"Foil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by the unwariness of the Legislature, and closed the doors of the medical schools to female applicants. Against unqualified female practitioners they never acted with such zeal and consent; and why? The female quack is a public pest, and a good foil to the union; the qualified doctress is a public good, and a blow ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Pour some mercury on a tin foil, smoothly laid on a flat table, and rub it gently with a hare's foot. It soon unites itself to the tin, which then becomes very splendid, or is what they call quickened. A plate of glass is then cautiously, passed upon the tin leaf, in such a manner as to sweep off the redundant mercury, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... of du Maurier's art, that which survives in it better than its sometimes scathing commentary upon a passing "craze," is his close representation of the air with which people seek to foil each other in conversation and conceal their own trepidations. His "Social Agonies" are among the best of this series. If he does not lay stress upon individual character, he still remains the master draughtsman of a state of mind. He succeeds thus in the very field where probably ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... back with a sigh of relief. A companion like Miss Martin makes a most excellent foil to solitude, and after she had departed, Lady Gore lay for a while in a state of pleasant quiescence. Why, she wondered, even supposing she herself did think too well of her husband, should Miss Martin object? Why do onlookers ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... was to try to find a new system of handling the budding operations that would give more definite results and if possible to eliminate the use of a wax melter and the waxing of buds. My first trial consisted in the use of florist's tin foil. Cutting bud from bud stick with my new style bud cutter, I cut out the patch from stalk and placed bud in place and with two or three turns of raffia, or rubber bands, secured bud in place, then put 2 wraps ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... of dressing on the condition that other ladies shall forego the same advantage; but when this compact is broken by any special lady, the treason is thought to be very treacherous. It is as though a fencer should remove the button from the end of his foil. But Mrs Greenow was so good-natured in tendering the services of Jeannette to all the young ladies, and was so willing to share with others those good things of the toilet which her care had provided, that her cap was forgiven her by ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Sir Oliver's best of long standing) he may cut a tolerable figure dangling to church with Miss Bell!—The woman, as she observes, should excel the man in features: and where can she match so well for a foil? ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... insipid pastoral, betraying the influence of the Lake School, more especially Coleridge, on a belated and irresponsive disciple, and wholly out of place as contrast or foil ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... Wherein he best may grow And bring forth guerdon of the planter's toil— The lily is most fair, But says not' I will only blow Upon a southern land'; the cedar makes no coil What rock shall owe The springs that wash his feet; The crocus cannot arbitrate the foil That for his purple radiance is most meet— Lord, even so I ask one prayer, The which if it be granted, It skills not where Thou plantest me, only ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as these, Which now I gaze on; but which, wanting thee, Want half their charms, for, to thy poet's thought, More deeply glow'd the heaven, when thy fine eye, Surveying its grand arch, all kindling glow'd; The white cloud to thy white brow was a foil; And, by the soft tints of thy cheek outvied, The dew-bent ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... profound chapter on a "State of probation, as intended for moral discipline and improvement," he shows that they are actually distributed for this purpose. 3. The unavoidable evils of this life, which are not brought upon us by our faults, are intended to serve as a foil to set off the blessedness of eternity. Our present light afflictions are intended, not merely to work out for us an exceeding and eternal weight of glory, but also to heighten our sense and enjoyment of it by a recollection of the miseries experienced ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... gentleness of Virgilia, Coriolanus's wife. The hero falls a victim to no sensual flaw, but to unchecked pride of caste, and there is a searching irony in the emphasis laid on the ignoble temper of the rabble, who procure his overthrow. By way of foil, the speeches of Menenius give dignified expression to the maturest political wisdom. The dramatic interest throughout is as single and as unflaggingly sustained as ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... paper on which verses are written are wrapped tightly in tin-foil and placed in dish. Brandy is poured on and ignited. The verse each person gets is supposed to ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... and became a principal figure in all the grand gladiatorial encounters, at wages of forty shillings a week and his meat. As for Mr. Figg himself, who was as good at backsword as at broadsword, at quarter-staff as at foil, and at fisticuffs as any one of them,—to say nothing of his Cornish wrestling,—I saw him once, and shall never forget him. There was a Majesty blazed in his countenance and shone in all his actions beyond all I ever beheld. His right leg bold and firm; and his Left, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... lumber, trammel, tie one's hands, put to inconvenience; incommode, discommode; discompose; hustle, corner, drive into a corner. run foul of, fall foul of; cross the path of, break in upon. thwart, frustrate, disconcert, balk, foil; faze, feaze[obs3], feeze [obs3][U.S.]; baffle, snub, override, circumvent; defeat &c. 731; spike guns &c. (render useless) 645; spoil, mar, clip the wings of; cripple &c. (injure) 659; put an extinguisher on; damp; dishearten &c (dissuade) 616; discountenance, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... affected secrecy and mysterious importance; and, as if the dishonesty of another constituted a virtue in themselves, they would repeat this information frequently, perhaps for a month afterward, setting up their neighbour's offence as a foil to their own ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... excited jealousies; among others that of her husband's sister, Madame de Listomere, who until now had patronized her, thinking that she protected a foil to her own merits. A countess, beautiful, witty and virtuous!—what a prey for the tongues of the world! Felix had broken with too many women, and too many women had broken with him, to leave them indifferent to his marriage. When these women beheld in Madame de Vandenesse ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... will see the shape of the insect. Cut this out of a piece of cork about three inches long, and make the legs of thin wire (after the manner of the spider we described in a previous number); then get some strips of thin tin-foil, and gum them on the back of the cucuius; then paint over the whole with transparent green color (oil paints if possible). Now gouge out two holes about the size of the head of a common match, and then cut off the heads of two common matches, and insert them into ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... as complete a contrast to his companion as could be desired by the humorous painter. He was a plump, spry little fellow, brightly dressed and bubbling over with merry, roguish spirits, which formed the most fantastic foil to the lugubriousness of his fellow-worker. Any good citizen of Paris, arising belated, if any such there may have been, and hurrying to the walls to know how things went for the king's cause, would have recognized ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... Paul's own words, and also to a large extent by the logic of events. This verse is almost the only one in which John touches upon that extinct controversy, and here the Law is introduced simply as a foil to set off the brightness of the Gospel. All artists know the value of contrast in giving prominence. A dark background flashes up brighter colours into brilliancy. White is never so white as when it is relieved against black. And so here the special preciousness and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... was a man of Milan called Gaio. He was the most presumptuous donkey in the world, the one who knew least and who thought he knew most; the others were very modest and able craftsmen. In the presence of us all this Gaio began to talk, and said: "Miliano's foil should be preserved, and to do that, Benvenuto, you shall doff your cap; [1] for just as giving diamonds a tint is the most delicate and difficult thing in the jeweller's art, so is Miliano the greatest jeweller ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... to foil these intents, and received the scant amount of encouragement which falls to well-meaning interference in real life; the Certified Poisonmonger presided over three tin pails of liquids, labelled respectively, "Lingering," "Sudden," and ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the induction telegraph was to establish communication with moving trains. Several experimenters had suggested it, but it remained for Thomas A. Edison to actually accomplish it. He set up a plate of tin-foil on the engine or cars, opposite the telegraph wires. Currents could be induced across the gap, no matter what the speed of the train, and, traveling along the wires to the station, communication was thus established. Had Edison continued his investigation ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... to marry her to foil van Heerden, and after—to dissolve the marriage?" asked the lawyer, shaking his head. "I don't like that solution, Beale—I tell you frankly, I don't like it. You're a good man and I have every faith in you, but if I consented, even though I were confident that you would ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... agreed to carry a letter to her on his next marketing trip. My message was prepared by writing it on tissue paper, which was then compressed into a small pellet, and protected by wrapping it in tin-foil so that it could be safely carried in the man's mouth. The probability, of his being searched when he came to the Confederate picketline was not remote, and in such event he was to swallow the pellet. The ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... producing a mild x-ray erythema; and in some instances benefit or cure only occurs after more active exposure, sufficient to cause an x-ray burn of the second degree. The method is not attended with much risk if properly used. The healthy parts should be protected by lead-foil. Exposure should be two to five times weekly, at a distance of three to eight inches, and from five to twenty minutes, employing a tube of medium vacuum. Unfortunately the method is usually slow. The radium treatment is essentially similar to ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... enough to lead me to a further experiment. I made a drawing of a model, and took it to Mr. Kruesi, at that time engaged on piece-work for me. I told him it was a talking-machine. He grinned, thinking it a joke; but he set to work and soon had the model ready. I arranged some tin-foil on it and spoke into the machine. Kruesi looked on, still grinning. But when I arranged the machine for transmission and we both heard a distinct sound from it, he nearly fell down in his fright. I must admit that I was a little scared ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... to assert their robust independence. How could he help admiring Byron and falling into more or less unconscious imitation of his moods if not of his special affectations? Passion showing itself off against a dark foil of cynicism; sentiment, ashamed of its own self-betrayal, and sneering at itself from time to time for fear of the laugh of the world at its sincerity,—how many young men were spoiled and how many more injured by becoming bad ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears, And slits the thin spun life. But not the praise, Phoebus repli'd, and touch'd my trembling ears; Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to th'world, nor in broad rumour lies, But lives and spreds aloft by those pure eyes, And perfet witnes of all judging Jove; As he pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in Heav'n expect thy meed. O fountain Arethuse, and thou honour'd floud, Smooth-sliding Mincius, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... to supper, and so closely cover The rusty canker of mine iron spite With golden foil of goodly semblances. But if I do not ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... 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 ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... proof was the half-bottle of Three Star brandy sold by the grocer. This bottle had its neck broken clean off with a stone. The stone employed for the purpose was picked up, as was the neck of the bottle, with its cork, covered with a tin-foil seal. The seal showed marks of attempts that had been made to uncork the bottle in the ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... each using a billiard-bridge. The girl in the orange sweater had a handful of scribbled notes, and was telling them where to push the pills. There were other objects on the map, too—pistol-cartridges, and cigarettes, and foil-wrapped food-concentrate ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... all? What then? You do not fear the men: Perchance you only wish to hide your heart, And so, you fickle flirt, You don a khaki skirt To foil the deadly aim of ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... attractive character than the former. But there is that in the cast of the composition which suggests that its object may have been quite as much to raise disgust at the elders' crime as to raise admiration at Susanna's purity; in fact that the whiteness of her character was designed as a foil to make more prominent the blackness of her oppressors. On this account Jer. xxix. 23 might perhaps be taken as a verse which gave his cue to the writer. But these are points on which opinions will inevitably vary according ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... justified on carrying off with him on a quiet holiday, His Cousin Adair, by GORDON ROY. The book has all the requisites of a good novel, including the perhaps rarest one of literary style. Cousin Adair is well worth knowing, and her character is skilfully portrayed. As a foil against this high-minded, pure-souled unselfish girl, there are sketched in two or three of the sort of people, men and women, more frequently met with in this wicked world. But Cousin Adair is good enough to leaven the lump. GORDON ROY is evidently a nom de plume that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... brother, speaking for the first time in an accent of reproach, and seeming, by the sound of his voice, to have covered his face with his hands, 'I have been, since then, a useful foil to you. You have trodden on me freely in your climbing up. Don't ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... arm'd—with gilded Lances and Shields of Black, with golden Suns painted. The Musick plays a fighting Tune. They fight at Barriers, to the Tune.—Harlequin is often foil'd, but advances still; at last Scaramouch throws him, and is Conqueror; ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... fencing-school, where, after three months' practice, I made but very little progress, and could never attempt fencing with any but my master. My wrist was not supple enough, nor my arm sufficiently firm to retain the foil, whenever he chose to make it fly out of my hand. Add to this, I had a mortal aversion both to the art itself and to the person who undertook to teach it to me, nor should I ever have imagined, that anyone could have been so proud ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Park, memorial soil! That marks success (though near to foil) Of one who with prophetic ken, With honest zeal and ceaseless toil, Opposed the vandal wish to spoil This lovely bit of vale and glen; Who, 'mid discussion and turmoil Of adverse minds, did not recoil From vigorous stroke of tongue and pen; ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... the path of the master passion. Mother and sisters are defied and forsaken; father and brethren are resisted at the sword's point when they cross, as is their wont, the course of true love. It is curious to note how little, except as a foil, the ballad makes of brotherly or sisterly love. It finds exquisite expression in the tale of Chil ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... of one who had been beautiful and used to command. Her dark eyes were still brilliant and glittered humorously and shrewdly from beneath their bushy brows. The lean, veined neck, bedecked with diamonds, was still poised proudly on the bent shoulders. Her wrecked beauty was a perfect foil for the fresh loveliness of the young girl who, with a splendidly attired cavalier, followed ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise," Phoebus replied, and touch'd 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 rumour 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 ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... becoming a man of his station not to fail in its observances; but he would not have a Jesuit confessor, and placed his conscience in the keeping of the Recollet friars, who were not politically aggressive, and who had been sent to Canada expressly as a foil to the rival order. They found no favor in the eyes of the bishop and his adherents, and the governor found none for the support he ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... simplicity of manipulation and the high degree of accuracy of the method have made it especially valuable. The electrolysis is generally conducted with platinum electrodes, of which the cathode takes the form of a piece of foil bent into a cylindrical form, the necessary current being generated by one ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... after, she called for the clerk of the kitchen, and told him that she intended that night to sup out of little Day. He answered never a word, being resolved to cheat her as he had done before. He went to find little Day, and saw him with a foil in his hand, with which he was fencing with a monkey, the child being but three years old. He took him up in his arms and carried him to his wife, that she might conceal him in her chamber, along with his sister; ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... around. How intuitively keen women were. She felt my distress, and that growing, stern, and powerful thing I scarcely dared to acknowledge to myself. Strangely, then, I relaxed and faced her. There was no use trying to foil these feminine creatures. Every second I seemed to grow farther from her. The swiftness of this mood of mine was my only hope. I realized I had to get away quickly, and make up my mind after that what I intended to do. It was an earnest, ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... becoming dress that a gentleman ever appears in; and during a pause she happened to notice Colonel Colquhoun, who had stepped back to judge the effect of some drapery he was putting up. Mr. Price was a little behind him, and two of the younger men, the three making an excellent foil to Colonel Colquhoun. Evadne was struck by the contrast. The outside aspect of the man still pleased her. There was no doubt that he was a fine specimen of his species, a splendid animal to look at; what a pity he should have had a regrettable past, the kind of past, too, which ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... went through the accumulation without finding anything to help him. Then his eye was attracted by a small tin case thrust into one of the oblong pigeon holes at the back of the desk. This he pulled out and opened and found a small wad of paper wrapped in tin foil. ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... Foster and Natala King. May's bronze-brown hair and brilliant coloring were a perfect foil for the creamy-white narcissus blossoms on her hat and the creamy-white of her gown. While Natala's light-brown hair and hazel eyes needed just the lilac tints to ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... famoused for fight,[161-1] After a thousand victories, once foil'd, Is from the books of honour razed quite, And all the rest ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... in a hundred fights should in his hundred-and-first, [Footnote: "The painful warrior, famoused for fight, After a thousand victories once foil'd, Is from the book of honor razed quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd." Shakespeare's Sonnets.] as in his first, risk the loss of that particular battle, is inseparable from the condition of man, and the uncertainty of human means; ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... sleep. One of them—and a loyal daughter could scarcely have a worse one—was that my own dear father, knowing Lord Castlewood's bad behavior, and his own sad plight in consequence, and through that knowledge caring little to avenge his death, for wife and children's sake preferred to foil inquiry rather than confront the truth and challenge it. He might not have meant to go so far, at first beginning with it; but, starting once, might be driven on by grievous loss, and bitter sense of recreant friends, and the bleak despair of a homeless world ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... foolish gambling, quarrelsome, small world of men and women made such a foil to her image. Molly and her mother, the Delaport Greens, and many others were grouped in his mind as he purled the smoke disdainfully from his cigar. Something in Molly's walk by his side just now had made him see again the old woman with her quick, ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... who with undaunted hearts, immortal mitred Few! For Truth's dear sake, the Tyrant foil'd to whom ye still were true—[37] Rejoice! Who knows what scatter'd thoughts of yours were buried seeds, Slow-springing for th' oppress'd and poor, and ripen'd ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... return, in order that "the things incapable of disturbance" ([Greek: ta me saleuomena]) "may remain." And what are these things? Nothing less than the spiritual, ultimate, all-fulfilling truths and glories to which the "things made" served as preparation, type, and foil, but which themselves to all eternity shall know no successors, no "new order" through which God shall otherwise "fulfil Himself." For what are they, in their inmost essence? They are the truths which spring always from the Incarnate Son, and return always ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... their so palpable well-being, [74] or the rival standards thereof, of origins and issues. And yet, with all their gaiety, as its last triumphant note in truth, they were ready to trifle with death, welcoming, by way of a foil to the easy character of their days, a certain luxurious sense of danger—the night-alarm, the arquebuse peeping from some quiet farm-building across their way, the rumoured presence in their neighbourhood of this or that great military leader—delightful ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... of the victims; and as for "Hamlet," so far is he from any idea of blood revenge, that he doubts and disobeys the message from the other world, doubts indeed the existence of any other world, and dies at last not a bloody death, but by a foil "unbated ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... belittle the man of genius, but set off his greatness as with a foil. They illustrate the thought of Goethe: "It is all the same whether one is great or small, he has to pay the ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... tube of very thin metal, such as gold leaf or tin foil, would not stand on end at all, being crushed down by its own weight. It is found, experimentally, that in malleable iron tubes of the respective thicknesses of .525, .272, and .124 inches, the resistances per square inch ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... a foil or contrast it enables him to value more truly the good things he constantly enjoys, perhaps without ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... bell at the door of Mrs. Wilson's home she did not know that her approach had been watched. She meant to be very careful during her interview, for she realized that she and Ruth were endeavoring to foil two brilliant ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... see express'd Love's better omens, in the green hues dress'd Of this selected foliage.—Nymph, 't is thine The warning story on its leaves to find, Proud Daphne's fate, imprison'd in its rind, And with its umbrage veil'd, great Phoebus' power Scorning, and bent, with feet of wind, to foil His swift pursuit, till on Thessalian shore Shot into boughs, and rooted to the soil.— Thus warn'd, fair Maid, Apollo's ire to shun, Soon may his Spray's and VOTARY's lot ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... Canada. During a visit to one of the market towns in the neighborhood of his home, he had casually dropped into a gymnasium, and engaged in a fencing bout with a friend who accompanied him. Neither of the contestants had ever handled a foil before, and they were of course unskilled in the use of such dangerous playthings. During the contest the button had slipped from his opponent's weapon, just as the latter was making a vigorous lunge. As a consequence Savareen's ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... stranger groom: so wrath compress'd, Recoiling, mutter'd thunder in his breast. "Poor suffering heart! (he cried,) support the pain Of wounded honour, and thy rage restrain. Not fiercer woes thy fortitude could foil, When the brave partners of thy ten years' toil Dire Polypheme devour'd; I then was freed By patient prudence from the ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... important additions in 1679. The Second Part, after an interval of seven years, followed early in 1685. Between the two parts appeared two of his most celebrated works—the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman," published in 1680, originally intended to supply a contrast and a foil to "The Pilgrim's Progress," by depicting a life which was scandalously bad; and, in 1682, that which Macaulay, with perhaps exaggerated eulogy, has said, "would have been our greatest allegory if the earlier allegory had never been written," the "Holy War made by Shaddai upon Diabolus." ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... because he feared they would be wrested from him. His jester had acquainted him with the discovery just made of the secret hoard, and he was therefore compelled to have recourse to this desperate move. But I was apprized of his intentions by Will Sommers, and have come in time to foil him." ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... remained, how many criminal designs, how many treasonable plots, which only Marat's perspicacity and vigilance could unravel and foil! Now he was dead, who was there to denounce Custine loitering in idleness in the Camp of Caesar and refusing to relieve Valenciennes, Biron tarrying inactive in the Lower Vendee letting Saumur be taken ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... When, wearied with the music of the spheres, He laid him down upon a roseate bank To dream of holiness!—He hath not stirred.— 'Twas well I did not speak to Bellingham, For we have not been noted. Good, so far. All eyes are busy with their own affairs; I'll wake him now and foil discovery. ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... Their guild 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 ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... idols; or grope our way by the help of conventional eyes that have no sight in them; or sacrifice substantial facts for absurd forms? The ignorant crew of the Keying refused to enter on the ships' books, until 'a considerable amount of silvered-paper, tin-foil, and joss-stick' had been laid in by the owners for the purposes of their worship. And I wonder whether our seamen, let alone our bishops and deacons, ever stand out upon points of silvered-paper and tin-foil and joss-sticks. To be sure Christianity is not Chin-Teeism, and ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... berries Rich soil, copses; Middle blue States. Roxbury wax-work, climbing Red berries Thickets; N. E., Middle States. Seneca snakeroot White Rocky soil; N. E., West, South. Sheep-laurel Crimson Hill-sides, pastures. Common. Shrubby cinque-foil Yellow Wet grounds; N. E. Common. Silver-weed Yellow Brackish marshes and meadows; New England, West. Small cranberry Rose-color Peat bogs; N. E., Middle States. Spotted wintergreen Pink and white Open woods; Middle States. Staghorn sumac Greenish Hill-sides, dry ...
— Harper's Young People, June 8, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... powers; and that part of it visible, is not destitute of merit as a painting; but some of her grateful devotees, having decorated her with a real blue silk gown, spangled with tinsel stars, and two or three crowns, one above another, of gilt foil, the effect is the oddest imaginable. As I was sitting upon a marble step, philosophizing to myself, and wondering at what seemed to me such senseless bad taste, such pitiable and ridiculous superstition, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... conversation suddenly into that channel I cannot imagine. Some people have a gift of conjuring with conversations. They are almost always frankly and openly interested in themselves, as Sullivan was interested in himself. You may seek to foil them; you may even violently wrench the conversation into other directions. But every effort will be useless. They will beat you. You had much better lean back in your chair and ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... for many a league 880 The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles— Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had In his high mountain cradle in Pamere, A foil'd circuitous wanderer:—till at last 885 The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide His luminous home of waters[53] opens, bright And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bath'd stars Emerge, and shine upon the ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... 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
... electric supply and to modify its intensity, and Dr. Morton finds that in this way large vacuum tubes, perhaps twenty inches in diameter, may be excited to the point of doing practical work without danger of breaking the glass walls. But certain precautions are necessary. When he uses tin-foil electrodes on the outside of the bulb, he protects the tin-foil edges, and, what is more essential, uses extremely small Leyden jars and a short spark gap between the poles of the discharging rods. The philosophy of this is, that the smaller the jars, the greater ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... 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 on ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... left him, in the position of a self-indulgent idler, preferring comfort to duty, a foil to his more conscientious rival. When the dust of the departure had cleared away, he sat on, not in the cool house, but on the hot verandah, nursing his griefs in solitude. He seemed the only person left behind, ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... they insisted on keeping him there shows beyond everything that he had already impressed himself so strongly on Virginia that the authorities, although they smarted under his attacks, did not dare to meddle with him. Dinwiddie and the rest could foil him in obtaining a commission in the king's army, but they could not shake ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... my mind. And I declare that when I speak thereof Love sheds such perfect sweetness over me That if my courage failed not, certainly To him my listeners must be all resign'd. Wherefore I will not speak in such large kind That mine own speech should foil me, which were base; But only will discourse of her high grace In these poor words, the best that I can find, With you alone dear dames and damozels: 'Twere ill to speak thereof with any else. . . . . . . . . My lady is desired in the high Heaven; WHEREFORE, it now behoveth ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... fitted that which was frank, open, and aboveboard. And so she used the black for contrast rather than obscurity—besides which there was another sort of contrast, for a soldier hat on Janet was a striking foil for her utter femininity. And its romantic pretense (so different from the dark gypsy-like romantic) was such an arrant little piece of make-believe that it had the effect of playful candor, acknowledging how impossible a man she would make; and while it was, strikingly, ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... would hardly be tolerated, even as a foil to the virtue and generosity of the other characters in the play, but for its indefatigable industry and inexhaustible resources, which divert the attention of the spectator (as well as his own) from the end he has in view to the means by which it ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... capable person; there is no ignoring her militant character; the battles of Saxon kings ring still in her blood. Marjorie has scribbled verses in secret, and Celia is the quietest auditor at the symphony. And you may have observed that there is no button on Elizabeth's foil; you do well not to clash wits with her. Do you say that these ascriptions are not square with your experience? Then verily there must have been a sad mixing of infant candidates for the font in ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... Brownsdon's (Jour. Soc. Chem. Ind., xxiv., April 1905) process is as follows:—The cap composition is removed by squeezing the cap with pliers, while held over a porcelain basin of about 200 c.c. capacity, and removing the loosened foil and broken composition by means of a pointed wooden chip. Composition adhering to the shell or foil is loosened by alcohol, and washed into the dish by means of alcohol in a small wash bottle. The shell and foil are put ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... 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 ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... in the United Provinces would neither be desirable, nor, without their passports, possible. They were quite aware of the uses to which the king was hoping to turn their reverence for the memory and the family of the great martyr, and were determined to foil such ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Kirkbank in her cotton frock was a spectacle at which youth laughed and age blushed. But after all it did not matter to Lesbia. She would have liked a less rowdy chaperon; but as a foil to her own fresh young beauty Lady Kirkbank ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... their next in blood, More kin 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 shall smite a man to death, Dyeing a dagger's edges in his throat— Such bed of love befall ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... will make a war against the witnesses all the time of their prophesying in sackcloth, which will be a thousand two hundred and threescore days (Rev 12:6). In all which time they shall give him the foil, and overcome him by their faith and testimony; and be proclaimed more than conquerors over him, through the Christ that loved them. But now in this second war he overcomes them, 'he ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... chosen champion ended here her lays, "And all the nymphs unanimous, exclaim'd;— "The Heliconian goddesses have gain'd. "Vanquish'd, the others rail'd. When she resum'd:— "Is not your punishment enough deserv'd? "Foil'd in the contest, must you swell your crime, "With base revilings? Patient now no more, "To punish we begin; what anger bids, "We now perform.—Loud laugh'd the scornful maids, "Our threatening words despis'd, and strove to speak, "And clapp'd with outcries menacing, their hands. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... in the highest feather and in the full employment of all those little arts and graces which served as a foil to his real worth, I took it as a great honour that he laid them aside for the nonce; and introduced me to the seat of honour and made me known to his companions with a boyish directness and a simple thought for my comfort which ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... form, however fragmentary, however abstracted. A single leaf laid upon the angle of a stone, or the mere form or frame-work of the leaf drawn upon it, or the mere shadow and ghost of the leaf,—the hollow "foil" cut out of it,—possesses a charm which nothing else can replace; a charm not exciting, nor demanding laborious thought or sympathy, but perfectly simple, peaceful, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... turned, and laid the foil back upon the mantelpiece behind him; then calmly crossed the intervening space, and stood before her. "I am grateful to you for granting me an interview, mademoiselle," he said. "I am aware that you have ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... handsome girl of twenty-five, a face peaceful, placid, and beautiful with the austere and almost unearthly beauty of the youthful dead. The lips were slightly parted, the eyes half closed and drowsy, shaded with sweeping lashes; and a wealth of dark hair in massive plaits served as a foil ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... very suddenly to explain about the Christmas tree. There were lots of little pencils on the table. And blocks of paper. And nice cold, shining sheets of tin-foil. There was violet-colored tin-foil, and red-colored tin-foil—and green and blue and silver ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... no—speak him fair! Call it to temporize; and not to lie; Harold, I do not counsel thee to lie. The man that hath to foil a murderous aim May, surely, play ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... less graceful than Cicely, but with her big brown eyes and masses of dark hair, a foil to her friend's fair beauty. She had her mother's sensible face, but was better-looking than her mother had ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... majestically above roofs and spires. To us the Abbey which is gone can do no more than add solemnity to the scene which once it graced. It matters little by which entrance we approach the churchyard, for from every side the buildings group harmoniously; each of the steeples acting as it were as a foil to the other: and both the spires unite in adding dignity to the bell tower. The churchyard in Norman times would seem to have been part of the Abbey precincts, as it is enclosed within Abbot Reginald's wall already described, and a second wall, part ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... Scot, snarls not now, because he intends to clear scores with me at once and for ever, when he can snatch me by the very throat, but we will try for once whether we cannot foil a ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... thirty-five or forty who lay whimpering in the trench when there was unpleasant work to be done, while boys half his age kicked him in a vain attempt to waken him to a sense of duty; but instances of this kind were rare. There were not enough of them to serve as a foil to the shining deeds which were ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... a second time. Tears of longing and vexation dimmed her eyes as she thought of the golden, halcyon days of youth that would never return. At any rate, Felipe and Chiquita must not meet until after she had warned the latter. Blanch must be used as a foil as long as possible. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... I beseech you, punish mee not with your harde thoughts, wherein I confesse me much guiltie to denie so faire and excellent Ladies anie thing. But let your faire eies, and gentle wishes go with mee to my triall; wherein if I bee foil'd, there is but one sham'd that was neuer gracious: if kil'd, but one dead that is willing to be so: I shall do my friends no wrong, for I haue none to lament me: the world no iniurie, for in it I haue nothing: onely in the world I fil vp a place, which may bee better supplied, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... a foil, it was there; the gold glittered upon a cloudy background. My treasure was not exactly in my hand to enjoy. There might be many days before Thorold and I saw each other's faces again. Dangers lay threatening him, that I could not bear to think of; ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... his cane dramatically through a sheet of a newspaper, which he had caught up from a table. "I will run him through the body like that"—Aristide had never handled a foil in his life—"and when he is dead, your beautiful daughter will thank me for having saved her from ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... harvest mouse, rejoicing in the enormous weight of 4.7 grains and a length of 57 mm., but with as much love of life and fear of death as an elephant. Heaven knows what had smitten it! Perhaps it was one of the very few who just escape the owl, or who foil that scientific death, the weasel, at the last moment—but no matter. The result was ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... unrestrained invective against the Borgias, giving to the usual empty assertions the place which should be assigned to evidence and argument. Like his predecessors along that path, he causes Giuliano della Rovere to shine heroically by contrast—a foil to throw into greater relief the blackness of Alexander. But he carries assertion rather further than do others when he says of Cardinal della Rovere that "He ascended the steps of St. Peter's Chair without simony ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... three months prior to August the German underseas boats had sunk 464 vessels, or an average of 426,000 tons of shipping a month, while America, working with her fleets in conjunction with the British Navy to foil the submarine in its endeavors, was also building more than 12,000 cargo-carrying craft and submarine chasers with which to flood the traffic ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... younger, being barely eighteen years of age; but there were not wanting indications that her charms would one day even surpass those of the lovely Mrs Henderson Mrs Gaunt was a petite blonde, very pretty and engaging, and an excellent foil to Mrs Henderson, the two ladies being of exactly opposite types of beauty. Of the children no more need be said than that they were light-hearted, joyous, and just well-behaved enough to show that their parents did not intend to spoil ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... represent that new literature which began to rise after the violent removal of the old. They do not belong to the history of Anglo-Saxon literature except indirectly as a foil and a contrast. They show how ready were new forms to take the place of the old. But while the English language was thus following the natural and spontaneous course of its development, there still survived a powerful interest in the old classical Englisc. The ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... killed without remorse, and that I still 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 her to be confined. ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... higher than the dome of St. Paul's. The play of fancy and invention of Shah Jehan's architects seems inexhaustible. All the exquisite white marble pavilions of Agra palace differ absolutely both in design and decoration, and Akbar's massive red sandstone buildings make the most perfect foil to them that ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... walked up and down he thought again of that night when he had last seen Beatrice. How splendid she had looked in her boat on the water; how unreserved, and yet how reticent she was; how beautiful, and yet how unconscious of her beauty. What a foil she made to ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... foil every attempt at relief, I have been aiming, for some time past, to make such a change in the constitution of the patient, as might give a chance of success ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... countrymen rightly matched against the Welsh," replied Dennis Morolt, "that their solid and unyielding temper may be a fit foil to the fiery and headlong dispositions of our dangerous neighbours, just as restless waves are best opposed by steadfast rocks.—Hark, sir, I hear Wilkin Flammock's step ascending the turret-stair, as deliberately as ever ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Hdt. i. 178 foil. The accounts of Ctesias and other ancient writers seem to throw no light on the town-planning and streets of Babylon, however useful ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... a triumph decreed him at Rome, much more splendid than his first; they looked upon him now as a champion who had learned to cope with his antagonist, and could now easily foil his arts and prove his best skill ineffectual. And, indeed the army of Hannibal was at this time partly worn out with continual action, and partly weakened and become dissolute with over abundance and luxury. Marcus Livius, who was governor of Tarentum when it was betrayed to Hannibal, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... flame, and that Aeolus, son of Hippotas, will check his swift rushing winds, all but the steady west wind, until they reach the havens of the Phaeacians; do thou devise a return without bane. The rocks and the tyrannous waves are my fear, they alone, and them thou canst foil with thy sisters' aid. And let them not fall in their helplessness into Charybdis lest she swallow them at one gulp, or approach the hideous lair of Scylla, Ausonian Scylla the deadly, whom night-wandering ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... image of the object. But, as the rays cross each other at the orifice, the image is inverted. At present we may illustrate and expand the subject thus: In front of our camera is a large opening (L, fig. 2), from which the lens has been removed, and which is closed at present by a sheet of tin-foil. Pricking by means of a common sewing-needle a small aperture in the tin-foil, an inverted image of the carbon-points starts forth upon the screen. A dozen apertures will give a dozen images, a hundred a hundred, a thousand a thousand. But, as the apertures come closer to each other, that is to say, ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... Waker, with a short laugh. "I seem to have fitted in just right to foil the villain in getting the papers. Say, better not let Jack know about this, or he'll be on the job, too, and what he needs just now is ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... favorable eye on the wild science of the false religions, and professed to detect in it at least striking analogies with the deductions of both the geologist and the astronomer. When the skeptical wits of the last century wished to produce, by way of foil, a morality vastly superior, as they said, to that of Christianity, they had recourse to the Brahmins and the Chinese. And though we hear less of the ethics of these people since we have come to know them better, ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... Protected by this escort, Ritchie and Lyon reached Murzuk without molestation, but there the former died on the 2nd November, worn out by the fatigue and privations of the journey across the desert. Lyon, who was ill for some time from the same causes, recovered soon enough to foil the designs of the sultan, who counting on his death, had already begun to take possession of his property, and also of Ritchie's. The captain could not penetrate beyond the southern boundaries of Fezzan, but he had time to collect a good deal of valuable information ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Mr. Eustace Lane is!" said Winifred Ames to her particular friend and happy foil, Jane Fraser. "All London is beginning to talk about him. I suppose he ...
— The Folly Of Eustace - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... cases, to say, "in pity to my sympathising reader's feelings, I must draw the mysterious veil of concealment over my, oh! too acute sufferings!" These, I must own, were, in no little degree, aggravated by the manner of my friend. Mark, as a sort of foil to his many excellent qualities, has one terrible failing: it is a knack of laughing at one's misfortunes; or, to use his own palliating phrase, he has a habit of looking at the ridiculous side of things. Ridiculous! Heavens! as if any ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... defied. Soon, therefore, died huge Eurytus, ere yet Old age he reach'd; him, angry to be call'd To proof of archership, Apollo slew. But if ye name the spear, mine flies a length By no man's arrow reach'd; I fear no foil 280 From the Phaeacians, save in speed alone; For I have suffer'd hardships, dash'd and drench'd By many a wave, nor had I food on board At all times, therefore I am much unstrung. He spake; and silent the Phaeacians ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... read: I conceive you as a man quite beyond and below the reticences of civility: with what measure you mete, with that shall it be measured you again; with you, at last, I rejoice to feel the button off the foil and to plunge home. And if in aught that I shall say I should offend others, your colleagues, whom I respect and remember with affection, I can but offer them my regret; I am not free, I am inspired by the consideration of interests far more large; and such pain ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mentioned here is Aristippus, 'a pleasant gentleman' and a successful courtier, whose friendship with Carisophus, an alliance hollow, suspicious, and most unloving on one side at least, forms an admirable foil for the true friendship ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... the embellished grot; Whither, by care of Libyan Jove, (High Servant of paternal Love) Young Bacchus was conveyed—to lie Safe from his step-dame Rhea's eye; Where bud, and bloom, and fruitage, glowed, Close-crowding round the infant god; All colours,—and the liveliest streak A foil to ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... said. "You remember that Roman emperor who used to descend into the arena fully armed, and pit himself against some poor wretch who had only a leaden foil which would double up at a thrust. According to your theory of your Master's life, you would have it that He faced the temptations of this world at such an advantage that they were only harmless leaden things, and not the sharp assailants which we find them. I confess, in my own case, ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... URBAN! indefatigable man, Unwearied yet by all thy useful toil! Whom num'rous slanderers assault in vain; Whom no base calumny can put to foil. But still the laurel on thy learned brow Flourishes fair, and shall for ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... looseness of execution in his latest works has not even the apology of having been attempted on scientific principles; he did not work upon a particular point of a picture as a focus and leave the rest obscure, as a foil to enhance it, on a principle of unity; on the contrary, all is equally obscure and wild alike. These last productions are a calamity to his reputation; yet we may, perhaps, safely assert that since Rembrandt there ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... Percival away. Ingram was loquacious, though rather caustic; Chevenix a good foil, easy-tempered, always at a run, a very fair marksman for all his random shooting. His was that happy disposition which finds Nature at large, including men, as precisely there for his amusement. He relished, never failed to relish, the works of ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... friends; and so at last the Norcoms, during their brief but concentrated, most vivid and momentous, reign, a matter, as I recall it, of a couple of breathless winters. We were provided by their presence with as happy a foil as we could have wished to the plainness and dryness of the Wards; their homely grace was all their own and was also embodied in three brothers, Eugene, Reginald, Albert, whose ages would have corresponded, I surmise, with those ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... never troubles his head about them more; the Hamlet who is the first man to board a pirate ship, and who fights with Laertes in the grave; the Hamlet of the catastrophe, an omnipotent fate, before whom all the court stands helpless, who, as the truth breaks upon him, rushes on the King, drives his foil right through his body,[36] then seizes the poisoned cup and forces it violently between the wretched man's lips, and in the throes of death has force and fire enough to wrest the cup from Horatio's ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... by causeless wanton malice wrung, By blockheads' daring into madness stung; His well-won bays, than life itself more dear, By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig must wear: Foil'd, bleeding, tortur'd, in the unequal strife, The hapless poet flounders on through life; Till, fled each hope that once his bosom fir'd, And fled each muse that glorious once inspir'd, Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age, Dead, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... said Hugh. "I began to learn two years ago, and I have outgrown my first foil, and the Colonel has given me a new one, almost ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... either Talleyrand or Bonaparte better than to inflame us into a civil war, then swoop down upon us, under the pretence of coming to the rescue. Burr would be just the man to play into their hands, although with no such intention. Jefferson is quite clever enough to foil them, if he found that more to his interest. Well, neither is elected yet. Let us hope for the best. Go and ask Angelica to play for you. I have letters to write to leaders all ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... dissembling—a part of the work of the day, And the words that your voice makes music, but the dull, dead lines of the play. Little you care for the woman you woo, save as a foil designed. To prove your skill as a ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner
... have this 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, often acquires ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... writers, the degraded scolding of enemies that does not emanate from passion but out of greedy hankering for the applause of the masses, and which continually nauseates us amid the piety of this hour! Because our statemen failed to discover and foil shrewd plans of deception is no reason why we may hoist the flag of most pious morality. Not as weak-willed blunderers have we undertaken the fearful risk of this war. We wanted it. Because we had to ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Christ join thou in fight; Stick to the tents that He hath pight; Within His crib is surest ward, This little Babe will be thy guard; If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy, Then flit not from this ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... couldn't have asked a better foil; yet I'm sure she never consciously used his dullness to relieve her brilliancy. She may have felt that the case spoke for itself. But I believe her reserve was rather due to a lively sense of justice, and to the rare habit (you said she was rare) of looking at facts as they are, ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... Simpson!" Selingman recited, waving his cigar. "Well, well, we certainly have made a stir with our little meetings here. An inspired English Cabinet Minister, travel-stained and dusty, arrives with his valet and a black dispatch-box, to foil our schemes. Send him along, my friend. We are not at all afraid of Mr. Simpson. Perhaps we may even ask him to join ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Vautrin's schemes unexpectedly work out for good. As in the story of Pere Goriot again, Vautrin, after furthering matrimonial deals and other quasi-benevolent projects, ends in the clutches of the law. Of Raoul little need be said. He is the foil for his dread protector and he is saved from dishonor by a narrow margin. The scene is laid at Paris, just after the second accession of the House of Bourbon, in 1816. Titles and families are in ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden
... the assembled selections laughed very heartily; and one gentleman in a yellow waistcoat, with a coach-trimming border, whispered a neighbour in green-foil smalls, that Tuckle was ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... was a complete enigma. Then he suddenly spoke, and his voice was like a fencer's foil—light, bright, alert, constantly playing, yet ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... shown at i, is a soft rennet cheese made from cow's milk. It is made at Neufchatel-en-Bray, France, and not at Neufchatel, Switzerland. This variety of cheese is wrapped in tin-foil and sold in small packages. It is used chiefly for salads, sandwiches, etc. As it does not keep well after the package is opened, the entire contents should be used at ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2 - Volume 2: Milk, Butter and Cheese; Eggs; Vegetables • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... made of two pieces of tin-foil, four by ten, and three pieces of waxed paper a little larger than the foil. A piece of wire is twisted into the end of each piece of foil, and then one sheet of foil is laid on a sheet of paper. This is then ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America |
