"Fencing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my family that has done anything to relieve me in my position. So when anybody comes to pick a quarrel with Finot, he finds old Giroudeau, Captain of the Dragoons of the Guard, that set out as a private in a cavalry regiment in the army of the Sambre-et-Meuse, and was fencing-master for five years to the First Hussars, army of Italy! One, two, and the man that had any complaints to make would be turned off into the dark," he added, making a lunge. "Now writers, my boy, are in different corps; there is the writer who writes and ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... don't blame you for fencing, but I like plain words. You've done well out of this new Party. I haven't. You've no hobby except saving your money. I have. My last two experiments, notwithstanding the Government allowance, have left me drained. I need money as you others need bread. I can live without food or ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thousand acres, and all good. There's no better land in the world. Then there's the buildings and fencing and stock and implements. Hard to say, nowadays. Why, raw land in little patches is selling at fancy figures. I should say as it stands—stocked and all—it's worth a hundred and fifty thousand of any ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... indeed, a great name in Europe as a fencer and master of arms, either with double or single falchion, case of falchions, backsword and dagger, pistol or quarter staff; and it is the fame of his skill and prowess in these weapons, and the reputation he has earned by his books on fencing, that hath brought me to-day to ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... thither, emitting piercing yells of defiance and rage, cutting and striking at his imaginary foe or his partner in the dance. But it is characteristic of the Kayans that neither in this dance nor in actual practice in fencing do they attempt to strike one another. The boy, besides watching these martial displays, is instructed in the arts of striking, parrying, and shielding by the older men, who strike at him with a stick but arrest the blow before it goes home. ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... so, above all, now, is the care that was taken to render me as accomplished a cavalier as possible. The gentleman attached to my person taught me everything he knew himself—mathematics, a little geometry, astronomy, fencing and riding. Every morning I went through military exercises, and practiced on horseback. Well, one morning during the summer, it being very hot, I went to sleep in the hall. Nothing, up to that period, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of the chest were some fencing-sticks, a couple of old pistols, a box with some tarnished medals once the pride of a soldier's heart, a bundle of letters, and, last of all, a worn portfolio tied with ribbon; and inside was written, in the handwriting of Alison Hunter, Marjory's grandmother, "Chronicles ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... hot day in Central Queensland on one of the big cattle stations out from the railway line, a station which had not yet reached the dignity of fencing. The boss remembered that Jim Stone "was a good sort," and that it was forty miles to the next chance of a job. And there was always something to ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... taken up by the students. One of them stood by Sancho; the other one took Don Quixote's point of view. Having once been involved, they argued first on one subject, then on another, until at last foils and the art of fencing became the subject. It so happened that one of them was carrying his foils with him, and he suggested that they settle their argument then and there. They did so under Don Quixote's chivalrous supervision, ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... striking feature in Boston, to my mind, is the common or park, inasmuch as it is the only piece of ground in or attached to any city which I saw deserving the name of a park. It was originally a town cow-pasture, and called the Tower Fields. The size is about fifty acres; it is surrounded with an iron fencing, and, although not large, the lay of the ground is very pretty. It contains some very fine old trees, which every traveller in America must know are a great rarity in the neighbourhood of any populous town. It is overlooked ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... as they have long had it, to themselves; and unhappily seem to manage it ill. 'Fifty yellow furloughs,' given out in one batch, do surely betoken difficulties. But what was Patriotism to think of certain light-fencing Fusileers 'set on,' or supposed to be set on, 'to insult the Grenadier-club,' considerate speculative Grenadiers, and that reading-room of theirs? With shoutings, with hootings; till the speculative Grenadier drew his side-arms too; and there ensued battery ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... to go afoot into France. He might be sufficiently blessed if the millennium did not find him yet living by his wits in Spain. It was Spanish, that prospect! Turn what? Ian asked himself. Bull-fighter—fencing-master— gipsy—or brigand? He played with the notion of fencing-master. But he would have to sell his horse to provide room and equipment, and he must turn aside to some considerable town. Brigand would be easier, in these wild forests and rock fortresses that climbed ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... he has any idea that I do. Now, we were talking about the Oracle a little while ago. We know he's an old ass; a good many outsiders consider that he's a bit soft or ratty, and, as we're likely to be mates together for some time on that fencing contract, if we get it, you might as well know what sort of a man he is and was, so's you won't get uneasy about him if he gets deaf for a while when you're talking, or does funny things with his pipe or pint-pot, ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... important re-arrangements are deemed desirable; and when there is a disposition to encourage improvements of this kind, it is generally found that they afford a very abundant and varied source of labour. Road-making, embanking, draining, fencing, planting, and even building, are generally found to be required; and in connection with these things, and with the work more accurately included under the term agricultural, there are subsidiary forms of industry ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... this complaisance, however, the king did not neglect precautions for placing his authority on a sure basis, and fencing it round so as to screen it effectually from the insults to which it had been formerly exposed. He retained in pay most of the old Italian levies, with the ostensible purpose of an African expedition. He took good care that the military orders should hold their troops in constant ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... caricaturists were not merely concerned with the fallen dynasty. One of the principal cartoonists of the Charivari at that moment was "Cham," otherwise the Vicomte Amedee de Noe, an old friend of my family's. It was he, by the way, who before the war insisted on my going to a fencing-school, saying: "Look here, if you mean to live in France and be a journalist, you must know how to hold a sword. Come with me to Ruze's. I taught your uncle Frank and his friend Gustave Dore how to fence ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... so he made the captain welcome and gave him a great deal to eat and drink. One of the servants came in and pretended to admire the captain's sword till he got it into his own hands; and then he began to give an exhibition of fencing, making the sword whirl hither and thither and ending with a wonderful stroke that made the captain's head ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... to deal harshly with the youngster, but the last part of my speech hurt him, and he blushed like a girl; while his companions, drawing their swords, were for cutting me down off-hand. But though not understanding Paris customs I knew something of fencing, so throwing my cloak to the ground, I stood on guard. In another minute we should have been hard at it, but for the fair-haired lad, who, rushing between us, called on his friends to ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... old fencing-master of Malta shouts while he retreats. It causes them to turn their heads, and what do they see? Advancing up the middle of the inclined street, turning aside for neither king nor peasant, comes a great gaunt beast, his square head ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... eye and into the brain of one before either could make the least show of defence. His horse coming to a quick stop, he drew his weapon out of the slain man's head and turned on the other. While there was some violent fencing between the two, and while the dead man's horse reared, and so rid itself of its bleeding burden, the third horseman urged his horse towards me. I turned the point of his rapier, whereupon he immediately backed, and then came for me again just as I charged on him. ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... "A blind man at midnight could tell that from his fencing. Goes at 'em like a lion. Such a lift to him, too! Is Monkey Brand goin' to ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... you may prove all this, that you may begin right, be careful to take the full good of all the ordered resting times: to wit, the Sundays. I wish all tired people did but know the infinite rest there is in fencing off the six days from the seventh. In anchoring the business ships of your daily life as the Saturday draws to its close, leaving them to ride peacefully upon the flow or the ebb until Monday morning comes again. O the delight, the lull, ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... overcome with fatigue; the Beluchs are supposed to guard the camp, but prefer gossip and brightening their arms. Some men are told off to look after the mules, donkeys, and goats, whilst out grazing; the rest have to pack the kit, pitch our tents, cut boughs for huts, and for fencing in the camp—a thing rarely done, by-the-by. After cooking, when the night has set it, the everlasting dance begins, attended with clapping of hands and jingling small bells strapped to the legs—the whole ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... trembling in a transport of maniac fury with which an inexplicable fear ran cross-odds as warp and woof. The other had totally deluded him until the climax brought its accusation, and now the unmasked plotter took refuge in bluster, fencing for ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... perfume. 'Tain't my way. There's jest one chance for me. It's the big boodle. I'm all in for that. Right up to my ear-drums." He laughed and spat. "There's a mighty big world to buy, an' when you got your fencing set up around it, why, there ain't a deal left outside that's worth corrallin'. I'd say it's only the folk who fancy the foolish house need to try an' buy a big pot on a pair o' deuces. If you stand on a 'royal' you can grab most anything. I got this thing ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... memoratu digna gerebantur, informed and appointed by the state to register all famous acts, and not by each insufficient scribbler, partial or parasitical pedant, as in our times. I will provide public schools of all kinds, singing, dancing, fencing, &c. especially of grammar and languages, not to be taught by those tedious precepts ordinarily used, but by use, example, conversation, [612]as travellers learn abroad, and nurses teach their children: as ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... The fencing (for it does not deserve the name of serious disputation) with which Bishop Butler meets his opponents is rendered possible by the laxness with which the words "identical" and "identity" are ordinarily used. Bishop Butler would not seriously deny that personality undergoes great changes ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... too, of his prowess in riding, boxing, fencing, and even walking; but to excel in these things feet are as necessary as hands. It was difficult to avoid smiling at his boasting and self-glorification. In the water a fin is better than a foot, and ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... India and 111 small Indian exclaves in Bangladesh, allocate divided villages, and stop illegal cross-border trade, migration, violence, and transit of terrorists through the porous border; Bangladesh protests India's fencing and walling off high-traffic sections of the porous boundary; a joint Bangladesh-India boundary commission resurveyed and reconstructed 92 missing pillars in 2007; dispute with India over New Moore/South Talpatty/Purbasha Island in the Bay of Bengal ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... with more than a mile of chain link fencing and posted with signs warning of radioactivity. In the early 1950s most of the remaining Trinitite in the crater was bulldozed into a underground concrete bunker near Trinity. Also at this time the crater was back ...
— Trinity [Atomic Test] Site - The 50th Anniversary of the Atomic Bomb • The National Atomic Museum
... I passed by the topic of the speeches of Jesus on the Cross, it appears that I could have had no other motive than the dictates of my native evasiveness. An ecclesiastical dignitary may have respectable reasons for declining a fencing match "in sight of Gethsemane and Calvary"; but an ecclesiastical "Infidel"! Never. It is obviously impossible that, in the belief that "the greater includes the less," I, having declared the Gospel evidence in general, as to the sayings of Jesus, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... law. To return to the man I was telling you of. He would crucify Jesus Christ again, if I bade him. At a word from his old chum Vautrin he will pick a quarrel with a scamp that will not send so much as five francs to his sister, poor girl, and" (here Vautrin rose to his feet and stood like a fencing-master about to lunge)—"turn him off into the dark!" ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... door, and he followed her into a large book-lined study—masculine in its sober colouring and simple furnishings. Above the mantelpiece was arranged a trophy of swords and fencing-sticks; opposite hung a superb painting by Henner. Vanderlyn remembered having seen this picture exhibited in the Salon some five years before. It had been shown under the title "The Crystal-Gazer," and it was even ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... gentleman given to flogging but not learned in Greek, and therefore a proper subject for a certain sort of blackmailing. He was not an industrious boy; but he was apt and ready with his tongue, he was an expert in fencing and the dance, he was good at improvising and telling stories, it is on record that he pleaded and won the cause of himself and certain of his schoolmates accused before a magistrate of riot and outrage. At college he found work for his high spirits in wild fun and the perpetration of ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... there to wear a gown, and to say hereafter, he has been at the university. His father sent him thither because he heard there were the best fencing and dancing-schools; from these he has his education, from his tutor the over-sight. The first element of his knowledge is to be shewn the colleges, and initiated in a tavern by the way, which hereafter he will learn of himself. The two marks ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... of February, or six weeks after the Elmers had landed in Wakulla, their influence had become very decidedly felt in the community. With their building, fencing, ploughing, and clearing, they had given employment to most of the working population of the place, and had put more money into circulation than had been seen there at any one time for years. Their house was now as neat and pretty as any in the county. ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... all born at the hut by the creek, I suppose, for I remember it as soon as I could remember anything. It was a snug hut enough, for father was a good bush carpenter, and didn't turn his back to any one for splitting and fencing, hut-building and shingle-splitting; he had had a year or two at sawing, too, but after he was married he dropped that. But I've heard mother say that he took great pride in the hut when he brought her to it first, and said ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... that Juan should be quite a paragon, And worthy of the noblest pedigree, (His Sire was of Castile, his Dam from Aragon) Then, for accomplishments of chivalry, In case our Lord the King should go to war again, He learned the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery, And how to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Questions about certain Shakespeare characters will never be solved to the satisfaction of all performers. For instance, how old is Hamlet in the tragedy? How close to madness did the dramatist expect actors to portray his actions? During Hamlet's fencing match with Laertes in the last scene the Queen says, "He's fat, and scant of breath." Was she describing his size, or meaning that he was ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... a crestfallen expression. "It's done for, Stephen. I'm sorry to say the whole concern seems to be mashed up into a kind of wire-fencing!" ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... met me again. She had been gracious enough to leave her home in the island valley of Avilion, to play the soubrette parts in the theatre of the university town in which I was fencing and drinking for the improvement of ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... put a besom into the piece, and it swept all my genius off the boards. Ah, the donkey-men! But I am glad Eselmann gave me my "Hamlet" back, for before giving it to Goldwater I made it even more subtle. No vulgar nonsense of fencing and poison at the end—a pure mental tragedy, for in life the soul alone counts. No—this cream is just as sour as the other—my play will be the ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... body, re-creates the mind and spirit. That kind of exercise is best, in my opinion, which offers plenty of variety and humor and the excitement of competition. I mean games like tennis, baseball, handball, golf, lacrosse, and polo, and sports like swift-water canoeing and fly-fishing, boxing, and fencing. These take the mind of the artist quite away from its preoccupations and then restore it to them, unless he has taken too much of a good thing, with a fresh viewpoint and a ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... encountering divers perils by the way. It was a period when a stout blade on the thigh was a most excellent travelling companion. Hamlet, though of a philosophical complexion, was not slower than another man to scent an affront; he excelled at feats of arms, and no doubt his skill, caught of the old fencing-master at Elsinore, stood him in good stead more than once when his wit would not have saved him. Certainly, he had hair-breadth escapes while toiling through the wilds of Prussia and Bavaria and Switzerland. At all events, he counted himself fortunate the night he arrived ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... interrupted: "Yes, they would know everything, except agriculture. They would speak Arabic, but they would not know how to transplant beet-root, and how to sow wheat. They would be strong in fencing, but weak in the art of farming. On the contrary, the new country should be opened to everyone. Intelligent men would make positions for themselves; the others would succumb. It is a ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... fencing," said Leo, "and consider the facts. It has seemed to me that the Khania Atene is ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... of guarding from mildew the laurels on the brows of the Muses' Sons. What a dear kind soul of a critic is old Christopher North! Watering the flowers of poetry, and removing the weeds that might choke them—letting in the sunshine upon them, and fencing them from the blast—proclaiming where the gardens grow, and leading boys and virgins into the pleasant alleys—teaching hearts to love and eyes to see their beauty, and classifying, by the attributes it has pleased nature to bestow on the various orders, the plants of Paradise—This ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... at present is a dollar per bushel, varying a little according to the competition of mills and facilities to market. In many instances a single crop of wheat will more than pay the expenses of purchasing the land, fencing, breaking the prairie, seed, putting in the crop, harvesting, threshing, and taking it to market. Wheat is now frequently sown on the prairie land as a first crop, and a good ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... The bamboo fencing which had been hastily set up around the town was not a very strong affair; and right from the start it gave way in one place after another as the enemy thronged and crowded against it. Then the Doctor, Long Arrow and Bumpo would hurry to the weak spot, a terrific hand-to-hand fight ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... could he ever make a common household with his mother? He meant to do his duty by her, but she annoyed and abashed him twenty times a day. He would be far happier married, far better able to do his work. He was not passionately in love—not at all. But—for it was no good fencing with himself any longer—he desired Letty Sewell's companionship more than he had desired anything for a long time. He wanted the right to carry off the little musical box, with all its tunes, and set it playing ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the only person who was well served by his spies; indeed, he never spared his money. All the Frenchmen who went into Germany or Holland as dancing or fencing-masters, esquires, etc., were paid by him to give him information of whatever passed in the several Courts. After his death this system was discontinued, and thus it is that the present Ministers are so ignorant of ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... Where fencing is required, we must add for making about three miles of fence, say L30 sterling. Two carts would also have to be provided, which will cost, say L20 more. In all we may compute the first ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... farm on a large tract of land he owned on Indian Creek, forty miles west of Leavenworth, for the benefit of his grand-nephew, Henry Clark, and his grand-niece, Mrs. Walker. These arrived out in the spring, by which time I had caused to be erected a small frame dwelling-house, a barn, and fencing for a hundred acres. This helped to pass away time, but afforded little profit; and on the 11th of June, 1859, I wrote to Major D. C. Buel, assistant adjutant-general, on duty in the War Department ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... some localities the porcupine feeds off its inner bark. It is also made use of by man. The wood is light, not strong, with a straight, rather coarse grain. It is of a light yellow to nearly white, or pinkish white, soft, and easily worked. In the West it is extensively used for lumber, fencing, fuel, and log houses, and millions of lodge-pole railroad-ties are ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... matter of turning a mile-long furrow. I feel rather audacious over it all. And I'm glad to inject a little excitement into life ... I'm saving up for a new sewing-machine ... Tarzanette has got rather badly cut up in some of our barb-wire fencing. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... during one of our hottest summers. They ploughed with horses, they ploughed with tractors, they sowed the seed, they thinned and weeded the plants, they reaped, they raked, they pitched the hay, they did fencing and milking. The Vassar farm had bumper crops on its seven hundred and forty acres, and its superintendent, Mr. Louis P. Gillespie, said, "A very great amount of the work necessary for the large production was done ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... club that the Author of Waverley, with whom it was supposed that he had the means of communicating, would accept of the seat at the club vacated by the death of Sir Mark Sykes. Scott got through the affair ingeniously with a little coy fencing that deceived no one, and was finally accepted as the Author of Waverley's representative. The Roxburghe had, however, at that time, done nothing in serious book-club business, having let loose only the small flight of flimsy sheets of letterpress ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... looking for a location. Several miles from B—— he found a place that seemed to suit him. The soil was rich, and apparently inexhaustible; but it was poorly watered, and destitute of any timber suitable for building or fencing, and there was very little which was fit for fuel. The great thing he thought of was ...
— The Allis Family; or, Scenes of Western Life • American Sunday School Union
... one of the good blades of the day, and had had much practice; but he had, nevertheless, all the difficulty in the world to defend himself against a supple and active antagonist, who was constantly deviating from the received rules of fencing, attacking him on all sides at once, and parrying, at the same time, like a man who had the greatest regard for his epidermis. At last Jussac lost patience. Furious at being thus kept at bay by one whom he looked upon as a child, his sang-froid abandoned him, and he began to commit ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... The fencing bout was over, the foils were laid aside, and grim earnest was in Michael's voice now—modulated by civilization into that tone which does not carry beyond one's neighbor ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... from his favourite dish as 'Irish Stew,' three or four nondescript Scots, a fine young Irishman, O'Reilly, and a pair of young men who deserve a special word of condemnation. One of them was Scots; the other claimed to be American; admitted, after some fencing, that he was born in England; and ultimately proved to be an Irishman born and nurtured, but ashamed to own his country. He had a sister on board, whom he faithfully neglected throughout the voyage, though she ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... conversation; a fencing match with words and phrases. Time after time she touched him; but with all his skill he could not break through her guard. Once or twice he thrust in a manner which was not in accord ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... where the agricultural value of the land is too high to permit it to remain longer in forest cover. Even in the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes belts there are still large areas of forest land. Most of the farms have woodlots which provide fuel, fencing, and some lumber. For the most part, these farm woodlots are abused. They have not been managed correctly. Fortunately, a change for the better is now evident. The farm woodlot owners are coming to appreciate the importance of protecting the ...
— The School Book of Forestry • Charles Lathrop Pack
... delays. She spent the remainder of that week in packing up the few effects belonging to herself and Ishmael. The boy himself employed his time in transplanting rosebushes from the cottage-garden to his mother's grave, and fencing it around with a rude but substantial paling. On Sunday morning Reuben and Hannah were married at the church; and on Monday they were to set out for their ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Stern's cheer and that of Beatrice, and for a moment all was confusion. The wing rose, fell, slid back; into the water and again dipped upward. The canoes canted; some took water; all were thrown against each other in the central group; and cries, shouts, orders and a wild fencing off ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... for I had an invincible impression upon my thoughts, that my deliverance was at hand, and that I should not be another year in this place. However, I went on with my husbandry, digging, planting, and fencing, as usual; I gathered and cured my grapes, and did ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... establishment of the old. Its utility consisted in training the human mind to logical reasonings. It exercised the intellect and strengthened it, as gymnastics do the body, without enlarging it. It was nothing but barren dialectics,—"dry bones," a perpetual fencing. The soul cries out for bread; the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... Hancock was arrested at Boston—for a "misdemeanor;" I suppose, "obstructing an officer," or some such offence.[105] The government long sought to procure indictments against James Otis—who was so busy in fencing out despotism—Samuel Adams, and several other leading friends of the colony. But I suppose the judge did not succeed in getting his brother-in-law put on the grand-jury, and so the scheme fell through. No indictment for ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... for once, in no truly fencing mood. She was troubled at times about her various relations, anxious to put herself straight with Cowperwood or with any one whom she truly liked. Compared to Cowperwood and his affairs, Cross and Knowles were trivial, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... brandy like water, cannot expend their quantities of waste strength on riding, hunting, swimming, and fencing, and run into absurd follies with the gravity of the Eumenides. They stoutly carry into every nook and corner of the earth their turbulent sense; leaving no lie uncontradicted; no pretension unexamined. They chew hasheesh; cut themselves with poisoned creases, swing ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... daily activities with a heavy absent-mindedness, with a dragging spirit. A man was coming from Washington to see him in the interest of a new practically permanent fencing, and he met him at the post-office, listened to a loud cheerful ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... markets of Rosario and Buenos Aires. They accordingly bought the estancia La Barrancosa in 1906, and have been constantly increasing the area there under alfalfa, equipping it with a full complement of wells and fencing. This estancia lies half way between the towns of San Isabel and Venado Tuerto, from the latter of which it is distant about sixteen miles. But, during the year 1909, a new broad-gauge railway line was opened, leading from Rosario to Bahia Blanca. ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... have heard gentlemen say, sister, that one should take great care, when one makes a thrust in fencing, ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... been very kind to him, and here was some serious business. So he hurried through what correspondence was absolutely necessary; he sent word to Green's stables that he should not ride that morning; he walked round to a certain gymnasium and had three quarters of an hour with the fencing-master (this was an appointment which he invariably held sacred); on his way back to his rooms he called in at Solomon's for a buttonhole; and then, having got home and made certain alterations in his toilet, he went out again, jumped into a hansom, and was driven up to the ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... I am well read in the Scriptures, the classics, and ancient history; was acquainted with geography; could draw; learnt fencing, riding, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... interesting exhibition of diplomatic fencing; but beyond the discussion, pro and con, of the matters in original and continuous dispute between the two countries, the issue turned upon the question whether the United States had received the explanation due to it,—in right and courtesy,—of the reasons for disavowing Erskine's ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... the heart of Henry IV. as it was borne to its resting-place at La Flche. At the age of sixteen he went home to his father, who was now settled at Rennes, and had married again. During the winter of 1612 he completed his preparations for the world by lessons in horsemanship and fencing; and then started as his own master to taste the pleasures of Parisian life. Fortunately he went to no perilous lengths; the worst we hear of is a passion for gaming. Here, too, he made the acquaintance of Claude Mydorge, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... gone out one evening for some cigars after an animated political discussion, the aforesaid veterinary grumbled to himself certain phrases of heavy irritation concerning "coming to the point," and "a mere fencing-master," and "cutting a figure." But as the object of these vague menaces suddenly returned, whistling a march and beating time with his cane, the incident was ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... and blunder-headed chopping at a man like one goes at a tree, but fencing a bit till you get your chance. We're fencing, lad. What we've got to do is to take or sink all the enemy we can, not ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... habitation of the gods, with its delicious, winy atmosphere, its vast colonnades of pines, its measureless depths of water, so clear that to drift on it was like floating high aloft in mid-nothingness. They staked out a timber claim and made a semblance of fencing it and of building a habitation, to comply with the law; but their chief employment was a complete abandonment to the quiet luxury of that dim solitude: wandering among the trees, lounging along the shore, or drifting ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... effectually and speedily delivered; for I had an invincible impression upon my thoughts that my deliverance was at hand, and that I should not be another year in this place. I went on, however, with my husbandry; digging, planting, and fencing as usual. I gathered and cured my grapes, and did every ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... engaged our wands, and left us. To avoid blood-stained clothing, my adversary and I had stripped to the shoes; and the chill of the night enveloped our bodies like a wet sheet. The man was better at fencing than myself; he was vastly taller than I, being of a stature almost gigantic, and proportionately strong. In the inky blackness of the shed it was impossible to see his eyes; and from the suppleness of the wands, I did not like to trust to a parade. I made up my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Bob, looking inquiringly at his uncle, "is digging a row of fence post holes along the main road to fence in our property. We want to put in concrete fence posts and a wire fence along the main road. After that's up we'll have lots of other fencing to ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... mention that I had come from Townsville to take charge of Five-Head Creek cattle run, which had suffered so severely from a terrible drought that it had been temporarily abandoned. We were to look after and repair the fencing, many miles' length of which had been destroyed by fire or succumbed to white ants, to search for and collect the remnant of the cattle that had not perished in the drought, and see after the place generally. My mate was to follow me out in a few ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... the priest's closet. Monuments, mural and others, to long-departed worthies, and images of the Savior, the Virgin, and saints, were numerous everywhere about the church; and in the chancel there was a great deal of quaint and curious sculpture, fencing in the Holy of Holies, where the high altar stands. There is not much painted glass; one or two very rich and beautiful rose-windows, however, that looked antique; and the great eastern window, which, I think, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... quartered here. And in January, 1587, one Thomas Lovelace, sentenced by the Star Chamber for false accusations, was carried on horseback about Westminster Hall, his face to the tail; he was then pilloried, and had one of his ears cut off. The execution, in 1612, of Lord Sanquire for the murder of a fencing-master, and of the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland and Lord Capel, on March 9, 1649, for so-called treason, took place in New Palace Yard. Here in 1630 Alexander Leighton was whipped, pilloried and branded for a libel on the Queen and the Bishops. In May, 1685, Titus ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... cheerfully, glad to get to grips; and to stop a fencing that was getting nowhere. "I'm connected with the Times-Republican, in your own fair city. I was in the theater the night Gregory ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... them; and they were cutting a series of holes in a circle. From what Jabe had told him of the Indian methods, he saw at once that these were not regular trappers, but poachers, who were violating the game laws and planning to annihilate the whole beaver colony by fencing ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... his legs. 'My dear soul! dear friend—one of the best! if we go on fencing in the dark, there'll be wounds. Your way of taking this affair disappointed me. Now I understand. It's the disease of a trouble, to fly at comparisons. No real one exists. I wished to protect the woman from a happier sister's judgement, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... gambler, who lives one knows not how! Nonsense! It is as if one should fight a duel with a fencing-master." ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... step of his progress, and specially encouraged when he has gained a certain point, and arrived at an important resting-place. It is thus we are taught the whole circle of what are called accomplishments, dancing, music, fencing, and the rest; and it is surely a strange anomaly, if those things which are most essential in raising the mind to its true standard, cannot be communicated with equal suavity and kindness, be surrounded with allurements, and regarded as sources ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... smugglers and owlers who had used the Woolpack as their headquarters long ago, riding by moonlight to the cross-roads, with their mouths full of slang—cant talk of "mackerel" and "fencing" and ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... ten thousand pounds, instead of being lent to B, are lent on mortgage to C, a landed proprietor, by whom they are employed in improving the productive powers of his estate, by fencing, draining, road-making, or permanent manures. This is productive employment. The ten thousand pounds are sunk, but not dissipated. They yield a permanent return; the land now affords an increase of produce, sufficient in a few years, if the outlay has been judicious, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... patronized by his relations, seeing enough of society, card-tables, drums, routs, plays, prize-fights, and other diversions. He had made visits in the country and showed what he had learned in Virginia about cock-fighting, fox-hunting and shooting, and had taken lessons from London fencing-masters. A young gentleman from Virginia, if well off and "well connected," could have a fine time in London in those days; and ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... who would bring Yule-logs to the farmers on Christmas Eve and direct the woodmen in their tasks of planting and felling; latterly, however, he is said to have grown churlish and malignant. The reckless felling of young trees for fencing and pit-props is supposed to have roused his ill-will, and sinister stories have been told of children who have gone into the woods for acorns or hazel-nuts and have never been ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... right by it. He worked the land too hard, and didn't put on it anywhere near what he had ought to; I guess you'll find it pretty poor in some places. He was trying to get all he could out of it, I s'pose. There's a good deal of fencing to be done too, ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... cottage was an out-house which ran flush along the side of Beacon Street, fencing off our bit of a garden from the road and an adjacent tenement; and this out-house, mother, who was of an inventive nature, with a strong proclivity for money-making, had converted into a shop for the sale of ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... that," he answered, not sadly, but with a set, stern look, as if fencing for the hundredth time against an antagonist who was foredoomed to be his master in the end. "Laura will outlive me; she must outlive me. I am so sure of it, that, every time I come near her, I pray that I may not be paralyzed, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... Stradella and Ortensia instantly recognised as Trombin's, 'I see that you are at least as young as you are noble, if not more so, and I shall therefore not press my acquaintance upon you so far as to take your life. But I shall tell you plainly, sir, that I am a fencing-master by my profession, and if you do not immediately dissolve into air, or, to put it better, melt away with all your company, I will lard you, in the space of thirty seconds, with fifteen flesh wounds in fifteen different parts of your body, not one of which shall be ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... hear all about those things, do you? I had the impression that we discussed them quite thoroughly while I was at supper. Still, I can go over them all again if you insist. It may take up another five minutes, and when one is fencing for ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... help from South London, from tin-box makers, illegally fined, and in many cases grievously mutilated by the non-fencing of machinery; then aid to shop assistants, also illegally fined; legal defences by the score still continued; a vigorous agitation for a free meal for children, and for fair wages to be paid by all public bodies; work for the dockers and exposure of their wrongs; a visit to the Cradley Heath ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... me rather firmly; and such skill in fencing demands my admiration and consideration. I will not press further on thee, Chios, and I have now naught to do but to make love, and make her love me more than ever ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... before engaging. Bertin was very sober and serious, but one had only to glance at him to perceive a very heat of wrath masked under his heavy countenance. Vaucher was intent, wary, full of careful purpose. Their blades touched. 'All'ez!' There were a couple of moments of fencing, of almost formal escrime, and then Vaucher lengthened his arm and attacked. Bertin stepped back a pace, and, as Vaucher advanced, he slashed with a high open cut, and it was over. Vaucher threw up both hands and came to his knees. I remember that I stood, unable to ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... appear to the action without entering into any unnecessary explanation of the merits of his case. He counted on the accuracy of Mr Hatton's judgment, that the claim would not be pursued; and he was right; after some fencing and preliminary manoeuvring, the claim had not been pursued. Lord de Mowbray therefore, always gracious, was disposed to accord a very distinguished reception to his confidential counsellor. He pressed very much his guests to remain with him some days, and though that was not practicable, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... New World spread wide in the security of an age of law and a continent of peace. At Cleveland in Ohio there is a great street called Euclid Avenue, lined with villas each standing in its own grounds and separated from each other and from the street only by a light iron fencing instead of the high brick wall with which the Briton shuts out his detested kind. The villas are not vast or suggestive of over-grown plutocracy, they are suggestive of moderate wealth, pleasant summers, cheerful winters and domestic happiness. ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... truth there must be moral equality or else no respect; and hence between parent and child intercourse is apt to degenerate into a verbal fencing-bout, and misapprehensions to become engrained. And there is another side to this, for the parent begins with an imperfect notion of the child's character, formed in early years or during the equinoctial gales of youth; to this he adheres, noting only the facts which suit with his pre-conception; ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I often had occasion to see him upon urgent matters, and was summoned to his gymnasium, where he was having a boxing match with a well-known pugilist, and getting the better of his antagonist, or else launching at his fencing master. The athletics would cease, to be resumed as soon as he had in his quick and direct way ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... as between two adversaries on the fencing-ground who bear each other no hatred, but who are constrained by fate to fight to the death. And Lupin took my ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... night's cold; he had, as the saw goes, milked the world's cow dry. So he sent word to Payan: 'In my youth' (here we abridge Wassaf's rigmarole) 'I heard my father tell that this fortress should be taken by a man called Payan, and that all fencing and trenching, fighting and smiting, would be of no avail. You need not, therefore, bring an army hither; we give in; we surrender the fortress and all that is therein.' So they opened the gates and came down." (Wassaf, Hammer's ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... companies, so as to preserve them from attacks of the Indians. A company of men, being thus engaged, the first week of May, in a field, now owned by Minter Bailey, on Hacker's creek, and being a good deal dispersed in various occupations, some fencing, others clearing, and a few ploughing, they were unexpectedly fired upon by the Indians, and Thomas Hughes and Jonathan Lowther shot down: the others being incautiously without arms fled for safety. Two of ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... up the entrance to the gallery with a safety-stopper similar to the earthen plug with which the Osmia closes her reeds. The Bee then returns to the free and easy use of the scissors which we noticed at the beginning when she was fencing off the back part of the Earth-worm's too deep burrow; she cuts out of the foliage irregular pieces of different shapes and sizes and often retaining their original deeply-indented margins; and with all these pieces, very few of which fit at all closely the orifice to be blocked, ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... faith took refuge in intellectual pleasures. Like Colonel Hutchinson—and this portrait, contrary in all points to the preconceived idea, is a typical one—he "could dance admirably well, but neither in youth nor riper years made any practice of it; he had skill in fencing such as became a gentleman; he had great love to music and often diverted himself with a viol, on which he played masterly; he had an exact ear and judgment in other music; he shot excellently in bows and guns, and much used them for his exercise; he had great judgment in paintings, graving, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... slay his friends. Suppose a man to have been trained in the palestra and to be a skilful boxer,—he in the fulness of his strength goes and strikes his father or mother or one of his familiars or friends; but that is no reason why the trainers or fencing-masters should be held in detestation or banished from the city;—surely not. For they taught their art for a good purpose, to be used against enemies and evil-doers, in self-defence not in aggression, and others ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... pleasure of the Indians on the reservations, and for a short time they seemed to be contented, and to enjoy the novelty of their new mode of life. The young, able-bodied men were put to work assisting in clearing, fencing and cultivating fields for hay and vegetables, and thus they were partially self-supporting. A large portion of them, however, soon began to tire of the restraints imposed, and longed for their former condition of freedom, and many ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... accomplishment of Lucretius, of Sir John Davies, of Dryden: but then this very disputation has always been eclectic; not exhausting even the essential arguments; but playing gracefully with those only which could promise a brilliant effect. Such a mimic disputation is like a histrionic fencing match, where the object of the actor is not in good earnest to put his antagonist to the sword, but to exhibit a few elegant passes in carte and tierce, not forgetting the secondary object of displaying ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... something that might give me a name, which is the only thing your bounty cannot bestow.—My genius inclines me to the army.—Of all the accomplishments you have caused me to be instructed in, geography, fortification, and fencing, have been my darling studies.—Of what use, sir, will they be to me in an idle life? permit me then the opportunity of showing the expense you have been at has not been thrown away.—I know they will ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... kinsman, and at once accepted his services and that of his companion. Harry Drury was not unused to arms. He had been taught fencing as a part of his education, and would use the singlestick, arquebus, and crossbow, while the fashion of every gentleman wearing a sword had rendered it necessary that this weapon should be handled skilfully. The necessary drill was therefore ...
— Hayslope Grange - A Tale of the Civil War • Emma Leslie
... make a dog-house, like the one I had in Baltimore, out of that green chest. Charley Saunders lived in that next house in the picture, and he had a martin-box, with a steeple to it; but his father gave fencing-lessons, and was very rich." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... but hear me out. There's something about you that—that's got me. I can't forget you. I only want to know what you care to give—the part that escapes the disguise that you wear! I want to talk to you. I bet we have a lot to say to each other. Don't you see it would be like fencing behind a shield? But how can we make this out unless we utilize chances that might, if people were not decent and honest, be wrong? I know I'm getting all snarled up—but I'm trying ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... out now, though. It was sleeping. However, it was due to wake up any second. "Then you're not interested in fencing the ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... longer spoke scornfully, the fencing having made a deep impression on him, but he looked ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards |
