"Fencer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Paul," the poet was told. "She seems thoroughly smitten with him, only one thing causes her any uneasiness, she is afraid least you should disturb her tranquillity by coming after her, which by the way, would be dangerous for you, for the vicomte worships his mistress and is a good fencer." ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... "I have got more than my match. But I know who will plague people worse than a puzzle, if she gets well educated. There's a pair of gloves, you little fencer." ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... duel which was to be the result. His passionate friendship for Lincoln was so strong that it prevented the nervousness which usually precedes a first duel, above all when he who appears upon the ground has all his life neglected practising with the sword or pistol. To a fencer, and to one accustomed to the use of firearms, a duel means a number of details which remove the thought of danger. The man conceives the possibilities of the struggle, of a deed to be bravely accomplished. That is ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... time. Heaven bores him. So let me warn you that if you meet him he will be mortally offended if you speak of me as his murderer! He maintains that he was a much better swordsman than I, and that if his foot had not slipped he would have killed me. No doubt he is right: I was not a good fencer. I never dispute the point; so we are ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... only the keen, fearless dissector of fraud and hypocrisy; we are now to contemplate a circumspect alarmist, who dreads to call things by their right names for fear of unpleasant consequences. He is such a master of English, so judicious in the use of middle terms,—so shrewd a fencer altogether,—that even his timidity cannot make him ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... always rode a charger, while I travel on shanks' mare; He messed on wine and venison; I eat far humbler fare. I'll grant he was some fencer with his doughty snickersnee, But Richard Coeur de Lion didn't ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... was at the door. He bowed her out with ceremony, watched her cross the hall, then sharply turned his head. Green was watching her also, but, keen as the twist of a rapier in the hand of a practised fencer, his eyes flashed ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... are resolved to see the end of the run. However, in the humour in which I then was, it would not have been easy to stop me, and holding the mare well together, I put her steadily at it. Fortunately, she was a first-rate fencer, and knew her work capitally, as she proved in the present instance, by rising to the leap, clearing the fence in beautiful style, and dropping lightly into the lane beyond, without so much as a stumble, just as Clara and ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... coasts and our best defence is attack. This old established doctrine of naval warfare is the orthodox doctrine also of aerial warfare. A mobile force confined to one place by losing its mobility loses most of its virtue. The fencer who does nothing but parry can never win a bout, and in the end will fail to parry. The recognition of this doctrine in relation to aerial warfare was gradual. When the Royal Flying Corps was established and the question of the defence of our coasts by aircraft first came ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... and unscrupulous political writer to crush its opponents and to effect the ruin of the rival paper, "La Republique du Morvan," by fair means or foul. The first stabs dealt by the new pen were directed against notable residents, and being a good fencer and a good shot—in fact, a sort of bravo—M. Tremplier, the wielder of the pen, proclaimed loudly after every libel that he was ready to maintain what he advanced at the point of the sword, and to give a meeting to all adversaries. Unacquainted with the real social standing of ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... duelling, I myself should have demanded satisfaction from him, for this attack upon the honour of my family, but I am at present Anne's only protector. It is many years since I have drawn a sword, while de Tulle is noted as a fencer, and has had many affairs, of which he has escaped the consequences owing to royal favour. Therefore, were I to challenge him, the chances are that I should be killed, in which case my daughter would become a ward of the crown, and her hand and estate be bestowed ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... runs on, if you've read any of 'em—he slaps the king's Swiss body-guards around like everything whenever they get in his way. He's a great fencer, too. Now, I've known of some Chicago men who were pretty notorious fences, but I never heard of any fencers coming from there. He stands on the first landing of the royal staircase in Castle Schutzenfestenstein with a gleaming rapier in ...
— Options • O. Henry
... of the best I ever drew. [1] By the way, what incomparable whiskey that was of Monkhouse's! But if I am to write a letter, let me begin, and not stand flourishing like a fencer at a fair. ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... was the shoemaker who made shoes for the undisputed Martin Guerre, and he swore that Martin's foot was three sizes larger than that of the accused. Another declared that Martin was an expert fencer and wrestler, whereas this man knew little of manly exercises; and many deponed "that Arnold du Tilh had from his infancy the most wicked inclinations, and that subsequently he had been hardened in wickedness, a great pilferer and swearer, a defier of God, ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... prominent veins, and the strong fingers, all this with the naive satisfaction of a ditch-digger. His conversation always turned on feats of strength and before the two artists he strutted as if he belonged to another race, talking of his prowess as a fencer, of his triumphs in the bouts, of the weights he could lift with the slightest effort, of the number of chairs he could jump over without touching one of them. Often he interrupted the two painters ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... serious to live for than to organize social affairs, the slightest defection from her ranks is viewed in the light of a catastrophe. She had called on Mrs. Bennington the second, armed with all those subtle cruelties which women of her caliber know so well how to handle. And behold! she met a fencer who quietly buttoned the foils before the bout began. She had finally departed with smiles on her lips and rage in her heart. This actress, whom she had thought to awe with the majesty of her position in Herculaneum, was not awed at all. It was disconcerting; it was humiliating. She had ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... wanted, to be fleeing to the boy Milt, her mate; to run away with him, hand in hand, discovering all the colored world, laughing at life, not afraid of losing dignity. In fear of Jeff's very kindliness and honor, she jerked her hand free. Then she tried to smile like a clever fencer. ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... anecdotes to tell of him, but in order that they shall be properly appreciated, I must mention that he was universally considered the best fencer and gymnast in the army; on this point, I never, then or afterwards, ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... the one reply she was not expecting. For direct abuse, for sarcasm, for dignity, for almost any speech beginning, 'What! Jealous of you. Why—' she was prepared. But this was incredible. It disabled her, as the wild thrust of an unskilled fencer will disable a master of the rapier. She searched in her mind and found that ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... fellow as well as I do. He's obstinacy itself. You can make the most obstinate donkey go on by pulling its tail hard enough, but when Jeannin gets a notion into his pate, not all the legions of hell can get it out again. Besides that, he's a skilful fencer, so there's nothing for it but to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to make manifest to you,—and undisputably so,—that the day's work of a man like Mantegna or Paul Veronese consists of an unfaltering, uninterrupted, succession of movements of the hand more precise than those of the finest fencer: the pencil leaving one point and arriving at another, not only with unerring precision at the extremity of the line, but with an unerring and yet varied course—sometimes over spaces a foot or more in extent—yet a course ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... miles; the road, which begins in triumph, dwindles down to a nasty, boggy, rocky footpath with weeds up to a horseman's knees; and there are eight pig fences to jump, nasty beastly jumps—the next morning we found one all messed with blood where a horse had come to grief—but my Jack is a clever fencer; and altogether we made good time, and got to Malie about dark. It is a village of very fine native houses, high, domed, oval buildings, open at the sides, or only closed with slatted Venetians. To be sure, Mataafa's is not the worst. It was already quite dark within, only ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... situation, without the most flagrant errors on the part of his opponent. The Spanish general, who understood the character of the French commander perfectly well, lay patiently awaiting his opportunity, like a skilful fencer, ready to make a decisive thrust at the first vulnerable point that should be presented. Such an occasion at length offered itself early ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... humour[113] in thy brain. Thy tongue adorn'd with flowing eloquence, And yet I see imprinted in thy brows A fortunate but froward governance. And though thy rival Marius, mated late By backward working of his wretched fate, Is fall'n; yet, Sylla, mark what I have seen Even here in Rome. The fencer Spectacus Hath been as fortunate as thou thyself; But when that Crassus' sword assayed his crest, The fear of death did ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... arm kindly. "If you wish to get rid of the masher," said he, "I can show you a way;" and throwing himself into the position of a fencer, he made a lunge with his right ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... they made, for both sides were using the rifle. An officer stood among the French skirmishers—a tall, lean man with a mantle over his shoulders—and as our fellows came forward he ran out midway between the two parties and stood as a fencer would, with his sword up and his head back. I can see him now, with his lowered eyelids and the kind of sneer that he had upon his face. On this the subaltern of the Rifles, who was a fine well-grown lad, ran forward and drove full ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... possibly do you good. Why, then, should you swallow a vile mess which you are certain must do you harm? Fall upon your sword, as Tully—I mean Brutus—or some of those old Romans, were wont to do when the Game was up! In the first place, I should like to see the man, howsoever expert a fencer, who could so tumble on his own blade and kill himself. 'Tis easier to swallow a sword than to fall upon one, and the first is quite as much a Mountebank's Trick as t'other. Blow your brains out! A mighty fine climax truly, to ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... alternately delighted by finding that he alone, of all her school, seemed thoroughly and instinctively to comprehend her every word, and chilled by the disagreeable suspicion that he was only playing with her, and her mathematics and geometry, and meta-physic and dialectic, like a fencer practising with foils, while he reserved his real strength for some object more worthy of him. More than once some paradox or question of his had shaken her neatest systems into a thousand cracks, and ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... changed your coat," continues the other, in his laughing way; "I have heard of you at Cambridge and afterwards: we have friends everywhere; and I am told that Mr. Esmond at Cambridge was as good a fencer as he was a bad theologian." (So, thinks Esmond, my old maitre d'armes was ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his shoulder to the massive oaken door, we know there is going to be work next morning for the carpenter. Maybe he is a party belonging to the Middle Ages. Then when he reluctantly challenges the crack fencer of Europe to a duel, our instinct is to call out and ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... a bull or a panther, they would have had their bones shivered to pieces by the tremendous blows which Boone dealt upon his adversary with all the strength of despair; but Bruin is by nature an admirable fencer, and, in spite of his unwieldy shape, there is not in the world an animal whose motions are more rapid in a close encounter. Once or twice he was knocked down by the force of the blows, but generally he would parry them with a wonderful agility. At last, he succeeded in ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... who sent his gifted son to the Universities of Zuerich, Heidelberg, and Munich, where he acquired reputation for his brilliant powers, and entered into the enthusiastic, intellectual, and merry student-life, taking his place in the formal duels, and becoming known as a champion fencer. Agassiz was an influence in every centre that he touched; and in Munich, his room and his laboratory, thick with clouds of smoke from the long-stemmed German pipes, was a gathering-place for the young scientific ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... throwing the blood into the fire, together with many sweet perfumes, and even thrust the bloody blade of the knife often into the fire that none of the blood may be lost; then the priest maketh many strange gestures with the knife, like a fencer, giving or defending thrusts. In the mean time other priests with burning censers go round about the altar perfuming it with incense, and ringing a small silver bell all the time of the sacrifice. The priest ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... how did my sword miss him? These rogues that are most weary of their lives Still 'scape the greatest dangers. A pox upon him; all his reputation, Nay, all the goodness of his family, Is not worth half this earthquake: I learn'd it of no fencer to shake thus: Come, I 'll forget him, and go drink some ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... with a long foil in his strong little hand, striking right and left regardless of consequences, and leaping from the ground when making a thrust at his opponent's heart, or savagely attempting to rival the hero of Chevy Chase who struck off his enemy's legs, is no mean foe. Donald was a capital fencer; and, well skilled in the tricks of the art, he had a parry for every known thrust. But Fandy's thrusts were unknown. Nothing more original or unexpected could be conceived; and every time Dorry cried "foul!" he redoubled his strokes, taking the word as a sort of applause. For a while, Donald ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... footman, travelling in the service of Aurelio Spinola, a relative of the marquis, then proceeding to Madrid. Even should Henry hear of his presence and send for him, was it to be supposed that so practised a hand would not easily parry the strokes of the French king—accomplished fencer as he undoubtedly was? After stealing into and out of Holland as he had so recently done, there was nothing that might not be expected of him. So the wily friar put on the Spinola livery, and, without impediment, accompanied ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Aeneas did to his father Anchises, in the time of the conflagration of Troy. When Panurge perceived them, he said to Pantagruel, Sir, yonder are the giants coming forth against you; lay on them with your mast gallantly, like an old fencer; for now is the time that you must show yourself a brave man and an honest. And for our part we will not fail you. I myself will kill to you a good many boldly enough; for why, David killed Goliath very easily; and then this great lecher, Eusthenes, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... some time. The thunder was constant, and the play of the lightning was like the dazzle of a fencer's sword. Mingled with the thunder came the slap of frothing water and the whine of bending trees. The wind was ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... grinned. "Why, look here," they said to Patsy, "he'd punch you full of holes. Why he's a fencer. You can't fight him with swords. He'd kill you in ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... and fencer—that noble master of the science of self-defence, with the fame of whose skill and valor all ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... certain occasion Boku-den took a ferry to cross over the Yabase in the province of Omi. There was among the passengers a Samurai, tall and square-shouldered, apparently an experienced fencer. He behaved rudely toward the fellow-passengers, and talked so much of his own dexterity in the art that Boku-den, provoked by his brag, broke silence. 'You seem, my friend, to practise the art in order to conquer ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... too adroit a fencer to yield readily to such a fate. Careful, at first, only to defend himself, he met each thrust and pass with a parry which deepened the frown on Winter's brow, and having retreated to the edge of the duelling ground, he there held his position despite ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... lieth Andrew Turnecoate, who was neither Slave, nor Soldier, nor Phisitian, nor Fencer, nor Cobler, nor Filtcher, nor Lawier, nor Usurer, but all; who lived neither in citty, nor countrie, nor at home, nor abroade, nor at sea, nor at land, nor here, nor elsewhere, but everywhere. Who ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... highway and relieved of his money. The highwayman was a conspicuous character. One of the most romantic of these gentry at one time was a woman named Mary Frith, born in 1585, and known as Moll Cut-Purse. She dressed in male attire, was an adroit fencer, a bold rider, and a staunch royalist; she once took two hundred gold jacobuses from the Parliamentary General Fairfax on Hounslow Heath. She is the chief character in Middleton's play of the "Roaring Girl"; and after a varied life as a thief, cutpurse, pickpocket, highwayman, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... power and energy, but in the one it was volcanic, and in the other it was concentrated and thoroughly under control. In discussion, the one reminded me of the self-taught, slashing swordsman; the other of the dexterous fencer, carefully trained in the use of the foils, who never launches out beyond the point at which he can quickly recover himself. As to whether M. Plehve was anything more than a bold, energetic, clever official there may be differences of opinion, but he certainly could assume the airs ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... polish my periods; but the one I cannot, and the other I will not do. I am fond of arguing: yet with a good deal of pains and practice it is often as much as I can do to beat my man; though he may be an indifferent hand. A common fencer would disarm his adversary in the twinkling of an eye, unless he were a professor like himself. A stroke of wit will sometimes produce this effect, but there is no such power or superiority in sense or reas hardly know the professor ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... to fight when tis beaten flatt To earth with sad afflictions? can a prisoner Glory in playing the Fencer? my life's at stake Allready; can I putt it in for more? Our army was some 14000 men Of which more than 12000 had spirits so high Mine never shall come neere them: would some of them Were here to feed your expectations! Yet, silly as I am, having faire pardon From all your Graces and your Greatnesses, ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... see, my cunning fencer with words, whether I know how to follow your advice, and how sternly I can exercise that virtue denied to me by an assassin. Will any one accuse me now of injustice if I punish the accursed brood that has grown up in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Galleyfoist German fencer Getes Ghosts crying Vindicta Gibb ("A male-cat, now generally applied to one that has been castrated."—Halliwell.) Giglot Ginges Glapthorne, quoted; the play of The Lady Mother identical with Glapthorne's Noble Trial Glass, patent for making Gleeke Gods dynes Goll Gondarino ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... silent. Lord Armley was watching him closely. Mr. Foley's eyes were bright, and a little flush had stained the parchment pallor of his cheeks. He was feeling all the thrill of the fencer ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... which separated the final words brought a sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach, and the discomfort of a fencer, dueling in the dark—a swordsman who recognizes that his cleverness is outmatched. His question ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... work, I judged that the women were striving with the door—enlarging the opening it might be. I dared not look round, however, to see what progress they made, nor did I answer Fresnoy, save by the same silent contempt, but stood watching the men before me with the eye of a fencer about to engage. And I know nothing more keen, more vigilant, more ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... gaily, as Sir Andrew Ffoulkes at a sign from him had quickly left the room. "What need to bruit our pleasant quarrel abroad? You will like the weapons, sir, and you shall have your own choice from the pair.... You are a fine fencer, I feel sure... and you shall decide if a scratch or two or a more serious wound shall be sufficient to ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... hot resentment, replied that he would teach a damned Tory some manners. So the four went out of the town to Nicholas Bayard's woods, where, after a few passes with rapiers, the dark-eyed gentleman was disarmed, and admitted, with no good grace, that Harry was the better fencer. Harry left New York that afternoon, having learned that his antagonist was Mr. John Colden, son of the postmaster of New York. His grandfather had ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the Americans are fond of athletics, which are taught in the schools. There are splendid gymnasiums, and boys and girls are trained in athletic exercises. Athletics are all in vogue. It is fashionable to be a good "fencer." All the young dance. I believe the Americans stand high as a nation in all-around athletics; at least they are far ahead ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... where he remembered to have seen in the ticket-office a former employee in his office at the ministry of Finance,—a man named Fleury; to whom he proposed the post of manager. Fleury, being an old soldier, a good shot, and a skilful fencer, would certainly make himself an object of respect in a newspaper office. The working-staff of the paper being thus reconstituted, with the exception of a few co-editors or reporters to be added later, but whom la Peyrade, thanks to the facility ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... would ride a horse which would be likely to kick her in the event of a fall. When I was in India, I had to get rid of a horse because of his vicious tendency in this respect. He was a good-looking Australian, a clever fencer, and had a nice mouth, but so vicious that when we first got him, he used to rush open-mouthed at any one who went near him, except his syce. My husband took him in hand, and he became sufficiently civilised to take ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... succeeding ages,—an original and immortal man. His system of divinity embodied in his "Institutes" is remarkable for the radiation of the general doctrines of the Church around one central principle, which he defended with marvellous logical power. He was not a fencer like Abelard, displaying wonderful dexterity in the use of sophistries, overwhelming adversaries by wit and sarcasm; arrogant and self-sufficient, and destroying rather than building up. He did not deify the reason, like Erigina, nor throw himself on authority like Bernard. He was ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... again with the same sound like song, and the men went to work again with the same white and watchful faces. Evan, in his impatience, went back a little to his wildness. He made windmills, as the French duellists say, and though he was probably a shade the better fencer of the two, he found the other's point pass his face twice so close as almost to graze his cheek. The second time he realized the actual possibility of defeat and pulled himself together under a shock of the sanity of anger. He narrowed, and, so to speak, tightened ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton |
