"Foil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in her pocket and drew out a tin foil-covered package. "Here's a piece of chocolate I've been carrying around with me ever since I've been at Ellen's Isle," she said. "It's pretty stale by this time, I guess, but it'll keep you from starving while Sahwah and I ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... make, O fairest fair, on whom depends my life! Refuse not then the task I undertake, To please thy rage and to appease my strife; But with one smile remunerate my toil, None other guerdon I of thee desire. Give not my lowly muse new-hatched the foil, But warmth that she may at the length aspire Unto the temples of thy star-bright eyes, Upon whose round orbs perfect beauty sits, From whence such glorious crystal beams arise, As best my Chloris' seemly face befits; Which eyes, which beauty, which bright crystal ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... a curious depreciation of Goldsmith. Rivalry for the good graces of their common friend Johnson, as Scott thought, and the fear of his older acquaintance as the possible biographer made him suspicious of the merits of the poet, who figures in the pages of Boswell as a foil for his ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... Stockings, and our Carpets, with surprising Success: In our Husbandry they did Wonders also; as to Wheat and Barley; as to Liming, Marling, and Sanding of Land; as to planting of Hops, draining of Bogs; as to raising Liquorish, Saffron and Madder; and as to sowing of Turneps, Clover, St. Foil, Trefoil, and all Kinds of Grass Seeds. They improv'd by a well judged Emulation and proper Rewards, Numbers of our Husbandry Utensils: They set the Nation at Work, in Planting amazing Quantities of Timber Trees, ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... target, but he pretends that he was always in possession of it, and made nothing of it,—that he imbibed it with mother's milk,—and that I, the wretched Tommy, am most abjectly behindhand in not having done the same. I ask, why is Tommy to be always the foil of Mr. Barlow to this extent? What Mr. Barlow had not the slightest notion of himself, a week ago, it surely cannot be any very heavy backsliding in me not to have at my fingers' ends to- day! And yet Mr. ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... ye sought with your bloodshed and toil, Was it slaves, or dominion, or rapine, or spoil? No! your lofty emprise was to fetter and foil The uprooter of Greece's domain, When he tore the last remnant of food from her soil, Till her famished sank pale as ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... entered the armory he was 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
... 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 ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... have lit the dullest entertainment in the world with the humour of her mood. There was a part for her to play. She played it. All her remarks, bristling with the pointed satires of spiteful criticism, were a foil to the gentle temper of ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... white cream, which had spread into a pool and flowed over the little wooden barriers with which an attempt had been made to arrest its course. Next came some Port Saluts, similar to antique discs, with exergues bearing their makers' names in print. A Romantour, in its tin-foil wrapper, suggested a bar of nougat or some sweet cheese astray amidst all these pungent, fermenting curds. The Roqueforts under their glass covers also had a princely air, their fat faces marbled with blue and yellow, as though they were ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... can have many meanings, and I am sure that in using it, I did n't place the same construction that you did in hearing it. But let that pass. I apologize. What I should have said was that, if you will pardon me, she used you, as young women will do, as a foil against her fiance in a time of petty quarreling between them. ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... single instant was enough to assure him of the rashness of the measure, for he immediately found himself fully engaged, with all his activity and courage, in endeavoring to ward the desperate thrusts made with the knife of the Huron. Unable longer to foil an enemy so alert and vigilant, he threw his arms about him, and succeeded in pinning the limbs of the other to his side, with an iron grasp, but one that was far too exhausting to himself to continue long. In this extremity he heard a voice near ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... challenge to all other smiths, both in the Rhine country and elsewhere, to equal that piece of workmanship, or else acknowledge themselves his underlings and vassals. For many days had Mimer himself toiled, alone and vainly, trying to forge a sword whose edge the boasted armor of Amilias could not foil; and now, in despair, he came to ask the help ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... existed in the time of Edward III., and received its first charter from Edward IV. Their bye-laws order that if any member be found rebel or contrariwise to the wardens he shall pay one pound of wax for certain altar-lights. No tin-foil might be used, but only oil colours. They derive their name Painter-stainers from the custom of calling a picture a "stained cloth." The principal artists in England were members of the guild, and in their hall are numerous examples of the work of its members. The Pattenmakers' Company suggests ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... (What great offense had either people done?) But I, the consort of the Thunderer, Have wag'd a long and unsuccessful war, With various arts and arms in vain have toil'd, And by a mortal man at length am foil'd. If native pow'r prevail not, shall I doubt To seek for needful succor from without? If Jove and Heav'n my just desires deny, Hell shall the pow'r of Heav'n and Jove supply. Grant that the Fates have firm'd, by ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... 