"Foil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... graceful little copy of verse addressed to Euthalia, in which we may note, by the way, that the fair Rosalinda's charms are ungallantly made use of as a foil to Euthalia's dazzling perfections. As Fielding found these verses not unworthy of a page in his later Miscellanies they ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... by putting on as bold a front, and making as great and startling display, as possible. But as fragrant, modest flowers usually bloom in the garden with gaudy, scentless ones, so those inclined to be bizarre made an excellent foil for the refined and elegant, and thus had their uses. There is little in the world that is not of value, looking at it from ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... malua ula. The malua-ula was a variety of tapa that was stained with hili kukui (the root-bark of the kukui tree). The ripe kukui nut was chewed into a paste and mingled with this stain. Mama ula refers to this chewing. The malua ula is mentioned as a foil to the pa-u, being a ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... brass locks that were screwed onto the inside of the door, with a brass covering for the bolt at the side—not morticed as is now usual. Mrs. Dale locked her son in after he retired to bed. Harry noticed the circumstance and smiled to think how easily he could foil her but as he had promised the doctor to make no attempt on his mother that night, he went to bed and slept soundly. Next day he provided himself with a turn-screw and a small phial of sweet oil. When mamma was busy at cards, he slipped upstairs and easily unscrewed ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... simple garment of thin, shimmering stuff, diaphanous as finest silk. It was black, caught at one shoulder with a flashing green stone. The other shoulder was bared, and the black garment was a perfect foil for the whiteness of her perfect skin, her amazing blue eyes, and the ...
— Priestess of the Flame • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... Scott's historical novels (1716). Morton is the best of his young heroes, and serves as an excellent foil to the fanatical and gloomy Burley. The two classes of actors, viz., the brave and dissolute cavaliers, and the resolute, oppressed covenanters, are drawn in bold relief. The most striking incidents are the terrible ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... contemptuous comparison with the author of Paradise Lost[2]. From this time, all my praises of Johnston became ridiculous, and I was censured, with great freedom, for forcing upon the schools an author whom Mr. Pope had mentioned only as a foil to a better poet. On this occasion, it was natural not to be pleased, and my resentment seeking to discharge itself somewhere, was unhappily directed against Milton. I resolved to attack his fame, and found some passages in cursory reading, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... serious and judicious, as well as the most educated, of our friends; and so at last the Norcoms, during their brief but concentrated, most vivid and momentous, reign, a matter, as I recall it, of a couple of breathless winters. We were provided by their presence with as happy a foil as we could have wished to the plainness and dryness of the Wards; their homely grace was all their own and was also embodied in three brothers, Eugene, Reginald, Albert, whose ages would have corresponded, I surmise, with those of Johnny, Charley and Freddy ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... I fancy a resemblance even in their portraits. Thoreau is the Lamb of New England fields and woods, and Lamb is the Thoreau of London streets and clubs. There was a willfulness and perversity about Thoreau, behind which he concealed his shyness and his thin skin, and there was a similar foil in Lamb, though less marked, on account of his good-nature; that was a part of ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... 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 ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... front. His horse still had strength and speed, but showed signs of breaking. Presently Duane looked back. Pursuers—he could not count how many—were loping along in his rear. He paid no more attention to them, and with teeth set he faced ahead, grimmer now in his determination to foil them. ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... well-being, [74] or the rival standards thereof, of origins and issues. And yet, with all their gaiety, as its last triumphant note in truth, they were ready to trifle with death, welcoming, by way of a foil to the easy character of their days, a certain luxurious sense of danger—the night-alarm, the arquebuse peeping from some quiet farm-building across their way, the rumoured presence in their neighbourhood ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... gallows, the more hardened Peace would have gained notoriety by the raising of wrecks and the patronage of Mr. Plimsoll. And since both preserved a certain courage to the end, since both died on the scaffold as becomes a man, the contrast is once more characteristic. Brodie's cynicism is a fine foil to the piety of Peace; and while each end was natural after its own fashion, there is none who will deny to the Scot the finer sense of fitness. Nor did any step in their career explain more clearly the difference in their temperament than their ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... his steadfast footsteps in the sea, Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, Spares but the cloudy border of his base To the foil'd ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... in again, through Joe's guard, darting his blade as though it were a foil. A cut opening magically on Joe's chest from the left nipple to navel, ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... And many a painful chase, the wise old hound Regardless of the frolic pack, attends His master's side, or slumbers at his ease Beneath the bending shade; there many a ring 220 Runs o'er in dreams; now on the doubtful foil Puzzles perplexed, or doubles intricate Cautious unfolds, then winged with all his speed, Bounds o'er the lawn to seize his panting prey: And in imperfect whimperings speaks his joy. A different hound for every different chase Select with judgment; ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... have passed the day in my chamber lamenting the kindest of lords, the best of masters. Last evening I heard the soldiers boasting that today they would capture the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and I determined to foil them. They have been feasting and drinking all night, and it is but now that the troopers have fallen into a drunken slumber and I was able to possess myself of ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... what Mr. OWEN NARES was doing in this galley; and I cannot tell you. I can only say that he was very brave about it all. In a sense it was a serious performance, the only one of its kind in the play; yet not serious enough to serve as a foil for the general frivolity, for he was constantly bringing his own high sentiments into ridicule, and so burlesquing the OWEN NARES that we love ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... appearances, a military man as well) took from his pocket-book a fifty-pound banknote, and held it up before me. "I have a heavy wager depending on a fencing match," he said, "and I have no time to improve myself. Teach me a trick which will make me a match for a man skilled in the use of the foil, and keep the secret—and there ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... escort, Ritchie and Lyon reached Murzuk without molestation, but there the former died on the 2nd November, worn out by the fatigue and privations of the journey across the desert. Lyon, who was ill for some time from the same causes, recovered soon enough to foil the designs of the sultan, who counting on his death, had already begun to take possession of his property, and also of Ritchie's. The captain could not penetrate beyond the southern boundaries of Fezzan, but he had time to collect ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... particles pack together, the less the circulation of air through the mass, and the smaller the amount of aroma which is carried away. He also found that glass makes the best container for coffee, with the tin can, and the foil-lined bag with an inner lining ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the moment I heard of Mr Johnson's arrival; but so defective was my intelligence, that I came too late. It is but justice to believe, that I could never forgive myself, nor deserve to be forgiven by others, if I was to foil in any mark of respect to that very great genius.—I hold him in the highest veneration: for that very reason I was resolved to take no share in the merit, perhaps guilt, of inticing him to honour ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... of the measure, for he immediately found himself fully engaged, with all his activity and courage, in endeavoring to ward the desperate thrusts made with the knife of the Huron. Unable longer to foil an enemy so alert and vigilant, he threw his arms about him, and succeeded in pinning the limbs of the other to his side, with an iron grasp, but one that was far too exhausting to himself to continue long. In this extremity he heard a ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... foil of the butcher-bird's stolidity we may set the inquisitive, garrulous temperament of the white-eyed vireo and the yellow-breasted chat. The vireo is hardly larger than the goldfinch, but let him ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... always remain Mozart's greatest work, for in it he for the first time showed himself to be a German musician. 'Don Juan' still has the complete Italian cut; besides our sacred art ought never permit itself to be degraded to the level of a foil ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... entered into Namur, a town of no strength, but commodious for the letting of his enemy's purpose, against the advice and persuasion of all his captains; which, if he had not done, out of doubt first Liege, and after, these countries, had had such a foil as would long after have been remembered. By his own wisdom and unconquered courage the enemy's meaning that way was frustrated."—Mason to the Council, Aug. 13: German MSS. Mary, bundle 16, State ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... this match great wagers were laid by the courtiers, as both Hamlet and Laertes were known to excel at this sword play; and Hamlet taking up the foils chose one, not at all suspecting the treachery of Laertes, or being careful to examine Laertes' weapon, who, instead of a foil or blunted sword, which the laws of fencing require, made use of one with a point, and poisoned. At first Laertes did but play with Hamlet, and suffered him to gain some advantages, which the dissembling king ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... 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 them, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... him, and this with an air of affected secrecy and mysterious importance; and, as if the dishonesty of another constituted a virtue in themselves, they would repeat this information frequently, perhaps for a month afterward, setting up their neighbour's offence as a foil to ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... in the doorway bowing gracefully, his hat held before him and his hand on his stick as though it were resting on a foil. He had the face and carriage of a gallant of the days of Congreve, and he wore his modern frock-coat with as much distinction as if it were of silk and lace. He was evidently amused. "I couldn't help overhearing the last line," he said, smiling. "It gives ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... distribution of tobacco in this country and abroad, and that this had been done by combinations made with a purpose and effect to stifle competition, control prices, and establish a monopoly, not only in the manufacture of tobacco, but also of tin-foil and licorice used in its manufacture and of its products of cigars, cigarettes, and snuffs. The tobacco suit presented a far more complicated and difficult case than the Standard Oil suit for a decree which would effectuate the will of the court and end the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... joy his heart strings swell, And blest he deems his lot; For the foil'd tyger as he fell, A ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... challenge to all other smiths, both in the Rhine 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 of ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... being used, so the general effect at dinner-time is of a huge laundry in a gale, with beautiful laundresses in low dresses sitting at table under a world of wildly flapping linen; with the lamps lit, and our black coats for a foil, the colours are really extremely pretty, though the discomfort is great. Men and women are all getting a little brown with the sea air, and the ladies have a little of the blush of spring now, instead of the pallor of winter with which they came ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... a man of Milan called Gaio. He was the most presumptuous donkey in the world, the one who knew least and who thought he knew most; the others were very modest and able craftsmen. In the presence of us all this Gaio began to talk, and said: "Miliano's foil should be preserved, and to do that, Benvenuto, you shall doff your cap; [1] for just as giving diamonds a tint is the most delicate and difficult thing in the jeweller's art, so is Miliano the greatest jeweller that ever lived, and this is ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... Higgins and a crash of glass. Kirk Anthony's face was drenched, his eyes were filled with a stinging liquid; he felt his prisoner sink limply back into his arms and beheld Higgins struggling in the grasp of big Marty Ringold, the foil-covered neck of a wine bottle ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... the way to a pleasant little court in the rear of the cabin's yard, a space between two wings and a vine-covered trellis, beyond which lay a well kept vineyard and vegetable garden. Here she turned about and faced him, poising her foil with a fine grace. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... answer, being determined to trick her as he had done previously. He went in search of little Day, whom he found with a tiny foil in his hand, making brave passes—though he was but three years old—at a big monkey. He carried him off to his wife, who stowed him away in hiding with little Dawn. To the ogress the steward served ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... points, Nos. 1, 2 and 3, Holder for the above crayons, Conte crayon, in wood, Nos. 0 and 1, 6 B. Faber's holder for Siberian lead pencil points, 4 H. Faber's holder with Siberian lead pencil point, Velour crayon, Peerless crayon sauce, Black Conte crayon sauce, in foil, White crayon, in wood, Bunch of tortillon stumps, Large grey paper stumps, Small grey paper stumps, The Peerless stump, Large rubber eraser, 4 inches by 3-4 inches square, bevelled end, Two small nigrivorine erasers, Holder for nigrivorine erasers, Piece of chamois ...
— Crayon Portraiture • Jerome A. Barhydt
... 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 of the place, and was peculiarly ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... a good and enticing fly, it is easily procurable, as its name intimates, on foil left by cattle: if the water is low and clear, with a brisk wind stirring, you may use it advantageously, because the wind usually carries great quantities of them upon the water, which induce the fish to rise. These flies ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... lip-messages that are out of the reach of words, and Mrs. Rossitur's half-spoken last charge, to take care of herself; and with these seals upon her mission Fleda set forth and joined the doctor; thankful for one foil to curiosity in the shape of a veil and only wishing that there were any invented screen that she could place between her ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... Guglielmo della Porta made his legs I hear, and when the real ones were found, his were better: and Michael Angelo said, it was not worth risquing the statue to try at restoring the old ones. There is another Hercules stands near, as a foil to Glycon's, I suppose; and the Italians tell you of our Mr. Sharp's acuteness in finding some fault till then undiscovered, a very slight one though, with some of the neck muscles: they tell it approvingly ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... that he was not driven from his command. That they insisted on keeping him there shows beyond everything that he had already impressed himself so strongly on Virginia that the authorities, although they smarted under his attacks, did not dare to meddle with him. Dinwiddie and the rest could foil him in obtaining a commission in the king's army, but they could not shake his hold upon ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... with pick-handles and now set a brilliant example in the use of this, his favorite weapon. For once the apathetic Slater was fully roused; he was tremendous, irresistible. In his capable grasp the oaken cudgel became both armor and flail; in defense it was as active as a fencing-master's foil, in offense as deadly as the kick of a mule. Beneath his formless bulk were the muscles of a gladiator; his eye had all the quickness of a prize-fighter. There was something primeval, appallingly ferocious ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... 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, Lord, ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... Ye 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... 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 and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... left him, in the position of a self-indulgent idler, preferring comfort to duty, a foil to his more conscientious rival. When the dust of the departure had cleared away, he sat on, not in the cool house, but on the hot verandah, nursing his griefs in solitude. He seemed the only person left behind, or else he seemed ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... lips were fretful, the whole appearance unhealthy, and the dark bullet-shaped head seemed too large for the thin bony little figure. Worn, fagged, and aged as Flora looked, she had still so much beauty, and far more of refinement and elegance, as to be a painful foil and contrast to the child that clung to her, waywardly refusing all response to ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Simpson!" Selingman recited, waving his cigar. "Well, well, we certainly have made a stir with our little meetings here. An inspired English Cabinet Minister, travel-stained and dusty, arrives with his valet and a black dispatch-box, to foil our schemes. Send him along, my friend. We are not at all afraid of Mr. Simpson. Perhaps we may even ask him to join ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... To foil these attempts at concealment is the business of the observers who gather information for Army Headquarters and G. H.Q. For observers on corps work the detective problems are somewhat different. This department deals with hidden saps and battery positions, ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... eyes revealed that he would have said more, but the room was meantime filling with players from the stage, some exchanging compliments, some strutting before the glass, and he would not so degrade his dignity before them. Dick, foil in hand even in the manager's room, was testing the steel's strength to ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... pine oil snake prose parch wild moil baste those starch mild coil haste froze larch tile foil taste force lark slide soil paste porch stark glide toil bunch broth prism spent boy hunch cloth sixth fence coy lunch froth stint hence hoy punch moth smith pence joy plump botch whist thence toy stump stock ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... Other, but 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
... twenty-five, a face peaceful, placid, and 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
... 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
... at her side in the uniform of an American captain with his black curls and dark face, made a splendid foil for Ruth's beauty. Behind him walked his twin sister—as like Tom Cameron as another pea in a pod—and Ann Hicks, both in rose-color, completing a color scheme worthy of the taste of whoever ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... consider 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 ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... 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
... draped, where, by the light of the shaded lamp, he saw a woman of full round figure reclining upon a couch in such a position as not to disturb a pile of magnificent hair on the crown of her head. A deep purple dressing-gown formed an admirable foil to the peculiarly rich brown of her hair-plaits; her left arm, which was naked nearly up to the shoulder, was thrown upward, and between the fingers of her right hand she held a cigarette, while she idly breathed from her plump lips a thin stream ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... M. de Valensolle must not be arrested. It was better to follow him on his pretended journey to Geneva, which was probably but a blind to foil investigation. It was therefore agreed that Roland, whose disguise, however good, was liable to be penetrated, should remain at the lodge, and Michel and Jacques should head off the game. In all probabilities, M. de Valensolle would not set out ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... for fight,[161-1] After a thousand victories, once foil'd, Is from the books of honour razed quite, And all the rest forgot ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... been justified on carrying off with him on a quiet holiday, His Cousin Adair, by GORDON ROY. The book has all the requisites of a good novel, including the perhaps rarest one of literary style. Cousin Adair is well worth knowing, and her character is skilfully portrayed. As a foil against this high-minded, pure-souled unselfish girl, there are sketched in two or three of the sort of people, men and women, more frequently met with in this wicked world. But Cousin Adair is good enough to leaven the lump. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... Africans 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... express'd Love's better omens, in the green hues dress'd Of this 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
... 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... the purity of distilled water by slowly evaporating a few drops on Pt foil in a room free from dust. There should be no spot or residue left on the foil. Test in the same way undistilled water. 137. Water exists in Three States,— solid, liquid, and vaporous. It freezes at 0 degrees, suddenly expanding considerably as it passes into ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... Potta, gibbeted for her filthy streets. The Sienese discover that the world accounts them lunatics. The Florentines and Perugians are branded for notorious vice. Roman foppery, fantastical in feminine pretentiousness, serves as a foil to drag Culagna down into the ditch of ignominy. Here and there, Tassoni's satire is both venomous and pungent, as when he paints the dotage of the Empire, stabs Spanish pride of sovereignty, and menaces the Papacy with insurrection. But for the most ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... combination. Bakkus sang his ballads and an occasional humorous song of the moment to Andrew's accompaniment on mandolin or one-stringed violin, and Andrew conjured and juggled comically, using Bakkus as his dull-witted foil. A complete little performance, the patter and business artistically thought out and perfectly rehearsed. They wore the conventional Pierrot costume with whited faces and ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... graceful; his atmosphere omnipresent, enveloping. In composition he rather pushed aside line in favor of light and color. It was his technical peculiarity that he centralized his light and surrounded it by darks as a foil. And in this very feature he was one of the first men in Renaissance Italy to paint a picture for the purpose of weaving a scheme of lights and darks through a tapestry of rich colors. That is art for art's sake, ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... 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
... to the extent of aspersing his personal reputation, although there had never been the slightest personal collision. Its bitter and invidious spirit was not in the least disguised by a few exaggerated compliments adroitly inserted here and there: these merely furnish the foil needed to give greater potency and efficiency to the personal insinuations, and, like Mark Antony's compliments to Caesar's assassins, subserved quite too many politic purposes to be accepted as sincere. ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... Lady Kirkbank in her cotton frock was a spectacle at which youth laughed and age blushed. But after all it did not matter to Lesbia. She would have liked a less rowdy chaperon; but as a foil to her own fresh young beauty Lady ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... piety, knowledge, perseverance, diligence, and success in the ministry, as of a vessel filled with grace, and ordained to honour. Still, when he spoke of himself as man, he used the strongest terms of self-abasement. He had no doubt he should be able to foil Dr. Beaumont in argument, and convince him that the Anglican church was really anti-christian. His benevolence and liberality urged him to undertake this office at this time, in hopes that, since the Doctor's subsistence depended upon his acquiescence, expediency ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... was probably anxious that a new parliament should be elected before any event took place which might suggest doubt as to the success of his American policy. Besides, he was anxious to secure more men of landed property as members, and reckoned that a sudden dissolution would foil "the nabobs, planters, and other volunteers," who would not be ready for the battle.[95] His design was successful, and the election as a whole was marked by the predominance of the country gentlemen, at that period the best element in a house of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... the nacre of any mussel or oyster shell you might cut, at your pleasure, any quantity of small flat circular disks of the prettiest color and luster. To some extent, such tinsel or foil of shell is used pleasantly for decoration. But the mussel or oyster becoming itself an unwilling modeler, agglutinates its juice into three dimensions, and the fact of the surface being now geometrically gradated, together with the savage instinct of attributing value ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... more to help me, 'Will face yon Graces Three; 'Will guard the Holy Tripod, 'And the M.A. Degree. 'We know that by obstruction 'Three may a thousand foil. 'Now who will stand on either hand 'To ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... 