"Pugilistic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was called the robin; and well would it be if its English namesake possessed its sterling virtues; for, with all its pleasant traits and world-wide reputation, the English robin is a pretentious, arrogant busybody, characteristically pugilistic and troublesome in the winged society of England. In form, dress, deportment, disposition, and in voice and taste for vocal music, the American robin surpasses the English most decidedly. In this our grave forefathers did more than ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... downfall. And now, while O'Malley grabbed his terrier in both arms, thankful the little beast's throat was whole, Jan stood stiff-legged, with stiffly arched neck and bristling hackles, glaring down at Sourdough, with the expression which, among pugilistic school-boys, goes with the question, "Have you ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... Locusta and Borgia. The commoner sort swore like hell at Freddy Parker. It made you feel squiffy after the sixth glass—argumentative, magisterial, maudlin, taciturn, erotic, sentimental, sea-sick, ecstatic, paralysed, lachrymose, hilarious, pugilistic—according to your temperament. Whatever your temperament it gave you a thundering head next morning, and a throat like Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace. It was known ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... taken the place of the Greek encomiums. Our fiddles or piano do duty instead of the Greek dithyrambs, hyporchems, and other dancing songs. Our warriors are either left unsung, or celebrated in verse that reads much better than it sings. The members of the "Benevolent Pugilistic Association" do not stand so high in the British opinion as the wrestlers of old stood in the Greek; and our jockeys have fallen frightfully from the grand position which the Greek racers occupied in the plains of Olympia. Very few ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the title of jockey whips. They are likewise fond of resorting to the prize-ring, and have occasionally even attained some eminence, as principals, in those disgraceful and brutalising exhibitions called pugilistic combats. I believe a great deal has been written on the subject of the English Gypsies, but the writers have dwelt too much in generalities; they have been afraid to take the Gypsy by the hand, lead him forth from the crowd, and exhibit him in the area; he is well worth ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... Wilson's fancies to affect a love of boxing, and it was a favorite theme in the 'Ambrosial Discussions.' From this some have imagined that he was of a pugilistic turn, whereas he knew nothing of the 'science,' and only affected ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... characteristic of age. As for the muscular powers, they pass their maximum long before the time when the true decline of life begins, if we may judge by the experience of the ring. A man is "stale," I think, in their language, soon after thirty,—often, no doubt, much earlier, as gentlemen of the pugilistic profession are exceedingly apt to keep their vital fire burning WITH ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... actuated the suggestion, even as concerned part of his own inheritance, was nothing more than pugilistic; the idea, however, came to Robert Trenholme as entirely a new one. The proceeds of his father's successful trade lay temporarily invested, awaiting Alec's decision, and his own share would probably be ample to tide the ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... spirit, and, were it not for the strange drawing of the lion's unlifted leg, might be regarded as a very creditable performance. In another, a lion is represented devouring a prostrate human being; while a third exhibits a pugilistic encounter after the most approved fashion of modern England. It is perhaps uncertain whether these tablets belong to the Chaldaean or to the Babylonian period, but on the whole their rudeness and simplicity favor the earlier ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... heavy-looking ring on the little finger of his right hand. Had you been of his intimates, 'Arry would have explained to you the double advantage of this ring; not only did it serve as an adornment, but, as playful demonstration might indicate, it would prove of singular efficacy in pugilistic conflict. ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... newspapers, in which he appears in the light of a tender-hearted philanthropist, longing for peace, mercy, and the delights of home-life. Mr. Lloyd George, in an interview with an American journalist, has defined our policy as that of delivering a "knock out" to Prussian military despotism, a pugilistic metaphor which has wounded some of our Pacificists. Our Zeppelin bag is growing; Count Zeppelin has sworn to destroy London or die, but now that John Bull is getting his eye in, the oath ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... "Methley" of his travels, who became successively Lord Pollington and Earl of Mexborough. The Homeric lore which Methley exhibited in the Troad, is curiously illustrated by an Eton story, that in a pugilistic encounter with Hoseason, afterwards an Indian Cavalry officer, while the latter sate between the rounds upon his second's knee, Savile strutted ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... pugilistic one, "last Sunday our lesson in Sunday-school was about if a fellow hit you on the left cheek turn the other and get another crack, and I just wanted to see if Bobbie knew ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... thousand. It created as great a sensation in the village school as did the battle of Waterloo in England. It was a notable fight; such as had not taken place within the memory of the oldest boy in the village, and from which, in after years, events of juvenile history were dated,—especially pugilistic events, of which, when a good one came off, it used to be said that "such a battle had not taken place since the year of the Great Fight" Bob Croaker was a noted fighter. Martin Rattler was, up to this date, an untried hero. Although fond of rough play and boisterous mischief, he had an unconquerable ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... a gentleman named B—ll—gh—t, remarkable for his strength, and the fineness of his figure. His skill was not inferior, for he could stand up to the great Captain Barclay himself, with the muffles on;—a task neither easy nor agreeable to a pugilistic aspirant. As the by-standers were one day admiring his athletic proportions, he remarked to us, that he had five brothers as tall and strong as himself, and that their father and mother were both crooked, and of very small ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... faced the row of waterfront houses, standing at the intersection of a street which struck inland to the pulsing heart of Limehouse. A retired bully of the prize-ring ruled with a high hand over its several bars and many patrons, yellow men and white girls, deck-hands and dock-workers, pugilistic and criminal celebrities of the quarter, and their sycophants. Its revels rendered the nights cacophonous, its portals sucked in streams of sweethearts and more impersonal lovers of life and laughter, and spewed out sots close-locked in embraces of maudlin affection ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... the magic circle with the ropes and stakes. There were only three conditions of resemblance wanting between these Professors and those. Firstly, the Philanthropists were in very bad training: much too fleshy, and presenting, both in face and figure, a superabundance of what is known to Pugilistic Experts as Suet Pudding. Secondly, the Philanthropists had not the good temper of the Pugilists, and used worse language. Thirdly, their fighting code stood in great need of revision, as empowering them not only to bore their man to the ropes, but to bore him to the confines of distraction; also ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... mountains around them all run, when swollen by a sudden storm, into some larger torrent equally precipitous and turbulent. Keenan, who was one of those pertinacious fellows that are equally quarrelsome and hospitable when in liquor, now resumed the debate with a characteristic impression of the pugilistic superiority of his family:— ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... of Pinski's henchmen—a heavy, pugilistic Irishman). "Don't let them frighten you, Sim. Stand your ground. They can't hurt ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... soldiers, who considered themselves the equal of kings and the superior of wear the livery of lackeys to obtain an easy living. Presidents save seven-figure fortunes on five-figure salaries and are applauded by people who profess to be respectable. Governors waste the public revenues in suppressing pugilistic enterprises, begotten of their own encouragement, only to be reelected by fools and slobbered over by pharisees. Bradley-Martin balls are given while half a million better people go hungry to bed. Friendship has become a farce, the preface of fraud. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Judy," she cried, frantically, and Judy who had reached the middle of the room, and was surrounded by pugilistic creatures before she realized the catastrophe, drew herself up beside Anne, and together ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... lowland, clan with clan, family with family, Saxon with Gael. In my time, the school-boys, for want, perhaps, of English urchins to contend with, were continually fighting with each other; every noon there was at least one pugilistic encounter, and sometimes three. In one month I witnessed more of these encounters than I had ever previously seen under similar circumstances in England. After all, there was not much harm done. Harm! what harm could ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... was apparently much stronger than his adversary, and from his position Jack knew that he must know something of the pugilistic art. To Jack, an exceptionally skillful boxer himself, it looked as though Frank had tackled more than he ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... were teaching me to use a bayonet this morning. It's rather fun. An intensely pugilistic little man stamped his foot at me, and brandished a ball on the end of a stick in front of my face. One's aim and object, as far as I could tell from the book of the words, was to stab the ball with the point of one's bayonet, and at the same time grunt in a manner ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... crimson, stopped his brother's mouth with his little hand; whereat Bob flew into such a passion, that he quite forgot Olive, and all he was about to say, in the excitement of a pugilistic combat with his unlucky cadet In the midst of which the two belligerents—poor, untaught, motherless lads—were hurried off ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... all-accomplished and supreme amongst these Paladins, the Orlando of ancient romance; Agamemnon, for ever the Charlemagne; Ajax, for ever the sullen, imperturbable, columnar champion, the Mandricardo, the Bergen-op-Zoom of his faction, and corresponding to our modern 'Chicken' in the pugilistic ring, who was so called (as the books of the Fancy say) because he was a 'glutton'; and a 'glutton' in this sense—that he would take any amount of cramming (i. e. any possible quantum of 'milling,' or 'punishment'). Ulysses, again, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... gymnasium, found Steve already there, punching the bag with a force and precision which showed that the bunch of cheeses ought to have been highly grateful to Mrs. Dingle for her anti-pugilistic prejudices. ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... small affair, I can recall a droll scene, de eodem genere, which I witnessed within a week of the other. There was a rather first-class saloon, bar, and restaurant on Broadway, kept by a good-looking pugilistic-associated individual named George Shurragar. As he had black eyes, and was a shoulder-hitter, and as the name in Romany means "a captain," I daresay he was partly gypsy. And, when weary with editorial work, I sometimes dropped in ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... thoughts were far from pugilistic. He was thinking of the immediate past and the future. Every man in his crew was aware of the fact that 35 per cent of the output of these mines went to the homeless starving ones of the most hopelessly wrecked nation on the ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... have given Villiers credit for being the man of penetrative and almost classic refinement he really was,—he looked far more athletic than aesthetic. Broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with a round, blunt head firmly set on a full, strong throat, he had, on the whole, a somewhat obstinate and pugilistic air which totally belied his nature. His features, open and ruddy, were, without being handsome, decidedly attractive—the mouth was rather large, yet good-tempered; the eyes bright, blue, and sparklingly suggestive of a native inborn love of humor. There was something ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... tutor's tear-denying eyes, For Mirth, whose finger with delusive wile Turns the grim key of many a rusty smile, For Satire, emptying his corrosive flood On hissing Folly's gas-exhaling brood, The pun, the fun, the moral, and the joke, The hit, the thrust, the pugilistic poke,— Small space for these, so pressed by niggard Time, Like that false matron, known to nursery rhyme,— Insidious Morey,—scarce her tale begun, Ere listening infants ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the story of Farnsworth's conduct and his humiliating discomfiture at the hands of Father Beret. She was both indignant and delighted, sympathizing with Adrienne and glorying in the priest's vigorous pugilistic achievement. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... bit of level, dry turf Will faced his big antagonist. Baizley was heavy of build, strong of arm, and not without some knowledge of the pugilistic art. He was also a little taller than Will. To the casual glance the latter appeared no match for him. Fair-skinned, slender, and with something of a studious stoop to his shoulders, Will's appearance gave small indication of the strength that lurked in his well-corded ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to Providence for all the separate blessings of my early situation, these four I would single out as worthy of special commemoration: that I lived in a rural solitude; that this solitude was in England; that my infant feelings were moulded by the gentlest of sisters, and not by horrid pugilistic brothers; finally, that I and they were dutiful and loving members of a pure, holy, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... brought his experience and art to bear; put aside those heavy roundabout blows, and darted in his own, quick and sharp—supplying the due momentum of pugilistic mechanics to the natural feebleness of his arm. Ay, and the arm, too, was no longer so feeble: so strange is the strength that comes from ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... The pugilistic cowboy, rare fellow among his kind, went to the floor. But there was good stuff in him, worthy the confidence his comrades reposed. For a breath or two he lay on his back as he fell, twisted to his side with ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... rather anxious, the next day, to know what course my polite and pugilistic instructor would take. To my utter amazement, he bowed to me as civilly as usual when we met in the yard; he never denied my version of the story; and when my friends laughed at him as a thrashed man, he took not the slightest notice of their agreeable merriment. Antiquity, I think, furnishes us ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... to get myself into trouble with Badger. He is of the bulldog, pugilistic type, and the first thing he would do would be to assault me like the bully he is. I have given you the warning. You can get all the proof you want. Probably you would never have heard of this until too late, if I had not ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... Dhritarashtra got up to the boughs of a tree for plucking fruits, Bhima used to shake that tree, by striking it with his foot, so that down came the fruits and the fruitpluckers at the same time. In fact, those princes were no match for Bhima in pugilistic encounters, in speed, or in skill. Bhima used to make a display of his strength by thus tormenting them in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... following Tom's example, had disarmed the remainder. A fellow-labourer, who had been engaged at a short distance, from the immediate scene of action, attacked the man who had raised the pickaxe, between whom a pugilistic encounter took place, the former swearing, 'By Jasus, they were a set of cowardly rascals, and deserved quilting.'{1} The water was flowing copiously—shovels, pickaxes, barrows, lanterns and other implements were strewed around them—the crowd increased—Tom ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... middle-weight medals respectively. Moriarty had won the light-weight in the previous year, but, by reason of putting on a stone since the competition, was now no longer eligible for that class. O'Hara had not been up before, but the Wrykyn instructor, a good judge of pugilistic form, was of opinion that he ought to stand an excellent chance. As the prize-fighter in Rodney Stone says, "When you get a good Irishman, you can't better 'em, but they're dreadful 'asty." O'Hara was attending the gymnasium every night, in order to learn to curb his "dreadful 'astiness", ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... voice ended in a surprised scream of agony, which told of strained sinews and ripped tendons, and he fell in a twisted, crumpled heap of quivering, inert flesh at the detective's feet, the victim of a scientific hold and throw which had not been included in his pugilistic education. ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... Dickens called him, the patron of "cock-fighting, wrestling, pugilistic contests, boat-racing, and horse-racing" left his mark on his generation for a unique combination of boisterous joviality and hardhitting. Well known in the houses of the poor; more than one observer has said that he reminded ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... revival meetings. Next to fighting to kill, as they did in the old Roman days, I think the modern prize-fight is the most disgusting and degrading of exhibitions. All fights, whether cock- fights, bull-fights or pugilistic encounters, are practiced and enjoyed only by savages. No matter what office they hold, what wealth or education they have, they are simply savages. Under no possible circumstances would I witness a prize-fight or a bull- fight or a dog-fight. The Marquis ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... known to fail; in which case the terrified animal is withdrawn, and another is put forward in his place. These are cruel pastimes, though they may be thought not more so than dog-fighting and cock-fighting, which were formerly so much practised in Britain; and not so barbarous as a pugilistic combat between two hired ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey's combativeness ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... think?" eagerly interrupted Tod Yorke, whose face was ornamented with several shades of colour, blue, green, and yellow, the result of the previous day's pugilistic encounter: "my brother Roland heard the master say he ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... newspaper in the street as it flies and cries. The Signal had a vast army of boys, to whom every year it gave a great fete. Indeed, the Signal possessed nearly all the available boys, and assuredly all the most pugilistic and strongest boys. Mr Myson had obtained boys only after persistent inquiry and demand, and such as he had found were not the fittest, and therefore were unlikely to survive. You would have supposed that in a district that never ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Skelhorn-street. Here were open fields, which extended to the London-road, quite famous for the assembling of all sorts of rough characters, especially on summer evenings, and on Sundays. Cock-fighting, dog-fighting, and pugilistic encounters used to be carried on daily, and scenes of the utmost confusion took place, until public murmurings compelled the authorities to keep order. It was in the fields about where the Lord Nelson-street rooms stand, that my grandfather recollects seeing three, if not four, ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... had already snatched the coin, and he now started for the exit, but his outgoing way was instantly blocked by a promiscuous pack of pugilistic Polydores, and an ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... Behind the blow there was a lifetime of outraged humanity, as well as the strength of a toil-trained, toughened frame, and Gleeson fell like an ox under the pole-axe. He lay where he fell, and Palmer Billy, far from satisfied at such a brief exercise of his pugilistic talents, ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... the Chevalier, abandoning this comic picture, and "squaring off" at his reflection in the mirror, in the most approved style of the pugilistic art—as if he were about to give himself a "punch in the head," for being such a funny, clever dog; "bravo! I'll go and get the cheque cashed at once; and then hurrah for a brilliant season of glorious dissipation! ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... The former pugilistic champion of the British navy cast all ring ethics to the winds. He struck, kicked and clawed and sought to wreak what damage he could upon his enemies without regard for the niceties of fighting. He knew that they would do the same ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... surprise, which is accompanied with odd sensations, as of seeing sparks, and a kind of electrical or ozone-like odor, half-sulphurous in character, and which has given rise to a very vulgar and profane threat sometimes heard from the lips of bullies. A person not used to pugilistic gestures does not instantly recover from this surprise. The Koh-i-noor, exasperated by his failure, and still a little confused by the smart hit he had received, but furious, and confident of victory over a young fellow a good deal lighter than