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 son ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... hundred comic packets that would make a Twain of Job; I have "Seeds of Tales Narcotic; Tales of Surgeons and the Probe." I've a most superb assortment, on the very cheapest terms, Done up carefully in tin-foil, of my A 1 ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... and his eyes revealed that he would have said more, but the room was meantime filling with players from the stage, some exchanging compliments, some strutting before the glass, and he would not so degrade his dignity before them. Dick, foil in hand even in the manager's room, was testing the steel's strength to his utmost, ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... experiments, that a water-ice is the only form of nourishment his stomach will retain, he is driven to the conviction that there is something wrong, and that he had better see the doctor. The result of the young athlete's visit to the doctor was that he mournfully laid down the dumb-bells and the foil, eschewed gymnastics, and ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... pains, his face, as reflected in the mirror, looking haggard and pale. He had never seen his wife in black, which was an excellent foil to her fair beauty, and the sight of her rendered him tongue-tied. He had nothing to say even when she dismissed him with a "Thanks, I'll manage ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... unsuccessful in getting his play represented. Remonstrance merely irritated Tobias. His new novel was but a fainter echo of his old novels, a panorama of scoundrelism, with the melodramatic fortunes of the virtuous Monimia for a foil. If read to-day, it is read as a sketch of manners, or want of manners. The scene in which the bumpkin squire rooks the accomplished Fathom at hazard, in Paris, is prettily conceived, and Smollett's indignation at the British system of pews in church is edifying. But when Monimia appears ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... were to begin at nine o'clock. They were to come in this order: Standing broad jump, running broad jump, high jump, foil match, revolver contest ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... nor blood-sacrifice Entreat you to your wonted furtherance? Then take my soul, my body, soul and all, Before that England give the French the foil. ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... is our object to foil his good intentions towards us: sooner or later we must fight him, and why not now? Haga, my father, thou art the oldest and wisest here present; speak, and we will be guided ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... 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
... Hideous (which is also evil) should never be used except as a foil. There is no immorality in exhibiting the prevailing vices of the epoch, but this is the physician's duty. The evil lies in presenting these evils under such forms as may lead many to enjoy or tolerate them, giving ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... Davos felt almost cheerful. Perhaps the absolute hush of the country and the purity of the atmosphere, with its suggestion of recent rain,—the skies weep at least once a day in the Salzkammergut region,—proved a welcome foil to fashionable Ischl, with its crowds, its stiffness, its court ceremonial—for the emperor enjoys his villegiatura there. And Davos was sick and irritable after a prolonged musical season. He had studied the pianoforte with Rosenthal, and his success, from his ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... were not kept to this way of declaiming when Sophocles and Euripides influenc'd the age. Nor yet had any blind alley-professor foil'd their inclinations, when Pindar and the Nine Lyricks durst not attempt Homer's Numbers: And that I may not bring my authority from poets, 'tis certain, neither Plato nor Demosthenes ever made it their practice: A stile one would value, and as I may call ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... in itself right, done for reward, would, in the very doing, cease to be right.' At the same time, if a man does right, he cannot escape being rewarded for it; and to refuse the reward, would be to refuse life, and foil the creative love. The whole question is of the kind of reward expected. What first reward for doing well, may I look for? To grow purer in heart, and stronger in the hope of at length seeing God. If a man be not after this fashion rewarded, he must perish. As ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... her with surprise. "We are fencing—and I hate it. Once at West Point I was fencing with a man, my friend; the button broke off my foil and I hurt him seriously. He fell dead beside me in the ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... "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 ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... sisterly pity for the unfortunate of her sex. For her part, Mlle. Binesco did not regard Mlle. Bjornsen as a very womanly woman, but respected her integrity and business-like methods, and felt her to be, perhaps, an effective foil to herself. It may be observed that there are in this world mental females, mental males, and mental neutrals. You may know them by their conversation. The mental females, or womanly women, are apt to talk about clothes, children, domestics, the ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... mighty men, ye warriors stern and bold, And let your cords be very strong, your fetters manifold! For neither they nor He they trust shall foil my kingly ire, Or save them from the wrathful ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... in our elbow chair, Secure at home, to read descriptions rare Of venturous traveller in savage climes; His hair-breadth 'scapes, toil, hunger—and sometimes The merrier passages that, like a foil To set off perils past, sweetened that toil, And took the edge from danger; and I look With such fear-mingled pleasure thro' thy book, Adventurous Hardy! Thou a diver[16] art, But of no common form; and for thy part Of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... and steel caps with visors which served as fencing masks, it was clear that he preferred the fencing lesson to the dancing. He threw off his coat, buttoned a padded guard across his chest, and handing a foil to his instructor, took his ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... said the Master, "two words before I begin. You are a fencer, you can hold a foil; you little know what a change it makes to hold a sword! And by that I know you are to fall. But see how strong is my situation! If you fall, I shift out of this country to where my money is before me. If I fall, where ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... arms are all right, but my legs are weak; and then, I have not had a foil in my hand since that devil of a duel; and you, I am sure, have been fencing every day, in order to carry your little conspiracy against ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Lestrigon, Whereas our brother Corineius was, Since when we passed the Cicillian gulf, And so transfretting the Illirian sea, Arrived on the coasts of Aquitaine, Where with an army of his barbarous Gauls Goffarius and his brother Gathelus Encountering with our host, sustained the foil. And for your sakes my Turnus there I lost, Turnus that slew six hundred men at arms All in an hour, with his sharp battle-axe. From thence upon the strons of Albion To Corus haven happily we came, And quelled the giants, come ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... shining as if he had been polished with a shoe-brush) entered the kitchen of the hotel, and asked for the largest knife they had. The head-cook gave him a sort of carving-knife, some eighteen inches long, sharp as a razor, and pliant as a foil. The negro looked at it, shook his head as if in doubt whether it would do, but nevertheless took it up stairs with him. Presently he brought it down again, and asked for a larger one. The cook opened all his drawers, and at last found a sort of cutlass, which he hardly ever used ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... that thy springs revive The drooping patient, scarce alive; Where, as he gathers strength to toil, Not e'en thy heights his spirit foil, But nerve him on to bless, t'inhale, And triumph in the morning gale; Or noon's transcendent glories give The vigorous touch that bids him live. Perhaps e'en now he stops to breathe, Surveying the expanse beneath? Now climbs again, where keen winds blow. And holds his beaver to his brow; ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... where the surrounding sandridges sheltered them from view, they crouched over a small basket they had brought with them and performed certain ceremonies. First the pouch was wrapped in many sheets of tin foil, which Richard had been long in collecting from various tobacco-loving friends. When that was done it flashed in the sun like a nugget of wrinkled silver. This was stuffed into a baking-powder can from which the label had been carefully scraped, and on whose lid ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... must neglect The trodden paths that truth and right respect; And prove new, wilder ways: for virtue there Is not that narrow thing, she is elsewhere; Men's fortune there is virtue; reason their will; Their license, law; and their observance, skill. Occasion is their foil; conscience, their stain; Profit their lustre; and what else is, vain. If then it be the lust of Caesar's power, To have raised Sejanus up, and in an hour O'erturn him, tumbling down, from height of ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... so hot? Your bolts distress not me, But injure the fair mistress of these bowers, Whose sordid guardian would her husband be, For lucre, not for love. Rather than quarrel, let us use our powers, And gift with magic aid some active sprite, To foil the guardian ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... Todd, spurred by his responsibility, gradually came around to something like his old arbitrary self. Yank Tate, the carpenter, maintained through it all a patient faith in the captain, and, in so far as his influence could be felt, acted as a foil to the irascible, fault-finding Tom Plate, the forecastle lawyer, the man who had been at the lead-line at Barbados. But the rest of them were dazed and nerveless, too shaken in brain and body to consider seriously Tom's ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... eyes—more rapidly, perhaps, than any other ancient branch of commerce—and that your efforts to suppress it, have affected nothing more than a three-fold increase of its horrors. There is a God who rules this world—all-powerful—far-seeing: He does not permit his creatures to foil his designs. It is he who, for his all-wise, though to us often inscrutable purposes, throws "impossibilities" in the way of our fondest hopes and most strenuous ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... 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. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... 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, ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... imported in tubs covered by matting and each surrounded by a second tub, secured on the outside by hoops of twisted cane. Each tub contains about one cwt. Most of this goes to the continent. 2. Ordinary crude camphor is imported from Singapore and Bombay, in square chests lined with lead-foil, and containing 11/4 to 11/2 cwts. It is chiefly produced in the island of Formosa, and is brought by the Chin Chew junks in very large quantities to Canton, whence foreign markets get ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... going once into the attics of my grandfather's house at Penrith, upon some indignity having been put upon me, with an intention of destroying myself with one of the foils which I knew was kept there. I took the foil in hand, but my heart failed. Upon another occasion, while I was at my grandfather's house at Penrith, along with my eldest brother, Richard, we were whipping tops together in the large drawing-room, on which the carpet was only laid down upon particular occasions. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... meeting, his hostess should surely have felt, would have been a false note in the whole rosy glow; but what note so false as that of the dingy little presence that she might actually, by a refinement of her perhaps always too visible study of effect, have provided as a positive contrast or foil? whose name and intervention, moreover, she appeared to be no more moved to mention and account for than she might have been to "present"—whether as stretched at her feet or erect upon disciplined haunches—some shaggy ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... then consider the Society as out of date? You do not think, as is sometimes said, that the establishment of the Grosvenor took away the raison d'etre and original intention of the Society—that of being a foil to ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... again and again re-told, Must you crowd on the weary brain, Till the fingers are cold that entwin'd of old Round foil and trigger and rein, Till stay'd for aye are the roving feet, Till the restless hands are quiet, Till the stubborn heart has forgotten to beat, Till the hot ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... quoth he, "I thee forgot, And see thy cause of foil; An hog came since into my house, And broke thy pot ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... teach me more than toil? Can swaying of sere sedge along the slope, Or the dull lisp of oaken limbs that foil The sun's ensheathing fervor, interfuse My vacant being with far meanings whose Soft airs blow from the hidden seas of Hope? Or can the wintry sumac sably stooping So charm and lift my heart from heartless drooping When other healings all were asked in vain? Yes—there are witcheries in the ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... by the ease with which he bore down and dispersed those who fought against our freedom. My father alone offered an opposition which threatened to prove fatal to him; for Wallace, it was said, could foil any two martial champions that ever drew sword. Brushing from him the armed men, as a lady would drive away with her fan a swarm of troublesome flies, he secured me in one arm, used his other for our mutual protection, and I found myself in the act of ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... originality? There is nothing in what I am treating as this phase of our author's thought to separate it from the old-fashioned rationalism. There must be a reason for every fact; and so much reason, so fact. The reason is always the whole foil and background and negation of the fact, the whole remainder of reality. "A man may feel good only by feeling better. . . . Pleasure is ever in the company and contrast of pain; for instance, in thirsting and drinking, the pleasure of the one is the ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... participating in a policy of competitive armaments. Nor does preparation mean a policy of militarizing. Our people and industries are solicitous for the cause of 0111, country, and have great respect for the Army and Navy and foil the uniform worn by the men who stand ready at all times for our protection to encounter the dangers and perils necessary to military service, but all of these activities are to be taken not in behalf of aggression but in behalf of peace. They are the instruments ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... small silver formic acid. quantities cannot be distinguished from butyric (c) Evaporate to dryness; mix acid by tests within the with equal quantity of scope of the bacteriological arsenious oxide and heat laboratory. on platinum foil. ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... prime, bearing unmistakable marks of the polished pupil of the world in the grace that flowed through every motion, the art which taught each feature to play its part with the ease of second nature and made dress the foil to loveliness. The face was delicate and dark as a fine bronze, a low forehead set in shadowy waves of hair, eyes full of slumberous fire, and a passionate yet haughty mouth that seemed shaped alike for caresses ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... emancipation for all. It cannot be that a deliberate suicide of soul is the ideal holding the deepest desire of four hundred millions of people. Nirwana is not negation, but a pure positive without alternation or foil. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... every sense a woman of snow, his Highness mentally decided, for her gown this evening was white and the black hair powdered; all white she was, a cloud-tatter in the moonlight: yet with the Comte de Chateauroux as a foil, his uniform of the Cuirassiers a big stir of glitter and color, she made an undeniably handsome picture; and it was, quite possibly, the Grand Duke's aesthetic taste which held him ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... after having been reinforced by General Leslie, had planned to invade North Carolina, conquer that State, march through Virginia and join Clinton in a fierce onslaught against Washington's army in the North. To foil the plans of the British officers Greene was concentrating the patriot troops in the South in the Catawba Valley, and Gregory was left with only a handful of men to hold the ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... 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, he is ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... wrestlers; who if they come in robustuously, and put for it with a great deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows: when many times their own rudeness is the cause of their disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. I deny not, but that these men, who always seek to do more than enough, may some time happen on some thing that is good, and great; but very seldom; and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest of ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... profusion from the tree's peculiar arms. From the ceiling of his place of business, Bone, the barkeep, cut down a fluffy lot of colored paper, stuck there in a great rosette, and with this he added much original beauty to the pile. Out of cigar-boxes came a great heap of bright tin-foil that went on the branches in a way that only ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... I've eyed with best regard: for several virtues Have I liked several women, never any With so full soul, but some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed, And put it to the foil; but you, O you, So perfect and so peerless are created ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... undergraduates round Pembroke gate, he never ceased to respect his college. "His love and regard for Pembroke he entertained to the last," while of his old tutor he said, "a man who becomes Jorden's pupil becomes his son." Gibbon's sneer is a foil to Johnson's kindliness. "I applaud the filial piety which it is impossible for me to imitate . . . To the University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligations, and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... secret in practice, though some, perhaps, have not much studied the theory. The jeweller knows that the finest brilliant requires a foil; and the painter, by the contrast of his figures, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... succeed in our first attempt; some little neglect or accident may foil our present efforts, but the present enterprise will result in gathering stores of experience which will make the next effort certain. Not that I do not expect success now, but accidental failure now will not be the ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... was over to the dairy fair at the exposition building Saturday night, and when they were breaking up, me and my chum helped to carry boxes of cheese and firkins of butter, and a cheese-man gave each of us a piece of limberger cheese, wrapped up in tin foil. Sunday morning I opened my piece, and it made me tired. O, it was the offulest smell I ever heard of, except the smell when they found a tramp who hung himself in the woods on the Whitefish Bay road, and had been dead three weeks. ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... the daughter of Evil, Virtue the offspring of Vice. You know how virtuous a man feels after a jag. You've got to sin to feel really good. Consequently, Sin must be good to be the means of good, to be the raw material of good, to be virtue in the making, mustn't it? The dance-halls are a good foil to the gospel-halls. If we were all virtuous, there would be no virtue in virtue, and if we were all bad no one would be bad. And because there's so much bad in this old burg of ours, it makes the good seem ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... closer the particles pack together, the less the circulation of air through the mass, and the smaller the amount of aroma which is carried away. He also found that glass makes the best container for coffee, with the tin can, and the foil-lined bag with an inner lining of glassine, not ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... olden time, but present and youthful ever. The speech may be compared with that speech of Socrates in the Phaedrus in which he describes himself as talking dithyrambs. It is at once a preparation for Socrates and a foil to him. The rhetoric of Agathon elevates the soul to 'sunlit heights,' but at the same time contrasts with the natural and necessary eloquence of Socrates. Agathon contributes the distinction between love and the works of ...
— Symposium • Plato
... an excellent foil. He was as silent and secretive as sand. He moved, as it were, in circles, thus always eluding dangerous corners. He was tall, angular, with a thin, immobile countenance, well guarded by his gray eyes and straight lips. He was a born financier, with ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... found, forsooth! Why, then, they should be found!" Fain had my good Lord Burleigh solved the thing, And smoothed that ominous wrinkle on the brow Of her Most Sweet Imperious Majesty. Full many a problem his statecraft had solved— How strangle treason, how soothe turbulent peers, How foil the Pope and Spain, how pay the Fleet— Mere temporal matters; but this business smelt Strongly of brimstone. Bring back vanished folk! That could not ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... 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 some semblance of ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... hearing me complaining of my leg, he examined it, and found that my foot was gangrened. An accident of my early days was the cause of this new trouble. At Soreze I had my right foot wounded by the unbuttoned foil of a schoolfellow with whom I was fencing. It seemed that the muscles of the part had become sensitive, and had suffered much from cold while I was lying unconscious on the field of Eylau; thence had resulted a swelling which explained the difficulty experienced by the soldier in ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... there?' she asked, as she saw chips, and tools, and bits of bright foil, lying scattered about the ground. Yet for three days he would show her nothing, only he said, 'What I do is because we love each ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... keeps her word, and I am lost; Yet let not my ambition shew it to her; For, after all, she does it but to try me, And foil my vowed design.—Madam, I see You're come to court; the robes you wear become you; Your air, your mien, your charms, your every grace, Will kill at least your thousand in ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... night, to open the cheese. It was one of the cream cheeses, so popular in Canada, no bigger than my closed hand. We gingerly unwrapped the tin foil and broke it open. To our great joy, in the hollow heart of it there was tucked away the tiny compass Simmons had written for from Vehnmoor just before our second escape. With it ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... into bondage Brought my too diligent ear: for several virtues Have I liked several women; never any With so full soul, but some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed And put it to the foil. But you, O you, So perfect and so peerless, are created ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... he that overrul'd I oversway'd, Leading him prisoner in a red-rose chain: Strong-temper'd steel his stronger strength obey'd, Yet was he servile to my coy disdain. 112 O! be not proud, nor brag not of thy might, For mastering her that foil'd the god ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... moment 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 feet short. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... now I'm coming with my expeditionary forces, and you and I'll foil them yet. One of our office men was taken sick, that was the trouble. And I've been so busy doing his work and my own, and getting this crew of wild Indians ready to invade Temple Camp, that I haven't had time to write a letter, that's a fact. Even at this very minute, one young tenderfoot is shouting ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... than kind, from their sire's brother sprung. And on their track, astir with wild desire, Like falcons fierce closing on doves that flee, Shall speed the suitors, craving to achieve A prey forbidden, a reluctant bride. Yet power divine shall foil them, and forbid Possession of the maids, whom Argive land Shall hold protected, when unsleeping hate, Horror, and watchful ambush of the night, Have laid the suitors dead, by female hands. For every maid ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... Atta and the world about him is furnished by this same head: two huge, flail-shaped antennae arching up like aerial, detached eyebrows—vehicles, through their golden pile, of senses which foil our most delicate tests. Outside of these are two little shoe-button eyes; and we are not certain whether they reflect to the head ganglion two or three hundred bits of leaf, or one large mosaic leaf. Below all is swung the pair of great scythes, ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... scornful sort that may be; so as it is impossible that any beholder can be content to be such a one. Now, as in geometry, the oblique must be known as well as the right, and in arithmetic, the odd as well as the even; so in the actions of our life, who seeth not the filthiness of evil, wanteth a great foil to perceive the beauty of virtue. This doth the comedy handle so, in our private and domestical matters, as, with hearing it, we get, as it were, an experience of what is to be looked for, of a niggardly Demea, of a crafty Davus, ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... represent the kings and queens of England. These rare examples of the English cutler's and ivory carver's art, dated 1607, have blades damascened with gold. There are knives also with handles of amber, one very remarkable set in amber over foil being decorated with the figure of Christ and His Apostles on one side of the handles, and on the other side there is the ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... And lowlands hot with fruit, Sea-bays and shoals and islands, And cliffs that foil man's foot, And all the flower of large-limbed life and ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... seems some star that shifted place in heav'n, Only that, whence it kindles, none is lost, And it is soon extinct; thus from the horn, That on the dexter of the cross extends, Down to its foot, one luminary ran From mid the cluster shone there; yet no gem Dropp'd from its foil; and through the beamy list Like flame in alabaster, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... climactic quality raised her spirits to the point where they were irrepressible, and she danced her garments off one by one, using each in turn as a foil for her art until there was nothing left with which to multiply rhythm and she danced before the long French mirrors yet more gracefully with nothing ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... 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
... is indicated by the posture of the body; for, squatting down and being struck in the back, it is naturally on her back that she ought to have fallen. The murderer used a sharp narrow weapon, which was, unless I am deceived, the end of a foil, sharpened, and with the button broken off. By wiping the weapon upon his victim's skirt, the assassin leaves us this indication. He was not, however, hurt in the struggle. The victim must have clung ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... on as bold a front, and making as great and startling display, as possible. But as fragrant, modest flowers usually bloom in the garden with gaudy, scentless ones, so those inclined to be bizarre made an excellent foil for the refined and elegant, and thus had their uses. There is little in the world that is not of value, looking at it ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... with goblins was fruitless. One night a dark and hostile throng emerged from the wood and moved toward the blockhouse, where twenty musketeers were keeping guard. "If you be ghosts or devils I will foil you," cried the captain, and tearing a silver button from his doublet he rammed it into his gun and fired on the advancing host. Even as the smoke of his musket was blown on the wind, so did the beleaguering army vanish, the silver bullet ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... he thought to himself as he strode across the turf, "to make myself a mere foil and stop-gap for that conceited brute! Not I." Far from practising the abstinence of the other two, he had eaten as much as he could stuff and drunk all the beer he could get, and this, combined with resentment at Robarts' words, caused him ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... believed she had jeopardised her soul with divorce. He feared now she meant to lose it irrevocably through remarriage. As a foil to his austerity, therefore, she would be audaciously gay ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... Against the foil of the butcher-bird's stolidity we may set the inquisitive, garrulous temperament of the white-eyed vireo and the yellow-breasted chat. The vireo is hardly larger than the goldfinch, but let him be in one ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... hand of the man who had just declared war against her, her surprise gave place to a mingled feeling of impatience and anger. She drew her foot back with a sudden movement, but unfortunately the foot went one way and the slipper another. A fencing-master, who sees his foil carried ten steps away from him by a back stroke, could not feel more astonishment than that felt by Madame de Bergenheim. Her first movement was to place her foot, so singularly undressed, upon the ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... rabbits; "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 loaded up ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... veil of rain; odours of rose and sweet-briar and evening primroses floated in on the warm, moist air, and mingled with the steam of the tea-kettle and the fume in the chafing-dish; and the patter, patter of rain drops, and the dash of wet leaves against each other, were a foil to the tea-kettle's song. Wych Hazel looked on, musingly, till Rollo came back and took her round the room looking at books. Then offering her his arm, he somewhat suddenly brought her face to face with some one just entering ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... the doorway bowing gracefully, his hat held before him and his hand on his stick as though it were resting on a foil. He had the face and carriage of a gallant of the days of Congreve, and he wore his modern frock-coat with as much distinction as if it were of silk and lace. He was evidently amused. "I couldn't help overhearing ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... and it was at Maclaren's he first met Alfred Bates Richards, who became a life friend. Richards, an undergraduate of Exeter, was a man of splendid physique. A giant in height and strength, he defeated all antagonists at boxing, but Burton mastered him with the foil and the broad-sword. Richards, who, like Burton, became a voluminous author [47] wrote long after, "I am sure, though Burton was brilliant, rather wild, and very popular, none of us ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... did she amuse me, although without intending it, that I thought it would be only fair, in my turn, to do something for her entertainment. I was engaged one day in shaping a wooden foil with my knife, whistling and singing snatches of old melodies at my work, when all at once I caught sight of the ancient dame looking greatly delighted, chuckling internally, nodding her head, and keeping time with her hands. Evidently she was able ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... prepared by dissolving gold in aqua regia, a composition of one part of nitric to two parts of muriatic acid. Gold foil is the best for our purposes; coin, however, answers, in most cases, for the daguerreotype operator, as the alloy, being so slight is not noticed in the gilding process. When the latter is used, it will facilitate the operation to beat it out, forming a thin sheet, and then ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... sudden blaze, Comes the blind fury with the abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise, Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears; Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies; But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; As he pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed. O fountain Arethuse, and thou honored flood, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... the explosions occurring in the powder works; but the explanation of the formation of the substance is wanting, as potassium nitrate was shown not to give an explosive substance with tin. A thin layer of a mixture of sulphur and potassium nitrate was placed between sheets of tin and copper foil, and allowed to stand, being kept constantly moist. After a time the copper was found to have become coated with sulphide, while the tin was largely converted into the explosive basic nitrate. The conditions are obviously the same as those found in the powder machinery, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... by high mountains, and again crowned by the snowy peaks of those more distant, lay before us, its whole surface dotted with a multitude of white forts surrounded by a belt of the most vivid green, the barrenness of the uncultivated spots acting as a foil to the rich vegetation which springs under the foot of the Affgh[a]n husbandman wherever he can introduce the fertilizing stream. We rode leisurely on through this wilderness of gardens, till on approaching the village of Be-tout the loud wail of women hired to pour forth their ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... raised the lid. Then he put aside some articles of clothing and lifted from beneath them an oblong box, open at the ends. One saw, on looking closer, that the sides of the box were of glass, partially covered on both sides with tin-foil; and peering in at the open end, one perceived a vague maze of wires ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Love's better omens, in the green hues dress'd Of this selected foliage.—Nymph, 't is thine The warning story on its leaves to find, Proud Daphne's fate, imprison'd in its rind, And with its umbrage veil'd, great Phoebus' power Scorning, and bent, with feet of wind, to foil His swift pursuit, till on Thessalian shore Shot into boughs, and rooted to the soil.— Thus warn'd, fair Maid, Apollo's ire to shun, Soon may his Spray's and VOTARY's ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... is strikingly expressed in the Hebrew: 'Let me devour, I pray thee, of that red, that red there.' It is no sin to be hungry, but to let appetite speak so clamorously indicates feeble self-control. Jacob's coolness is an unpleasant foil to Esau's impatience, and his cautious bargaining, before he will sell what a brother would have given, shows a mean soul, without generous love to his own flesh and blood. Esau lets one ravenous desire hide everything else from him. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... smooth and warm from contact with his body, and put it back. Then he would listen. There was nothing whatever to listen to, but he could not help it. Apart from this, his chief distraction was to take a foil and make passes at a leather cushion, set up on the top of a low bookshelf. In these occupations, varied by constant visits to the room next the nursery, where—to save her the stairs—Gyp was now established, and by excursions to the conservatory to see if he could ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... stammered, and couldn't make up his mind to go. I was expecting Lord William every moment to take leave of me, and I would not have them meet. In my confusion my eyes rested on a 'trophy of arms' with which my father had decorated one side of the room. Scarcely knowing what I was about, I seized a foil, handed it to my would-be lover, and taking another myself, I took up my position on ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... when a Kawar is going to make a ceremonial visit he likes always to take with him two or three Bhainas, who are considered as his retainers, though not being so in fact. This enhances his importance, and it is also said that the stupidity of the Bhainas acts as a foil, through which the superior intelligence of the Kawar is made more apparent. All these details point to the same conclusion that the primitive Bhainas first held the country and were supplanted by the more ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... only a foil to his wife. He is introduced to bring into sharper relief her unhappiness and her powerlessness to better her condition. He is not a bad man, nor is she a bad woman. To say that the story turns entirely on his honor and on her false pride is to miss, I think, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... herdsmen, round The cheerful fire, provoke his health in goblets crown'd. He calls on Bacchus, and propounds the prize, The groom his fellow-groom at buts defies, And bends his bow, and levels with his eyes: Or, stript for wrestling, smears his limbs with oil, And watches with a trip his foe to foil. Such was the life the frugal Sabines led; So Remus and his brother king were bred, From whom th' austere Etrurian virtue rose; And this rude life our homely fathers chose; Old Rome from such a race derived her birth, The seat of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... tall and splendidly developed, was my son? From me he took his wealth of nature, for Mr. Fontevrault was one of those dried, wrinkled old men, women like me often marry; not because of the settlements only, but because of the foil. My figure was moulded like the Venus they copied in the colder marble from Pauline. Shoulders and arms, delicious in their curves, shining with a rosy fairness. A creamy skin, with a faint coralline tinge in the cheeks. The forehead is too low, some say; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... material which, pushed through a loop or 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
... writers as they do fencers or wrestlers, who if they come in robustiously and put for it with a deal of violence are received for the braver fellows; when many times their own rudeness is a cause of their disgrace, and a slight touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. But in these things the unskilful are naturally deceived, and judging wholly by the bulk, think rude things greater than polished, and scattered more numerous than composed; nor think this only to ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... his wares around in arch array To please the taste of passers up and down,— His hoard of handy things of trite renown, Of sweets and spices and of faint perfumes, Of silks and prints,—and at the last illumes His tiny panes to foil the evening's frown; So Nature spreads her proffered treasures: such As daily dazzle at the morning's rise,— Fair show of isle and ocean merchandise, And airy offerings filmy to the touch; Then, lest we like not ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... dignified and clerical appearance. His trousers were neatly folded into the tops of his very high boots, and his shirt-bosom was broad and none too clean, and his flowered silk waistcoat was cut so low that two buttons sufficed to keep it in place. He wore a flowing, black necktie, glistening foil-back studs, and rings of the ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... method a system of bewitching flattery, everywhere pervasive, yet, too, so transitory and intangible, that, as in the case of the poet Wordsworth and the Wandering Voice, though she felt it present, she could never find it. As a foil to heighten its effect, he occasionally spoke philosophically of the evanescence of female beauty—the worthlessness of mere appearance. 'Handsome is that handsome does' he considered a proverb which should be written on the looking-glass of every ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... deisque, that men do not only turn with the occasions, but also run with the occasions, and not strain their credit or strength to over-hard or extreme points; but choose in their actions that which is most passable: for this will preserve men from foil, not occupy them too much about one matter, win opinion of moderation, please the most, and make a show of a perpetual felicity in all they undertake: which cannot ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... sullen passage of thy weary steps Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set The precious jewel of thy ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... turban from his forehead, and walking toward Munson, glass in hand, his baggy trousers and tunic making him look twice his regular size. "You know as much about fencing, Munson, as you do about the lost tribes of Israel. Booth handles his foil as a policeman does a rattan cane in the pit of the Bowery. Forrest is the only man in this country who can ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... dropped on his knees, inspected the tiny airplane. A perfect miniature, delicately beautiful; its slim, small wings were bright as silver foil. Carefully, he opened the door and peered into the diminutive cabin. Two minute rifles, several Lilliputian pistols, and boxes of ammunition to match, lay on the ...
— The Pygmy Planet • John Stewart Williamson
... banded themselves together under a curse to snatch Paul even from the midst of the Roman swords; and the Roman captain was only able to foil their plot by sending him under a heavy escort down to Caesarea. This was a Roman city on the Mediterranean coast; it was the residence of the Roman governor of Palestine and the headquarters ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... foil of his so very widely known, that third parties took it up, and handled it on some occasions with considerable briskness. It was one of the most exasperating attributes of Bounderby, that he not only sang his own ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... tells of the love affairs of three young people, with an old-fashioned romance in the background. A tiny dog plays an important role in serving as a foil for the heroine's talking ingeniousness. There is poetry, as well as tenderness and charm, in this tale of ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... survived was itself a mere accident. Yet the very fact that I lived yielded me fresh confidence, a fatalistic belief that my life had thus been spared for a specific purpose. It might yet be my privilege to foil these villains, and rescue Mrs. Henley. It was my belief she was also on board this vessel. I had no reason to assume this, except the wording of Broussard's report which I had overheard. But she was a prisoner, and this vessel would be the most likely place for ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish |
