"Foil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... happened to call. He was his old self again, simple, friendly, contented. Theobald was in one of his self-satisfied moods. Perhaps he enjoyed the triumph of his position in regard to Hadria. At any rate, he seemed to pounce on the new-comer as a foil to his own brilliancy. Joseph had no talent to oppose to it, but he had a simple dignity, the offspring of a kind and generous nature, which made Professor Theobald's conduct towards him appear contemptible. Professor Fortescue shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Hadria tried to ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... from her retirement. There, beside his horse, stood Lassiter, his dark apparel and the great black gun-sheaths contrasting singularly with his gentle smile. Jane's active mind took up her interest in him and her half-determined desire to use what charm she had to foil his evident design in visiting Cottonwoods. If she could mitigate his hatred of Mormons, or at least keep him from killing more of them, not only would she be saving her people, but also be leading back this bloodspiller to ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... few chapters, in favour of more complex characterisation. Bob Calverley, the young squatter, really holds a third or fourth place in relation to the main motive of the story, and is used rather as a foil than as an exemplar of anything typically Australian. He does not bear any active part in the drama of passion and intrigue; he is not even permitted to be ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... the clerk of the kitchen, and told him that she intended that night to sup out of little Day. He answered never a word, being resolved to cheat her as he had done before. He went to find little Day, and saw him with a foil in his hand, with which he was fencing with a monkey, the child being but three years old. He took him up in his arms and carried him to his wife, that she might conceal him in her chamber, along ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... Meredith 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 us ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that was loathsomely dirty. A heavy charge was made for the use of the place, and also for the hire of the cook's lurky, a flat-bottomed kind of boat constructed of rough planks. These boats were invariably so leaky that on the passage to and from the shore they became half-foil of water, and the food was frequently spoiled in consequence. But, even if all went right, the crews often had to partake of badly cooked, cold rations. Many a meal was lost altogether, and once or twice a poor cook who could not swim was drowned by the boat filling and capsizing. The frail ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... 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 ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... 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
... the ghostly foe our souls abuse, And all beyond his force he gains by ruse; He hates the purpose fast he cannot foil,— Then he retreats—retreats but to recoil! In endless barricade obstruction piles, To-day 'tis tears impede, to-morrow—smiles! And this poor dream—his coinage of the night Gives place to other lures, all falsely bright: All tricks he knows and ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... red flags; or burn joss-sticks before idols; or grope our way by the help of conventional eyes that have no sight in them; or sacrifice substantial facts for absurd forms? The ignorant crew of the Keying refused to enter on the ships' books, until 'a considerable amount of silvered-paper, tin-foil, and joss-stick' had been laid in by the owners for the purposes of their worship. And I wonder whether our seamen, let alone our bishops and deacons, ever stand out upon points of silvered-paper and tin-foil and joss-sticks. To be sure Christianity is not Chin-Teeism, and that I suppose ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... 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
... are known and used by the Grand Masters alone, the common members being wholly ignorant of their existence; and thus it is, that these grandees can so completely foil their followers, without the least risk of the latter being the wiser. The qualities are made for the special purpose of designating each individual, and at the same time be entirely safe from the least suspicion. When a Grand Master has had the honour of promotion conferred, ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... ia ka 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 ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... construction shown in Fig. 41, the anode is put in first. This anode simply consists of a square bit of platinum or platinum-iridium foil, measuring about 0.75 inch by 1 inch, and riveted on to ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... 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
... he is now by fortune foil'd No more; and we retain The memory of a man unspoil'd, Sweet, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... a young friend's Album (six will be enough). M. Burney will tell you who she is I want 'em for. A girl of gold. Six lines—make 'em eight—signed Barry C——. They need not be very good, as I chiefly want 'em as a foil to mine. But I shall be seriously obliged by any refuse scrap. We are in the last ages of the world, when St. Paul prophesied that women should be 'headstrong, lovers of their own wills, having Albums.' I fled hither to escape the Albumean persecution, and had not been in my new house 24 hours, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... seven feet high, with minds and manners to match their physique, and set above the rest of the world for its good; for I found it necessary (so that my dream should have a point) to provide them with a foil in the shape of millions of such people as we meet every day. I was egotistic and self-seeking enough, it is true, to enroll myself among the former, and had chosen for my particular use and wear just such a frame as that of the Theseus, with, of course, the nose and hands and feet (of ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... Ephesian hierarchy. But the female characters, as is almost always the case in the Greek romances, are far better drawn, and infinitely more interesting, than the men. Even Melissa, though apparently intended only as a foil to the perfections of Leucippe, wins upon us by her amorous weakness, and the invincible kindness of heart which impels her, even when acquainted with the real state of affairs, to protect the lovers against her husband's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... 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 there has been no painter ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... consequence, he made this confession to me in a moment of agitation. He was, he said, overpowered by a sentiment with regard to me which amounted to this—that a man wanted, after all, to be something more than a cipher in his own house, where, if anywhere, it is not pleasant to serve as a mere foil to some one else. This sentiment was merely excusable, he thought, in a man who, though he might reasonably suppose himself of some account among his fellows, had been brought into close contact with another to whom he felt himself in the strangest manner subordinate. Mme. Wille, foreseeing ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... strength and art were tried, The stately tree all force defied. Well might the elm resist and foil their might, For though his branches were decay'd to sight, As many as his leaves the roots spread round, And in the firm set earth they ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... suffice to represent that new literature which began to rise after the violent removal of the old. They do not belong to the history of Anglo-Saxon literature except indirectly as a foil and a contrast. They show how ready were new forms to take the place of the old. But while the English language was thus following the natural and spontaneous course of its development, there still survived a powerful interest in the old classical Englisc. The seat ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... the Moon. Ham radios all 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 used on space ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett
... stately Palace built of squared brick, Which cunningly was without mortar laid, Whose walls were high, but nothing strong, nor thick, And golden foil all over them displayed, That purest sky with brightness they dismayed. High lifted up were many lofty towers And goodly galleries far overlaid, Full of fair windows, and delightful bowers, And on the top a dial told ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... why Mr. Browning treats the shallower political cunning as merely a foil to the deeper, instead of opposing to it something better than both: but he finds the natural contrast to the half-successful schemer in the wholly triumphant one: and the second picture, like the first, has been drawn from life. It is ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... 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 his ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... the time when these prints were first published, were noted for teaching the arts of defence by different weapons, and who are here drawn from the life; one of whom is a Frenchman, teacher of the small-sword, making a thrust with his foil; the other an Englishman, master of the quarter-staff; the vivacity of the first, and the cold contempt visible in the face of the second, beautifully describe the natural disposition of the two nations. On the left of the ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... very cunning; they are called by the French Canadian the savants, the knowing ones, and seem to understand the wiles of the fisherman. They warn off the others and so foil the design against them. But greediness proves often their destruction. From over-feeding year after year they become fat and stupid and they too are likely in time to be taken. The less knowing beluga has usually slight ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... 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 tinge in the cheeks. The forehead is too low, some ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... one. The gleam of spring sunset was bright in her hair, and in the soft garnish of health on her cheeks, and the vigorous play of young life in her eyes; while the silvery glance of the sloping shore, and breezy ruffle of the darkening sea, did nothing but offer a foil for the form of the shell-colored ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... producing a mild x-ray erythema; and in some instances benefit or cure only occurs after more active exposure, sufficient to cause an x-ray burn of the second degree. The method is not attended with much risk if properly used. The healthy parts should be protected by lead-foil. Exposure should be two to five times weekly, at a distance of three to eight inches, and from five to twenty minutes, employing a tube of medium vacuum. Unfortunately the method is usually slow. The radium treatment is essentially similar to that ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... others, but to be pleased in return, cruelly hurt by surging against this rock-bound coast, piqued and almost angered, sent into moods of daring, seductive warmth and gayety, quite capable of making a foil of Dr. Maverick, who was strangely puzzled by her contradictory moods. But for one thing, he must have tried to cage the dazzling, elusive spirit: he, too, had a strong sense of honor toward his friend; and he could only imagine ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... successful 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
... the second time, so far as I was concerned, we reached the reached the headquarters at Torrecilla, and were well received by the Spanish commander—in—chief, a tall, good—looking, soldierlike man, whose personal qualities had an excellent foil in the captain—general of the province, an old friend of mine, as already mentioned, and who certainly looked full as like a dancing—master, or, at the best, perruquier en general to the staff, as ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... in the 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
... counted the frequent afternoon visits to Mereside, and the scarcely less frequent evenings spent in the Farnham home. Again in harmony with the later prefigurings, he was using each of the young women as a foil for the other in the outworking of his plot; and he welcomed it as a sign of growth that the story in its new form was acquiring verisimilitude and becoming gratefully, and at times, he ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... 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 petticoats, and modifications of the metasses. Once ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... 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
... praises through, But telling what I may to ease my mind. And I declare that when I speak thereof Love sheds such perfect sweetness over me That if my courage failed not, certainly To him my listeners must be all resign'd. Wherefore I will not speak in such large kind That mine own speech should foil me, which were base; But only will discourse of her high grace In these poor words, the best that I can find, With you alone dear dames and damozels: 'Twere ill to speak thereof with any else. . . . . . . . . My lady is desired in the high Heaven; WHEREFORE, it now behoveth me to tell, ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... me a half hour's practice, for the most part in quatre and tierce,—my A B C's, as it were,—and the ease with which he held me off and bent his foil against my breast at pleasure chafed me greatly, and showed me how much I had yet to learn, besides making me somewhat less vain of my size and strength. For my antagonist was but a small man, ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... be tolerated, even as a foil to The virtue and generosity of the other characters in the play, But for its indefatigable industry and inexhaustible resources, Which divert the attention of the spectator (as well as his own) from the end he has in view to the means by which it must be accomplished.—Edmund ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... 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 had never been written," the "Holy War made ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... of his later proposals in a Parliament which was packed by the Regent, and by the actual conclusion of a marriage-treaty. But if Francis could spare neither horse nor man for action in Scotland his influence in the northern kingdom was strong enough to foil Henry's plans. The Churchmen were as bitterly opposed to such a marriage as the partizans of France; and their head, Cardinal Beaton, who had held aloof from the Regent's Parliament, suddenly seized the Queen-mother and her babe, ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... application of the induction telegraph was to establish communication with moving trains. Several experimenters had suggested it, but it remained for Thomas A. Edison to actually accomplish it. He set up a plate of tin-foil on the engine or cars, opposite the telegraph wires. Currents could be induced across the gap, no matter what the speed of the train, and, traveling along the wires to the station, communication was thus established. Had Edison continued his investigation further, instead of turning ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... music of the spheres, He laid him down upon a roseate bank To dream of holiness!—He hath not stirred.— 'Twas well I did not speak to Bellingham, For we have not been noted. Good, so far. All eyes are busy with their own affairs; I'll wake him now and foil discovery. ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... A further washing in hot lye, and a bath in an acid pickle, completely removes every vestige of wax from the shell. The back of the shell is now moistened with soldering fluid and covered with a layer of tin-foil, which acts as a solder between the copper and ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... made of two pieces of tin-foil, four by ten, and three pieces of waxed paper a little larger than the foil. A piece of wire is twisted into the end of each piece of foil, and then one sheet of foil is laid on a sheet of paper. This is then covered by another sheet of paper upon which is laid the second sheet ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... 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 participation by adults in youthful ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... bed he had climbed and downstairs he had come; and here he was, to all appearances, just in time to foil the very plot on which he had been brooding. Mr. Peters might be in bed, but there in the hall below him stood the accomplice, not ten paces from the museum's door. He arrived on the spot at ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... first hit for Captain Weisspriess?' Count Medole said this while handing a fresh and fairly-buttoned foil ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... are his countrymen rightly matched against the Welsh," replied Dennis Morolt, "that their solid and unyielding temper may be a fit foil to the fiery and headlong dispositions of our dangerous neighbours, just as restless waves are best opposed by steadfast rocks.—Hark, sir, I hear Wilkin Flammock's step ascending the turret-stair, as deliberately as ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... falls short of expressing the full force of the Chinese word, which implies not an attitude of defense, whereby one might be content to foil the enemy's stratagems one after another, but an active policy of counter- attack. Ho Shih puts this very clearly in his note: "When the enemy has made a plan of attack against us, we must anticipate him by ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... rich array, Light, lustrous hair about her brow, She yonder sat, a kind of day Lit up what seems so gloomy now. These grim oak walls even then were grim; That old carved chair was then antique; But what around looked dusk and dim Served as a foil to her fresh cheek; Her neck and arms, of hue so fair, Eyes of unclouded, smiling light; Her soft, and curled, and floating hair, Gems and attire, ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... 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 blue and silver ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... woods which cover the W. bank of the Avon, near Clifton. They form a fine foil to the open downs opposite. To enter them cross the Suspension Bridge into Somerset, take first turning to R., cross the intervening combe, which runs up from the river, by the first available footpath, and then wander at your will. Hidden away amongst the trees are the ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... throbbing, how the welcome in her glad sweet eyes has thrilled him, no one looking at him could divine. "I said you were not so unprotected as you imagined," he adds, looking round with a grim smile. "We got here in time to foil ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... with your permission, make the victory more definite," replied the poet, testing his foil and saluting ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... and last stage advanced him to downright assurance, which having reached, he stopped at nothing. From this forward he began to retort upon his clerical companions, who found that the sheepish youth whom they had often made ridiculous, possessed skill, when properly excited, to foil them at their own weapons. He observed many things in their convivial meetings. The holy man, whom his flock looked upon as a being of the highest sanctity, when lit up into fun and frolic, Denis learned to estimate at his just value. He thought, besides, that a person ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... for like. This would foil the devil: this would make him say, I must not deal with this man thus; for then I put a sword into his hand ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... 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 ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... said the Captain: and bending to Pendennis, he added, "Rejuiced in circumstances, sir, I was for some time a fencing-master in Dublin (there's only three men in the empire could touch me with the foil once, but Jack Costigan's getting old and stiff now, sir), and my daughter had an engagement at the thayater there; and 'twas there that my friend, Mr. Bows, who saw her capabilities, and is an uncommon 'cute man, gave her lessons ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to seek him, but was almost slain, Perhaps is dead now; everywhere The knights come foil'd from the great quest, in vain; In vain they struggle for ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... the hilt through the flesh of his enemy's forearm. With a cry of pain O'Grady dropped his club, and the two crashed to the stone floor of the trail. This was the attack that Jan had feared and tried to foil, and with a lightning-like squirming movement he swung himself half free, and on his back, with O'Grady's huge hands linking at his throat, he drew back his knife arm for the ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... conviction of a group of Jehovah's Witnesses in Maryland for using a public park without first obtaining a permit.[60] The third case,[61] which had nothing to do with religion, affords an interesting foil to the other two. It is dealt ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... utilized the time in which they were talking by silently taking a foil from the nearest chest). Back! Do not come any nearer. You see this door ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... URBAN! indefatigable man, Unwearied yet by all thy useful toil! Whom num'rous slanderers assault in vain; Whom no base calumny can put to foil. But still the laurel on thy learned brow Flourishes fair, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... progress of learners."—Introd. to L. Murray's Gram.; 8vo, p. 5; 12mo, p. 3. As if, to be master of his own art—to think and write well himself, were no part of a grammarian's business! And again, as if the jewels of scholarship, thus carefully selected, could need a burnish or a foil from other hands than those which ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... lifelike. If Serge is almost wholly spiritual, if Albine is the daughter of 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 ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... Austrian campaign, which unfitted him for the time for active service. In sending him to this Royalist province of the West, Napoleon might have aimed at providing the Prefect with an effective foil to his own character and connections. The great Emperor by no means despised the trick of setting his ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... we sound al alyk. But of it we have sundrie diphthonges: oa, as to roar, a boar, a boat, a coat; oi, as coin, join, foil, soil; oo, as food, good, blood; ou, as house, mouse, &c. Thus, we commonlie wryt mountan, fountan, quhilk it wer more etymological to wryt montan, ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume
... 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 ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... on the wild science of the false religions, and professed to detect in it at least striking analogies with the deductions of both the geologist and the astronomer. When the skeptical wits of the last century wished to produce, by way of foil, a morality vastly superior, as they said, to that of Christianity, they had recourse to the Brahmins and the Chinese. And though we hear less of the ethics of these people since we have come to know them better, we are still ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... that you see and recognize your own handwriting, foretells that malicious enemies will use your expressed opinion to foil you in advancing ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... short laugh. "I seem to have fitted in just right to foil the villain in getting the papers. Say, better not let Jack know about this, or he'll be on the job, too, and what he needs just now ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... in Hellenic opinion. Antigone resolves to disregard the ordinance, and pay the funeral rites to her brother Polynices. The conflict between the law of the State and the divine law which Antigone obeys is the moral key-note of the play. Ismene is Antigone's weaker sister and serves as a foil to her. Antigone is betrothed to Haemon, a ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... to inform against 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
... manufacture, sale, and 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 ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... means so brilliant—imitation of the cucuius. By looking at our picture you will see the shape of the insect. Cut this out of a piece of cork about three inches long, and make the legs of thin wire (after the manner of the spider we described in a previous number); then get some strips of thin tin-foil, and gum them on the back of the cucuius; then paint over the whole with transparent green color (oil paints if possible). Now gouge out two holes about the size of the head of a common match, and then cut off the ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... eyes of Dermott, as he stood in the light of the doorway; his alert, theatric, dominating personality; his superb self-consciousness; the decision of manner which comes only to those who have achieved, seemed to her prejudiced gaze admirable in themselves, but more admirable as a foil to the warm brown of Frank's hair, to the poetic gray of his eyes, his apparent self-depreciation, his easy acceptances, and his elegant reluctance to obtrude on others either his views ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... title) was the engaging personality of Miss MAY BLAYNEY. Always a fascinating figure to watch, she showed an extraordinary sensitiveness of voice and expression. As for that honest and admirable actor, Mr. MCKINNEL, who made the perfect foil to her charms that every good husband should wish to be, he seems never to tire of playing these stern, dour, semi-brutal parts. That more genial characters are open to him his success in Great Catherine showed. Miss MARY BROUGH, as a charwoman, supplied a rare need with her richly-flavoured ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... possession of himself and of his subject. He does not effect his purpose by the eagerness of his blows, but by the delicacy of his tact. The poisoned wound he inflicted was so fine, as scarcely to be felt till it rankled and festered in its "mortal consequences." His callousness was an excellent foil for the antagonists he had mostly to deal with. He took knaves and fools on his shield well. He stole away its cloak from grave imposture. If he reduced other things below their true value, making them seem worthless and hollow, he did not degrade the pretensions of tyranny and superstition ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... 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
... life, 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, how ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... the assembled selections laughed very heartily; and one gentleman in a yellow waistcoat, with a coach-trimming border, whispered a neighbour in green-foil smalls, that Tuckle was ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... for me," she said; and as she stroked the skinny old hand, the tears came at the thought of it. Everybody was so kind to her! The world was so foil of love! God was so good ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... agent turned over in his mind various schemes to foil McKee, who now stood behind him with the muzzle of his revolver pressing into the middle of his back. Each ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... Applause. I don't want to be put in mind how very Defective I am in every thing that is Ugly: I am too sensible of my own Unworthiness in this Particular, and therefore I only propose my self as a Foil to the Club. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... And so, as occasion offered, I was put through this ordeal, by no means an easy one. At each fair charmer, as I bowed, I looked with what directness I dared, to see if I might penetrate the mask and so foil Kitty in her amiable intentions. This occupation caused me promptly to forget most of the names which I heard, and which I doubt not were all fictitious. As we passed out at the foot of the row I recalled that I had not ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... still smarting from the humiliation of De Montfort's reproaches, and as he laid aside his surcoat and plumed hat to take the foils with De Fulm, his eyes alighted on the master of fence, Sir Jules de Vac, who was advancing with the King's foil and helmet. Henry felt in no mood for fencing with De Fulm, who, like the other sycophants that surrounded him, always allowed the King easily to best him ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 19 with features calculated to make conquest certain where the attack was not made on hearts of stone, the simple modesty of her wardrobe seemed rather to indicate the thoughtful and contemplative mind, rich in its own resources, and requiring no foil to render conspicuous its real value, her auburn locks parted in the front, discovered a fine well arched forehead, from under which darted glances from her beautiful dark eyes, that when purposely directed for observation, spoke ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... they turned, they beat their clattering shields; The women mix their cries, and clamour fills the fields. The warlike wakes continued all the night, And funeral games were played at new returning light: Who naked wrestled best, besmeared with oil, Or who with gauntlets gave or took the foil, I will not tell you, nor would you attend; But briefly haste to ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... forego the same advantage; but when this compact is broken by any special lady, the treason is thought to be very treacherous. It is as though a fencer should remove the button from the end of his foil. But Mrs Greenow was so good-natured in tendering the services of Jeannette to all the young ladies, and was so willing to share with others those good things of the toilet which her care had provided, that her cap was forgiven her by the most ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... made war upon the new world, we were soon made to understand what such spiritual infanticide involved; and were committed to a kind of Massacre of the Innocents. In Ireland the young world was represented by young men, who shared the democratic dream of the Continent, and were resolved to foil the plot of Pitt; who was working a huge machine of corruption to its utmost to absorb Ireland into the Anti-Jacobin scheme of England. There was present every coincidence that could make the British rulers feel they were mere abbots of misrule. The stiff and self-conscious figure of Pitt has remained ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... cried: "Let other arms the day decide. Why wilt thou strive with useless toil And see his might thy efforts foil? Launch at the foe thy dart whose fire Was kindled by the Almighty Sire." He ceased: and Raghu's son obeyed: Upon his string the hero laid An arrow, like a snake that hissed. Whose fiery flight had never missed: The arrow Saint Agastya ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... 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 ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... of Shakspeare proved no better than a foil to set off the superiority of Theobald's; and Cibber bore away the palm from him in the drama. We have an account of two attempts of Pope's, one in each of the two principal branches of this species of poetry, and both unsuccessful. The fate of the comedy has ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... as it is, is often alluded to still, and remains as a foil to those flattering and courtly anecdotes which I have been repeating of royal and imperial homage paid to Duerer, Titian, and Holbein. I fancy the last-mentioned stories may have grown from small beginnings, and circulated purely in the artist world; but that the ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... I hate you!" exclaimed Gerardin, turning round in his saddle, and shaking his clenched fist at the English lieutenant. "You have foiled me again and again. I know you, and who you are; you stand between me and my birthright; you shall not foil me again. I have before sought your life; the next time we meet we will not separate till one ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... and, setting down his burden, charged out again, returning instantly with another cry of 'Beef, no vedge.' He was out and in again with a cry of 'Pork and vedge,' and out and in again with a cry of 'Pork, no vedge.' Then a shock-headed youth appeared with a basket foil of tin measures and a big can of black beer. He was met with an instant storm of chaff, and allusions of a Rabelaisian sort were made to one Mary for whom he would seem to have had a kindness. He departing, the men set themselves to the serious business of dinner, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... 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
... is very simple, and consists of but few articles. Their bed is a mat, usually of fine texture, and manufactured for the purpose, with a number of pillows, worked at the ends and adorned with a shining substance that resembles foil. A sort of canopy or valance, formed of various coloured cloths, hangs overhead. Instead of tables they have what resemble large wooden salvers, with feet called dulang, round each of which three or four persons dispose themselves; and on these are laid the talams or brass waiters ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... marked resemblance to her sister, 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 ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... said, kindly this time: "Look ye, Squire, I am hot and weary, and ill-content; but presently it will be better with me; for my knees have been telling my shoulders that the cold water of this little lake will be sweet and pleasant this summer noonday, and that I shall forget my foil when I have taken my pleasure therein. Wherefore, go thou with thine hounds without the thicket and there abide my coming. And I bid thee look not aback as thou goest, for therein were peril to thee: I shall not keep ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... 