himself, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... to details. "It was a mere scuffle; there were only four; and, being an Englishman, I polished them all off with the 'box,'"—and I closed my fist, and struck a scientific attitude of self-defence, branching off into a learned disquisition on the pugilistic art, which filled my hearers with respect and amazement. From this time forward the sentiment with which I regarded my air-gun underwent a change. When a friend had made me a present of it a year before, I regarded it in the light of a toy, ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... of the burning her heart burst and leapt out of her body, to the terror of them all, and that not one of those ten thousand people ever cared particularly for hot roast after that. In addition to these old tragedies, pugilistic encounters almost to the death had come off down to recent dates in that secluded arena, entirely invisible to the outside world save by climbing to the top of the enclosure, which few towns-people in the daily round of their lives ever took the trouble to do. So that, though ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... fellow-countrymen. A rare and eminent instance this of the judicious application of acquired knowledge!—and how much more likely is it to produce good, and to secure solid fame, than to fritter away one's strength, and undermine one's health, in perpetual pugilistic contests with snarling critics, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Kid. The man Cosy Moments is running for the light-weight championship. We are his pugilistic sponsors. You may say that it is entirely owing to our efforts that he has obtained this match with—who exactly is the gentleman Comrade Brady fights at the Highfield Club on ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... her husband; John Williamson; our well-known pugilistic friend, John L. Sullivan; a "hen-pecked" Bostonian, ...
— Silver Links • Various
... the mind of the British people nothing is more settled than the conviction that the conquering qualities of a great captain are courage and confidence. He has given no sign of these qualities. Nature, it would seem, has fashioned him neither pachydermatous nor pugilistic. He appears upon the platform as a gentleman makes his entrance into a drawing-room, not as a toreador leaps into the bull ring. He expresses his opinions as a gentleman expresses his views at a dinner-table, not as an ale-house politician airs his dogmatisms in the tap-room. ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... his benevolent discrimination. His lordship extended his goodness to little Rawdon: he pointed out to the boy's parents the necessity of sending him to a public school; that he was of an age now when emulation, the first principles of the Latin language, pugilistic exercises and the society of his fellow-boys would be of the greatest benefit to the boy.... All objections disappeared before the generous perseverance of the marquis. His lordship was one of the governors of that famous old collegiate institution called the White ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... may escape you. Perhaps we may become friends. But we cannot remain as we are. The blow you struck the other day must be answered for. I ask satisfaction, and the incompleteness and vulgarity of a pugilistic encounter will not suit me. I propose, therefore, as we cannot resort to the regular duel of pistols, (for reasons so good and evident that I need not name them), that after the example of the ancients, whose ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... going to make your fortune, John, and get out of that disagreeable hardware concern?" demanded Di, pausing after an exciting "round," and looking almost as much exhausted as if it had been a veritable pugilistic encounter. ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... address on Wife, Mother and Citizen. Miss Shaw closed the meeting with an impromptu speech in which, according to the reporter, she said: "It is declared that women are too emotional to vote; but the morning paper described a pugilistic encounter between two members of Congress which looked as if excitability were not limited to women. It is said that 'the legal male mind' is the only mind fit for suffrage." Miss Shaw then made her wit play around the legal male mind like chain lightning. "It is said that women are ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... hostile, pugilistic attitude to every one, as though he had made up his mind to it long ago. He acts upon the principle, "Whatever you say now, I will contradict it, and if you agree with me, I will contradict myself. You shall not say anything that I will not contradict." Except ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... All the time the sepoys are endeavoring to make themselves understood, every Afghan present regards my face with the keenest scrutiny; so glaringly evident are their suspicions that the situation becomes too much for my gravity. The sepoys grin broadly in response, whereupon the pugilistic-faced captain of the Governor's guard remonstrates with them for their levity, by roughly making them stand in a more respectful attitude. I dislike very much to see them ordered off, for they are evidently anxious to champion my cause; moreover, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... Duff Charringtons have been backing the little Redd girl? Miss Evelyn Redd, I suppose? It sounds a little like a horse race or a pugilistic encounter." ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... to the bedside of Mrs. Belmont, and threw himself into an approved pugilistic attitude, as if challenging that lady to take a 'set to' with him; while Bloody Mike stumbled over the prostrate form of the lady's maid, who occupied a temporary bed upon the floor. Forgetting his assumed part, he yelled out for something to drink, and forthwith began ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... for pugilistic chivalry and my brother laid him quiet with a kick, and gripped the collar of the man who pulled at the slender lady's arm. He heard the clatter of hoofs, the whip stung across his face, a third antagonist struck him between the eyes, and the man he held wrenched himself free and made off ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... him heels over head and senseless, so that he had to be carried off from the field. This ugly way of hitting is the great trick of the French savate, which is not commonly thought able to stand its ground against English pugilistic science.—These are old recollections, with not much to recommend them, except, perhaps, a dash of life, which may ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... jolly?" she chirped, as she threw her muff on the floor and made a dive for Peter Jackson. Peter Jackson is a cat, as black as the ace of spades and as pugilistic a feline as ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... as may be conceived, had not been idle; but that trenchant blade had been shivered by Ranulph Rookwood in the early stage of the business, and the knight left weaponless. Zoroaster, who was not merely a worshipper of fire, but a thorough milling-cove, had engaged to some purpose in a pugilistic encounter with the rustics; and, having fought several rounds, now "bore his blushing honors thick upon him." Jerry, like Turpin, had remained tolerably quiescent. "The proper moment," he said, "had not arrived." A fatality seemed to attend Turpin's ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and stumble, accoutred as he was, to the hazard of his own bones and to the great dismay of bystanders. It was felt that his fall might entail disaster upon many. Attempts were made to remove him, when he assumed a pugilistic attitude, and resolutely declined to quit the hall. Nor was it possible to enlist against him the services of his brother warrior. The man in steel sided with the man in brass, and the two heroes thus formed a powerful coalition, which was only overcome ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... high, gallantly formed to keep the rounds at Smithfield, or maintain the ring at a wrestling match; and although he might have been overmatched, perhaps, among the regular professors of the Fancy, yet, as a yokel or rustic, or a chance customer, he was able to give a bellyful to any amateur of the pugilistic art. Doncaster races saw him in his glory, betting his guinea, and generally successfully; nor was there a main fought in Yorkshire, the feeders being persons of celebrity, at which he was not to be seen if business permitted. ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... remember saying just now that the trainer is not to be accused or banished if the pugilist makes a wrong use of his pugilistic art; and in like manner, if the rhetorician makes a bad and unjust use of his rhetoric, that is not to be laid to the charge of his teacher, who is not to be banished, but the wrong-doer himself who made a bad use of his rhetoric—he is to ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... the new light-weight was unknown to the charmed circle of the gang, Billy knew him fairly well by reason of the proximity of their respective parental back yards, and so when the glamour of pugilistic success haloed the young man Billy lost no time in basking in the light ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... blessed place, Nor has he wander'd far astray From the same calm and tranquil way. The belt was worn by any one Who had the latest battle won, 'Till Simon Murphy's springing bound Lit on that ancient battle ground, And from that hour he was King Of our young pugilistic ring! But here I'd like to pause a minute And go to Hull—there's something in it That to the hour of life's December I shall endeavor to remember. The old "Columbian" schoolhouse, where In childhood's dawn I did repair; It was a famous strict old school Sway'd by the ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... they obtained the dictograph. It was loaned them by Hubert Kittle, aviator, former police officer, one-time contender for the heavyweight pugilistic championship of the navy, dare-devil and adventurer. Later in the day Ben Smith, official court reporter and one of the fastest and most accurate shorthand men in the country, agreed to share in ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... was a mere feint, a preliminary flourish, such as a practiced swordsman executes in empty air before saluting his opponent. He had not the slightest intention of testing Medenham's pugilistic powers just then. The reasonable probability of having his chief features beaten to a pulp was not inviting, while the crude efficacy of the notion, in its influence on Miss Vanrenen's affairs, was not the least stupefying element in a difficult and wholly unforeseen situation. ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... met by another boy, and after a free salutation and pugilistic frisk had passed between the two, the second boy came on his way to the vicarage, and the other vanished out ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... ambition didn't run to The Road. He was not a success at throwing his feet, and he stowed away one night on a barge and went down river to San Francisco. I met him, only a week ago, at a pugilistic carnival. He has progressed. He sat in a place of honor at the ring-side. He is now a manager of prize-fighters and proud of it. In fact, in a small way, in local sportdom, he is quite a ...
— The Road • Jack London
... a voice of thunder, turning to Hugh, who still stood in a pugilistic attitude, with very ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... saying, the young American placed himself in a pugilistic attitude by the side of ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... critical state of ineptitude, my attention was accidentally roused by the sight of a boxing-match. My feelings were so much excited, and the excitation was so delightful, that I was now in danger of becoming an amateur of the pugilistic art. It did not occur to me, that it was beneath the dignity of a British nobleman to learn the vulgar terms of the boxing trade. I soon began to talk very knowingly of first-rate bruisers, game men, and pleasing fighters; making play—beating a man under ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... a decided taste for Entomology, the wings and legs of butterflies and grasshoppers being the objects of my special investigation. As a school-boy I obtained (despite the frequent closing of my visual organs) considerable Insight into Physical Science in the course of numerous pugilistic encounters. A close Application to Optics at that time enabled me to get some Light ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... and then said, "Do you think 'What We Want' vulgar?" He was not at all interested, but he desired to escape from the atmosphere of pugilistic courtesy, more painful to him than ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... affront of being called fat and old the latter scientifically turned up his cuffs and announced that he would inflict summary chastisement on his leader. Mr. Pickwick met him with a cordial "come on," throwing himself into a pugilistic attitude, supposed by the two bystanders to have been intended as a posture of defence. This seems to have been accepted as a natural incident, though it was deprecated. In the Fleet Prison, when Mr. Pickwick's nightcap was snatched off, ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... that Prince George had been talking once more to Frederick Augustus about the pugilistic performances of my mother. Perhaps he was trying to pluck up courage to beat me, a diversion not altogether unknown in the House of Saxony, according to the Memoirs of the famous Baron Schweinichen, ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... and Blue might be enjoyed. To-day MENDOZA has a gallery in King Street, which is devoted to studies in Black and White. You may say, history repeats itself. Nothing of the kind. The gentleman of GEORGE THE THIRD'S time devoted himself to the pugilistic art; the gentleman of the time of VICTORIA gives his attention to graphic art. The one was the patron of fists, the other of fingers—that makes all the difference. MENDOZA the Past, closed eyes—MENDOZA the Present opens ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... before you are done stating them. His interpretation is as often exactly the opposite of your own as it is identical; and, right or wrong, the foisted-in explanation serves only to interrupt the sequence of thought. As early as 1832 a writer in the New England Magazine waxed wroth to pugilistic outburst against this form of interruption: "I have heard individuals praised for this, as indicating a rapidity of mind which arrived at the end before the other was half through. But I should feel as much disposed ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... among the merchants with "a head on him," as the barkeeper understood the phrase? He would have had to return home, and that he felt would be worse than death. In fact, he had come nearer to a desperate struggle than he knew, for Barney rarely resisted so inviting an opportunity to indulge his pugilistic turn, and had he not seen the policeman going by just at that time, there would have been no ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... accomplished daughter, were in the full enjoyment of each other's society; Mrs Squeers being engaged in the matronly pursuit of stocking-darning; and the young lady and gentleman being occupied in the adjustment of some youthful differences, by means of a pugilistic contest across the table, which, on the approach of their honoured parent, subsided into a noiseless exchange of ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... fascination. De Quincey himself gives thanks for four circumstances. He rejoices that his lot was cast in a rustic solitude; that that solitude was in England: that his 'infant feelings were moulded by the gentlest of sisters,' instead of 'horrid pugilistic brothers;' and that he and his were members of 'a pure, holy, and' (the last epithet should be emphasized) 'magnificent Church.' The thanksgiving is characteristic, for it indicates his naive conviction that his admiration was due to the intrinsic merits of the place and circumstances of his birth, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... for his brother's cause; he was baffled and infuriated by the general unquestioning belief in Frank's guilt, and a dozen times had been compelled to sit biting on his bitterness, when every instinct impelled him to square up and teach the fools better with all the force of his pugilistic knowledge. Of late years he had been schooled in a class that accepted 'a ready left' as the most convincing argument, and, being beyond the immediate province of law and order, repaired immediately with all its grievances to a twenty-four-foot ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson |