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 ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... classes of society,—have been, alas! little attended to. Our extensive commerce enables us to procure, and we do actually import most of the valuable commodities which are the produce either of the foil of the ocean, or of the industry of man in all the various regions of the habitable globe;—but the result of the EXPERIENCE OF AGES respecting the use that can be made of those commodities has seldom been thought worth importing! I never see maccaroni in England, or polenta in Germany, ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... in the highest feather and in the full employment of all those little arts and graces which served as a foil to his real worth, I took it as a great honour that he laid them aside for the nonce; and introduced me to the seat of honour and made me known to his companions with a boyish directness and a simple thought for my comfort which infinitely pleased ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... worked for Fern," explained Mr. Weil. "He got hold of some of these notes and checks, in Fern's office, and is coming to look us up to-day, for the purpose of having his employer arrested. A nice game, eh? But we will foil him, won't we? We'll show him a trick worth several of his! He's probably gone to the Hoffman House and he'll hang round till he finds me. I'll send word that I am to be home this afternoon at five. You will be there ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... Brownsdon's (Jour. Soc. Chem. Ind., xxiv., April 1905) process is as follows:—The cap composition is removed by squeezing the cap with pliers, while held over a porcelain basin of about 200 c.c. capacity, and removing the loosened foil and broken composition by means of a pointed wooden chip. Composition adhering to the shell or foil is loosened by alcohol, and washed into the dish by means of alcohol in a small wash bottle. The shell and foil ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... among others that of her husband's sister, Madame de Listomere, who until now had patronized her, thinking that she protected a foil to her own merits. A countess, beautiful, witty and virtuous!—what a prey for the tongues of the world! Felix had broken with too many women, and too many women had broken with him, to leave them indifferent to his marriage. When these women beheld in Madame de Vandenesse a small ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... dead silk that imitates crape, but is much softer. So quiet, so like a wraith, and yet with a fascinating loveliness in her eyes, in her tender, blossom-like face, in her fresh young voice. She makes no blunders, she is not awkward, she is not loud. Cecil is her foil,—Cecil, in lace over infantile blue, with a knot of streamers on one shoulder in narrow blue satin ribbon and a blue sash. Floyd is host, of course, so Cecil would be left exclusively with her pretty ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... need Thy presence every passing hour; Who but Thyself can foil the tempter's power? When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, Lord, abide ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... didn't use that stick as though it were a club, swinging it like a baseball bat. That would be as silly as using an overhand stab with a dagger. He used it the way a fencer would use a foil, and the hard, blunt end of it sank into the first thug's solar plexus with all the drive of the Duke's right arm and shoulder behind it. The thug gave a hoarse scream as all the air was driven from his lungs, and he ...
— Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... call on a manager and keeping your face to him so that he can't get away with your back collar-stud, you don't take any notice of it. It's all a game. If a manager swindles you, he wins the hole and takes the honor. If you foil him, you are one up. In either case, it makes no difference to the pleasantness of your relations. You go on calling him by his first name, and he gives you a couple of cigars out of his waistcoat pocket and says ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... 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 the Doctor ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... thing, and rich in blossoms and fruits of all kinds. Let the wonderful plant, which I will not name, have its place. It will serve at least as a foil to the bright-gleaming pomegranate and the yellow oranges. Or should there be, perhaps, instead of this motley abundance, only one perfect flower, which combines all the beauties of the rest ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... not kept to this way of declaiming when Sophocles and Euripides influenc'd the age. Nor yet had any blind alley-professor foil'd their inclinations, when Pindar and the Nine Lyricks durst not attempt Homer's Numbers: And that I may not bring my authority from poets, 'tis certain, neither Plato nor Demosthenes ever made it their ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... gave birth to a herd of imitators, among whom were sons and nephews of his own; but as, like most imitators, they could do little more than mimic his defects without reaching his excellencies, they served only as a foil to set off the lustre of his great successor Sophocles, who, while yet his scholar, aspired to be his competitor, and gained the preeminence at ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... her 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 ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... that a water-ice is the only form of nourishment his stomach will retain, he is driven to the conviction that there is something wrong, and that he had better see the doctor. The result of the young athlete's visit to the doctor was that he mournfully laid down the dumb-bells and the foil, eschewed gymnastics, and ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... secretary knew from fiction and the drama that the Iron King would never appreciate her until he stood in danger of losing her. She welcomed the Poet as a foil and misquoted his poetry twice before tea was over; then she invited him to accompany her to a picture palace, but the Poet, once inside the citadel, was reluctant to leave it until his position was ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... He put on an apron as of yore and started his son under his personal supervision in the washing-room. He took off his apron when Johann knew all about handling chicle products, from importing-bag to tin-foil wrapper. Then he died. ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... spurred by his responsibility, gradually came around to something like his old arbitrary self. Yank Tate, the carpenter, maintained through it all a patient faith in the captain, and, in so far as his influence could be felt, acted as a foil to the irascible, fault-finding Tom Plate, the forecastle lawyer, the man who had been at the lead-line at Barbados. But the rest of them were dazed and nerveless, too shaken in brain and body to consider seriously Tom's proposition to toss the afterguard overboard and beach the brig on the South ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... awkwardly dangles he! When whip you trot up, without minding your betters, To the very coach side, and threaten your letters. Is the poison [and dagger] you boast in your jaws, trow? Are you still in your cart with convitia ex plaustro? But to scold is your trade, which I soon should be foil'd in, For scolding is just quasi diceres—school-din: And I think I may say, you could many good shillings get, Were you drest like a bawd, and sold oysters at Billingsgate; But coach it or cart it, I'd have you know, sirrah, I'll write, though ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... course, achieve spiritual maturity and sobriety in this respect in different degrees; and those who fail of the average remain as an undissolved residue of crude humanity in the modern industrial community and as a foil for that selective process of adaptation which makes for a heightened industrial efficiency and the fullness of life of the collectivity. This arrested spiritual development may express itself not only in a direct ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... astonishing memory and the training he gave it, his superb dramatic faculty, which enabled him to arrange his other characters around the main figure, and to subordinate them all to his central emphasis—all these qualities are undeniable. Moreover he was himself the most perfect foil and contrast to Johnson that could be imagined, while he possessed in a unique degree the power of both stimulating and provoking his hero to animation and to wrath. Boswell may not have known what an artist ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... over the place! All the snow was gone from 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 were loose. We ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... beguiles my pain, or more dreary apathy, why not let her exert her power to the utmost and make herself useful? Yes, but she will try to do more than amuse. Well, suppose she does; one can coolly foil such efforts. Not so sure of that. If I were dealing with a man I could, but one must be worse than a clod to hear her sing and not feel. I suppose I made a weak fool of myself before them all last night, and they thought I was on the eve of ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... highlands And lowlands hot with fruit, Sea-bays and shoals and islands, And cliffs that foil man's foot, And all the flower of large-limbed life and all ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... of it is, that she manages to make me appear so unamiable and unattractive in my husband's eyes," she sighed to herself. "But I'll foil her efforts," she added, between her shut teeth, springing up, and beginning her toilet as she spoke: "he likes to have me bright and cheery, and well and becomingly dressed, and so I ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... more mean?—to knit their souls— On whom there is no more dependency But brats and beggary,—in self-figur'd knot, Yet you are curb'd from that enlargement by The consequence o' the crown, and must not foil The precious note of it with a base slave, A hilding for a livery, a squire's cloth, A pantler, ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... before a song or invocation, in which he mentioned the wants of the wretched Indians, and the cunning endeavours of the Evil Spirit to keep them in his service, and ended by begging his master to shew his own superiority, and enable his priest to foil the tricks of his adversary. The tribe assembled, just as they had done on the previous days. But they were more anxious now than they had been before, because the more there is in the cabin of a man, the greater is his thirst to increase ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... spendthrift of its pigments. Every isolated copse was a mimic forest fire, each bivouacked corn-field a russet foil, the air a heady wine. Shelby thrilled with dumb pastorals and a vague longing to do and speak in keeping with the spirit of the scene. A tuft of oxeye daisies in the shelter of a ruinous worm fence attracted him, and he reined the cob from the highway ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... large proportion of the native gold is consumed by local artisans in the manufacture of these ornaments, and is not counted in the official returns. An equal amount, perhaps, is worked up into gold foil and used for gilding temples, palaces and the houses of the rich. Like all orientals, the Indians are very fond of gilding, and immense quantities of pure gold leaf are manufactured in little shops that may be seen ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... 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 ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... unsolved antinomies. Here is one such contradiction or antinomy. Moving water, it has been shown, is suggestive of life. But over against it we find a suggestion of death. Indeed there has been a widely diffused belief in a river of death—a striking foil to the inspiring mysticism of the river of life. The old-world mythology taught, in varying forms, but with underlying unity of concept, that there is a river, or gulf, which must be crossed by the departing soul on its way to the land of the departed. ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... diseases by pulling mill-foil in a particular way, repeating a few Latin words—sometimes benedictions, but more frequently maledictions—and performing certain mysterious operations at the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... nothing more. A deviation amounting to two or three of our strides is enough to make her lose her way and to keep her from returning to her people, whereas miles across unknown country will not foil the Mason-bee. I expressed my surprise, just now, that man was deprived of a wonderful sense wherewith certain animals are endowed. The enormous distance between the two things compared might furnish matter ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... sort of way; nay, it might even be said that she was fond of him. But what she liked better than him was to gratify her vanity, by showing her power over the finest young fellow in the village, and to use him as a foil to aggravate George Hawker. My aunt Betsy (spinster), used to say, that if she were a man, sooner than stand that hussy's airs (meaning Mary's), in the way young Stockbridge did, she'd cut, and run to America, which, in the old lady's ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... foil the dragomans. He led his patron in a direction opposite to that where he had left Elias. But, looking back, he saw two figures shadowing them, and ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... a thought, only the way they were placed being important. The elaborate preparation for the story-telling; the grouping of them as a whole, in contrast with the greater story he put as their contrast and foil; the solemn gloom, the deep chiaroscuro of this framing, painted like a miniature; the artful way in which he prepares for his lieta brigata the way out of the charnel-house: these are the real 'Decameron.' The author presents it in a prelude ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... splendidly developed, was my son? From me he took his wealth of nature, for Mr. Fontevrault was one of those dried, wrinkled old men, women like me often marry; not because of the settlements only, but because of the foil. My figure was moulded like the Venus they copied in the colder marble from Pauline. Shoulders and arms, delicious in their curves, shining with a rosy fairness. A creamy skin, with a faint coralline ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a word 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 between them. Is ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... tell me," says I. "You see, right after dinner Brink was missin' and everybody was wonderin' what had become of him, when all of a sudden he bobs up through a tin-foil lake in the middle of the table and proceeds to do this crab impersonation in costume. They say it ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... old Earl, "that is what every man runs the risk of. 'Tis not the first time you have held a foil. Who ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... slaughter; Nor Nobles siding to make John no King, French Jews unjustly to the Crown to bring; No Edward, Richard, to lose rule and life, Nor no Lancastrians to renew old strife; No Duke of York nor Earl of March to soyle Their hands in kindred's blood whom they did foil. No crafty Tyrant now usurps the Seat, Who Nephews slew that so he might be great; No need of Tudor Roses to unite, None knows which is the Red or which the White; Spain's braving Fleet a second time is sunk, France knows how oft my fury she hath drunk; ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... his hand on his sword and replied, "Your dogs would devour me, my good fellow, and I foil them. They would employ their teeth upon me as I would mine if I had before me a morsel of that appetizing boar, for I am lost in the forest since yesterday morning and ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... a sense of reverent appreciation that makes one linger long after the usual round of "sights" has been accomplished. The war memorial, dignified and austere, that was placed outside the west front in the autumn of 1921, is a most effective foil to the singularly unimposing pile of stone and glass behind it. But, however it may lack the elegance of the usual west "screen," this end of Winchester Cathedral has the great merit of being ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... somewhat compact. After the bits of cabbage and onion had been removed, I looked beneath them to see whether the worms had accidentally come up from below, but there was no sign of a burrow; and twice the buried objects were laid on pieces of tin-foil which were not in the least displaced. It is of course possible that the worms whilst moving about on the surface of the ground, with their tails affixed within their burrows, may have poked their heads into the places where the above objects were buried; but I have never seen worms acting in this ...
— The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with • Charles Darwin
... Anstruther, Major Hardwicke, and Captain Murray merrily discussed the sudden hastening of Captain Eric Murray's nuptials. Hardwicke's duty as "best man" was now the only bar to the beginning of a campaign destined to foil Andrew Fraser's Loch Leven tactics of imprisoning his ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... his youth had been trained to a different civilization, and there was a touching gentleness in his face, as if he expressed still the mental attitude of a class which had existed merely as a support or a foil to the order above it. Without spirit to resent, he, with his fellows, had endured the greatest evils of slavery. With the curse of free labour on the land, there had been no incentive for toil, no hire for the labourer. Like an incubus the system had lain over ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... war to 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 |