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 are ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... Foil Thou the foe, his nets all tear, And baffle every wile and snare; When all with me once more is well, ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... return to its hole. It was a harvest mouse, rejoicing in the enormous weight of 4.7 grains and a length of 57 mm., but with as much love of life and fear of death as an elephant. Heaven knows what had smitten it! Perhaps it was one of the very few who just escape the owl, or who foil that scientific death, the weasel, at the last moment—but no matter. The ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... down their mortal gage, And with a hostile step profane our sod! We shall not shrink, my brothers, but go forth To meet them, marshalled by the Lord of Hosts, And overshadowed by the mighty ghosts Of Moultrie and of Eutaw—who shall foil Auxiliars such as these? Nor these alone, But every stock and stone Shall help us; but the very soil, And all the generous wealth it gives to toil, And all for which we love our noble land, Shall fight beside, and through us, sea and strand, The heart of woman, and her ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... curve in the lunge, but there is nothing beautiful about beginning the battle with a crooked foil. So the strict aim, the strong doctrine, may give a little in the actual fight with facts: but that is no reason for beginning with a weak doctrine or a twisted aim. Do not be an opportunist; try to be theoretic at all the opportunities; fate can be trusted to do all the opportunist part of ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... whole sheets 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
... "Treason! Treason!" shouted they; "If he wants to come and hunt us, he must have his bloody way! It would be the direst folly for the timid, helpless ones To combat the deadly bullets of his thunder-spitting guns! There's a better way to foil him,—'tis a way beyond compare, When our Teddy's on a-huntin' trip and ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... afternoon of the day in question we stood before each other, foil in hand, both of us nerved by an intense, though as yet unspoken, enmity. This had been observed by most of the spectators, who approached and formed a circle around us; all of them highly interested in the result—which, they knew, would be ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... the spring at the headwaters of Broderson Creek, on Quien Sabe, and had all but fallen into the hands of the posse that had been watching for that very move. It was useless now to regret that he had tried to foil pursuit by turning back on his tracks to regain the mountains east of Bonneville. Now Delaney was almost on him. To distance that posse, was the only thing to be thought of now. It was no longer a question of hiding till pursuit should ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... scene on the wharf-boat flashed on my recollection. I remembered the youth wore a cloak, and that he was of low stature. It was he who was standing before me! That puzzle was explained. I was but a waif—a foil—a thing for ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... of full five hundred tons, more than double the size, in fact, of the 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. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... 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 was so conscious. It ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... 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 Jocelyn: so remember you ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... perils still remained, how many criminal designs, how many treasonable plots, which only Marat's perspicacity and vigilance could unravel and foil! Now he was dead, who was there to denounce Custine loitering in idleness in the Camp of Caesar and refusing to relieve Valenciennes, Biron tarrying inactive in the Lower Vendee letting Saumur be taken and Nantes blockaded, Dillon betraying ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... departed," he thought to himself, busy with a lead-weighted string and a stick of soft charcoal wrapped in silver foil. For a few moments he continued working, not inclined to trouble himself to answer the door, but the hesitating timidity of a third appeal amused him, and he walked out into the hallway and opened ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... passed. "O my son," said she, "know that Mardas hateth thee and doth but send thee to this mountain, to bereave me of thee; then take me with thee and let us depart the tents of this tyrant." But he answered, "O my mother, I will not depart hence till I win my wish and foil my foe." Thereupon he slept till morning arose with its sheen and shone, and hardly had he mounted his charger when his friends, the young men, came up to him; two hundred stalwart knights armed cap-a-pie and cried out to him, saying, "Take us ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... you will note a white layer, like tin foil, which gives the fish its silvery color. Do not disturb this if possible. Remove all surplus flesh, cut away the gills and interior of head and if at all greasy (what fish is not) treat to a bath in gasoline. Use absorbent, sawdust or meal to remove oily ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... actually higher than the dome of St. Paul's. The play of fancy and invention of Shah Jehan's architects seems inexhaustible. All the exquisite white marble pavilions of Agra palace differ absolutely both in design and decoration, and Akbar's massive red sandstone buildings make the most perfect foil to ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... jewellers, among whom was 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 ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... 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. GORDON ROY is evidently a nom de plume that might ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... 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
... "Foil'd in his frantic rush, Though still with blasts of hate against us raving, Down dropt he, torch and all, And heavy struck the Earth, who upward spurn'd him. Such auspice of the war To us was fair; and elsewhere new successes Befel, whereon the right Great Ares routing wheel'd ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... dirty hands. Ursy had her mouth shut and her cheeks were bulging. Between them was a ham and a loaf of bread, and a pot of marmalade and a Stilton cheese, and on the floor was the bottle of champagne with two brimming bubbling tea cups full of wine. The cork and the wire and the tin-foil they had, with some show of decency, thrown into ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... eyes wide when both men laughed, and Mr. Barrymore intimated that Sir Ralph's head would be improved by punching. Neither of them would take any of the wine when it came, though it looked fascinating, fizzling out of beautiful bottles decked with gold and silver foil, like champagne. It tasted like champagne too, so far as I could tell; but perhaps I'm not a judge, as there was never any wine except elderberry at home, and I've only had champagne twice since I've been the child of a Countess. The Asti was nice and ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... 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, 12mo size. ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the urchins, whooping and shouting, buried himself up to the middle; moth-eaten, stained, and ragged, the collegian's gown-relic of the dead man's palmy time; a bag of carpenter's tools, chiefly broken; a cricket-bat; an odd boxing-glove; a fencing-foil, snapped in the middle; and, more than all, some half-finished attempts at rude toys: a boat, a cart, a doll's house, in which the good-natured Caleb had busied himself for the younger ones of that family in which ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... longer trust its pledge; but thus Recall'd it; rapt its Ganymede from us. Was there no milder way but the small-pox, The very filthiness of Pandora's box? So many spots, like naeves on Venus' soil, One jewel set off with so many a foil; Blisters with pride swell'd, which through's flesh did sprout Like rose-buds, stuck i' th' lily-skin about. Each little pimple had a tear in it, To wail the fault its rising did commit: 60 Which, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife, Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life. Or ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... word as foil in my bright lexicon. I'll lay you a wager, if you like, that I play a practical joke on you, that you, yourself, will admit is clever and not unkind. That's the test of a right kind of a joke,—to ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... soul, with Christ join thou in fight; Stick to the tents that He hath pight; Within His crib is surest ward, This little Babe will be thy guard; If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy, Then flit ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... Charley was back with the painters from the two canvas canoes knotted together. His first toss confirmed the captain's fears, the rope foil ten ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... overlay, With this portentous bridge, the dark abyss. Thine now is all this world; thy virtue hath won What thy hands builded not; thy wisdom gained With odds what war hath lost, and fully avenged Our foil in Heaven; here thou shalt monarch reign, There didst not; there let him still victor sway, As battle hath adjudged; from this new world Retiring, by his own doom alienated; And henceforth monarchy with thee divide Of all things, parted by the empyreal bounds, His quadrature, from thy orbicular ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... confess such fellows Be in all Royal Camps, and have and must be, To make the sin of Coward more detested In the mean souldier that with such a foil Sets off much valour. By description I should now guess him to you, it was Bessus, I dare almost with confidence ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... button-hole, serves as a catch between different parts of a garment, &c. The word is also used of other objects which have a projecting knob-like character, e.g. button-mushrooms, the button of an electric bell-push, or the guard at the tip of a fencing foil; or which resemble a button in size and shape, as the button of metal obtained in assaying operations. At first buttons were apparently used for purposes of ornamentation; in Piers Plowman (1377) mention is made of a knife with "botones ouergylte," and in Lord Berner's translation ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... exhaust the story, however. In another part of the legend, to which, again, Zabara offers parallels, Solomon, being out hunting, comes suddenly on Marcolf's hut, and, calling upon him, receives a number of riddling answers, which completely foil him, and tor the solution of which he is compelled to have recourse to the proposer. He departs, however, in good humor, desiring Marcolf to come to court the next day and bring a pail of fresh milk ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... 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 your thousand in ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... 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 is outside of serious discussion. Barely to assume that Shakspere held ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... 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 to speak, "And clapp'd ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid |
