back, my dear, if you are sensible of the favour and choose to go. You can be, again, a foil to his pretty daughter, a slave to her pleasant wilfulness, and a toy in the house showing the goodness of the family. You can have your droll name again, playfully pointing you out and setting you apart, as it is right that you should be pointed out and ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... reception which greeted the author's "Letters to the Young," and his more recent series of essays entitled "Gold Foil," and the constant and substantial friendship which has been maintained by the public toward those productions, must stand as his apology for this third venture in a kindred field of effort. It should be—and probably is—unnecessary for the author to say that in this book, as in its predecessors, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... deportment of the Capital she had come from! He must be the rustic indeed to her, handling lollipops yet like a child, and tumbling books in a child's confusion. As if to give more acuteness to his picture of himself he saw a foil in Young Islay so trim and manly in the uniform old custom demanded for the Sunday parade, a shrewd upward tilt of the chin and lowering of the brow, his hand now and then at his cheeks, not so much to feel its pleasing roughness, as to show the fine fingers of which he ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... being, both as to subject-matter and style and method, remote a Scaevolae studiis. He sat by, as he would have done at a stage-play or a fencing-match, enjoying and applauding the skill exhibited, but without feeling much ambition to parade himself as a rival either of the foil or the buskin. I can easily believe, therefore, that in the earlier part of his life—before the blaze of universal fame had overawed {p.245} local prejudice, and a new generation, accustomed to hear ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... permission, make the victory more definite," replied the poet, testing his foil and saluting ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... causeless wanton malice wrung, By blockheads' daring into madness stung; His well-won bays, than life itself more dear, By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig must wear: Foil'd, bleeding, tortur'd, in the unequal strife, The hapless poet flounders on through life; Till, fled each hope that once his bosom fir'd, And fled each muse that glorious once inspir'd, Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age, Dead, even resentment, for his injur'd page, He heeds or ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... crumpled in the tomb Showed here and there a spangle's foil. At every start a faded bloom Dropped petals in her hair's ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... mortal: and I cannot write Aught that may foil the fatal wing of Time. Silent, I look at Fame: I cannot climb To where her Temple is—Not mine the might:— I have some glimmering of what is sublime— But, ah! it is a most ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... their tongues hath into bondage Brought my too diligent ear: for several virtues Have I liked several women; never any With so full soul, but some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed, 45 And put it to the foil: but you, O you, So perfect and so peerless, are created Of every ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... such foil the mistress stood— A pearl upon a cross of gold— White with consistent womanhood, And fixed with unrelaxing hold Upon the centre of ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... correction for the faults they may commit, nor suffer them to be inured to hardships and hazards, as they ought to be. They will not endure to see them return all dust and sweat from their exercise, to drink cold drink when they are hot, nor see them mount an unruly horse, nor take a foil in hand against a rude fencer, or so much as to discharge a carbine. And yet there is no remedy; whoever will breed a boy to be good for anything when he comes to be a man, must by no means spare him when young, and must very often ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... industry is used by the agents of government, and they have money at command without stint. If I were possessed of the same means, I could not only foil the prosecutors, but render them ridiculous and infamous. The democratic papers teem with abuse against me and my counsel, and even against the chief justice. Nothing is left undone or unsaid which can tend ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... this delicate business, from his uncommon address, and his familiarity with the Moorish habits and language. Thus the capitulation of Granada was referred to the man, who acquired in her long wars the military science, which enabled him, at a later period, to foil the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... punish mee not with your harde thoughts, wherein I confesse me much guiltie to denie so faire and excellent Ladies anie thing. But let your faire eies, and gentle wishes go with mee to my triall; wherein if I bee foil'd, there is but one sham'd that was neuer gracious: if kil'd, but one dead that is willing to be so: I shall do my friends no wrong, for I haue none to lament me: the world no iniurie, for in it I haue nothing: onely in the world I fil vp a place, which may bee better supplied, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... theatre. The court was several feet lower than the adjoining house, the front windows of which were all removed and it was used for the accommodation of the lady guests. On the walls of the temporary structure hung red satin and silk banners on which were pinned ideographs cut out of gold foil or black velvet, expressive of beautiful sentiments and good wishes for many happy returns of the day. The Emperor, wishing to do this official honour, has informed him that on his mother's birthday an imperial present will be sent her which is a greater ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... Sammy Brown was shone upon by the far-flung rays of the renaissance. Sammy, with his ultra clothes, his horseshoe pin, his plump face, his trite slang, his uncomprehending admiration of Ravenel—the broker's clerk made an excellent foil to the new, bright unseen visitor to ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... Summer's gone about A thousand times: so many Winters out, So many Springs: and May doth still restore Those leaves, which Autumn had blown off before; Then press'd with years his vigour doth decline, Foil'd with the number; as a stately pine Tir'd out with storms bends from the top and height Of Caucasus, and falls with its own weight, Whose part is torn with daily blasts, with rain Part is consum'd, and part with age again; So now his eyes grown dusky, fail to see Far off, and drops ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan |
