"Fillip" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to furnish the blood with all the oxygen demanded by this excessive labor of flight. They are pierced with holes, through which issue pipes which carry the air all over the body. You know what is said of spendthrifts?-that they burn the candle at both ends. It is so with the blood of birds. That fillip which in our case it receives in the lungs, and which sends it back full of vigor into the arteries, is repeated in the bird at the other end of the arteries as well. The capillaries, those delicate vessels at the end of the arteries, plunge from all sides ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... you. According to the characters concerned, the indications which we are describing, veiled under the incidents of ordinary life, are of infinite variety. One man may discover a symptom in the way a shawl is put on, while another needs to receive a fillip to his intellect, in order to notice the indifference of ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... I drink, I am drunk, I am Jupiter! Eh! Pierre, the Slaughterer, if you look at me like that again, I'll fillip the dust off your ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... had begun to talk in a wild way about his estate in Ireland, and his owld grandmother; and either the influence of these thoughts, or Hardy's visit, had given him such a fillip that from that day he began to revive. Nevertheless he had received a very severe shake, and, not very long after, was invalided home. Meanwhile, as we have said, busy preparations were being made by General Graham—who had ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... words came like a fillip to Vince's spirits, for he felt now that there was nothing to mind, as he could not give the Lobster credit for knowing that they were close at hand and acting his part so as to make believe he ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... tobacco into the nose. Even Chesterfield opposes it, when after characterizing all use of tobacco or snuff, in any form, as both vulgar and filthy, he adds: 'Besides, snuff-takers are generally very dull and shallow people, and have recourse to it merely as a fillip to the brain; by all means, therefore, avoid the filthy custom.' This censure, though rather severe, is equally applicable to ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... heard of you from Mr. Pulham this morning, and that gave a fillip to my Laziness, which has been intolerable. But I am so taken up with pruning and gardening, quite a new sort of occupation to me. I have gather'd my Jargonels, but my Windsor Pears are backward. The former were of exquisite raciness. I do now sit under my own vine, and contemplate the ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... who was singing some trivial couplets much better than they deserved. Catching sight of him presently, she greeted him with a flash of her dark eye that made him writhe as though his heart had received a fillip from a ponderable missile. She did not spare these roguish glances. They darted everywhere; and Conolly, looking about him to note their effect, saw rows of callow young faces with parted lips and an expression which ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... speech. The sister who desired fish would 'wag her hands displayed sidelings in manner of a fish tail'; she who wanted milk would 'draw her left little finger in manner of milking'; for mustard one would 'hold her nose in the upper part of her right fist and rub it'; another for salt would 'fillip with her right thumb and forefinger over the left thumb'; another desirous of wine would 'move her forefinger up and down the end of her thumb afore her eye'; and the guilty sacristan, struck by the thought that she had not provided incense for the Mass, would 'put her two fingers ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... a fillip to the Ranger. They sent a glow through his blood. He knew that at that moment she was not thinking of the danger ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... was this sudden veil of mystery which hid him from her secret eyes? Victor knew, and yet his love for her was not so great that he could tell her another's secret. And the governor knew, D'Herouville, and the vicomte; and they were as silent as stone. Love? A fillip of her finger for love! Happy indeed was she to learn that neither the marquis nor the Chevalier would return to France on the Henri IV. Such ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... interminable, but just as I was losing all patience, I received a fillip that awoke me to alertness, and ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... calling her "Aunt Vivie." I am equally sure that Vivie was not long in London before she appeared at dear old Praddy's studio, beautifully gowned and looking years younger than forty-three; and I shouldn't wonder but that her presence once more in his circle will give his frame a fillip so that he may cheat Death over a few more annual outbreaks of influenza. I am convinced that he has left all his money, after providing a handsome annuity for the parlour-maid, to Vivie, knowing that in her hands, far more—and far more quickly than in those that ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... rest of his leisure was given to politics. Chests of volumes were arriving from London, and his library shelves began to make a respectable appearance; as a matter of principle, he bought largely from the local bookseller, who rejoiced at the sudden fillip to his stagnant trade, and went about declaring that Mr. Denzil Quarrier was evidently the man ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... one held my head, so that I should not be able to wriggle. And another placed his left forefinger and thumb at my nose. (It seemed he was left-handed.) He curled up his finger and thumb, closed his eye, and began to fillip me on the nose. And how, do you think? Each time I saw my father in the other world. Murderers, slaughterers! What had they against my nose? What had it done to them? Whom had it bothered? What had they seen on it—a nose ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... serious look (says Dr. Ker), I asked him if he was not mistaken, adding that I thought the Dee was in Kirkcudbright, and flowed into the Solway Firth. He was a bashful boy, and made no reply. To give the class a needed fillip, I appealed to them to settle whether I or the boy was right. To give a verdict against the inspector was, of course, not to be thought of, and there was silence for a time; but at last a boy put his hand to his mouth, and said to his neighbour in a stage whisper not meant for, but ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... a fillip from learning that two epileptic children had attended from this very village of Holmstoke many years before with beneficial results, though the experiment had been strongly condemned by the neighbouring clergy. April, May, June, passed; and it is no overstatement to say that ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... to be the only means of salvation to restore security, and to give a fillip to the brilliant prospects of the country, for the good of the burgher estate as well as for the sake ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... fellow asked whether I liked her singing, or her flattery? For his part, he thought we both liked to hear our own voices, and agreed in nothing else. Taste, indeed! when I would not let her sing a song I cared a fillip for. ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... together, and gave him a fillip on the head. "You heartless fellow!" she cried. "You're like the dog, that bit Lue T'ung-pin. You have no idea of what's right and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... about a second-rate journalist in Paris. It is Grace the cricketer for whom the hundred thousand subscribe their shilling: fancy a writer thus rewarded, even after scoring his century of popular novels. The winning of the Derby gives a new fillip to the monarchy itself. A Victor Hugo in London is a thought a faire rire. A Goethe at the court of Victoria, or directing Drury Lane Theatre, is of a comic-opera incongruity. Our neighbours across the border have ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... gave the final fillip to the lad's nerves, and, taking tightly hold of the spell above Joe's head with both hands, he raised his own legs till they came level with Joe's loins, and bestriding him as if on horseback, he crooked his legs and ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... the song of Clichy, is the song from the heart of St. Michel, the song from the heart of St. Germain. "Tea rooms," operated by American old maids, have poked their noses into these once genuine boulevards ... and, as if giving a further fillip to the scenery, clothing shops with windows haughtily revealing the nobby art of Kuppenheimer, postcard shops laden to the sill's edge with lithographs disclosing erstwhile Saturday Evening Post cover heroines, and case upon case displaying ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... command the whole ship, and he wore the familiar threadbare frock uniform coat, bearing on the left breast four tarnished and lack-lustre stars. Then came the incident of the immortal signal. "We must give the fleet," said Nelson to Blackwood, "something by way of a fillip." After musing a while, he said, "Suppose we signal, 'Nelson confides that every man will do his duty'?" Some one suggested "England" instead of "Nelson," and Nelson at once caught at the improvement. The signal-officer explained that the word "confide" would have to be spelt, and suggested instead ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... suffering again, as the dry argument was resumed. Presently he bethought him of a treasure he had and got it out. It was a large black beetle with formidable jaws—a "pinchbug," he called it. It was in a percussion-cap box. The first thing the beetle did was to take him by the finger. A natural fillip followed, the beetle went floundering into the aisle and lit on its back, and the hurt finger went into the boy's mouth. The beetle lay there working its helpless legs, unable to turn over. Tom eyed it, and longed for it; but it was safe out of his reach. Other people ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... could not detest and abhor a pun, or the insinuation of a pun, more cordially than my father;—he would grow testy upon it at any time;—but to be broke in upon by one, in a serious discourse, was as bad, he would say, as a fillip upon the ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... provide ready-made farms to be paid for upon easy terms, and if, along with this, facilities for marketing, for terminals, for slaughter-houses, and for agencies for bringing the produce of the farms to the markets were provided, not only would agriculture be given a fillip which it badly needs but the congestion of our cities and the immigration problem would be open to easy solution. Then for many generations to come land would be available in abundance. For America could support many times ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... needed for construction, and success did not come, though for a time it seemed probable. The sudden smash of the Northern Pacific, just completed by Villard, brought the stock down lower than before the fillip had been given. With sixteen millions locked up or pledged the company was in ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... reproached, not altogether jestingly. He even looked across at the gap through the hills to which she was pointing. Then he saw the disdain in her blue eyes. He took the cigarette from his lips, eyed it regretfully, and flung it away with a petulant fillip. ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... smoked herring, a comb of honey, and a bunch of water-cress, re-enforced after the family had taken their seals by a form of smoking cornbread, was the simple fare set forth. But the early rising, and two hours of work, brought hunger to the table which required nothing more elaborate as a fillip to tempt the appetite. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Mr. Pulham this morning, and that gave a fillip to my laziness, which has been intolerable; but I am so taken up with pruning and gardening,—quite a new sort of occupation to me. I have gathered my jargonels; but my Windsor pears are backward. The former were of exquisite raciness. I do ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... cordiality, introducing me to such of his guests as I had not met before, and relating over the dinner-table, with much gusto, the story of my abduction and escape. Then I produced Morillo's letter of defiance, which I took with me to show him, and which added a fillip to the conversation that lasted us until the cloth was drawn. We sat rather late over our wine, and when we rose to go the admiral invited me into his library for a ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... went on, fiendishly, indicating the toothless, loathsome squaw, whose vindictive eyes never wavered from Burroughs' craven face. "Him both our father!" The common parent was given a fillip of ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... of the footman who received Anthony's coat and hat gave a disconcerting fillip to the latter's uneasiness. As a respectful butler preceded the party upstairs, he felt as if he were being ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... was already in love with Harmony would be absurd. She attracted him, as any beautiful and helpless girl attracts an unattracted man. He was much more concerned, now that he feared he had offended her, than he would have been without this fillip to his interest. But even his concern did not prevent his taking copious and intelligent notes at his lecture that night, or interfere with his enjoyment of the Stein of beer with which, after it was over, he washed down its ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... country. "Now then," (said I to a gentleman who was standing near me,) "we are out of our country." "Not yet, not yet!" he replied, and pointed to the sea; "This, too, is a Briton's country." This bon mot gave a fillip to my spirits, I rose and looked round on my fellow-passengers, who were all on the deck. We were eighteen in number, videlicet, five Englishmen, an English lady, a French gentleman and his servant, an Hanoverian ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... corn-growing compelled farmers to cast about for some other means of subsistence, and to rely more than they had hitherto done upon the possibilities of stock-breeding. It was in particular the misfortunes of the later 'seventies that gave the needed fillip to that branch of stock-farming concerned with the production of milk, butter and cheese, and from this period may be said to date the revival of the dairying industry, which received a powerful impetus through the introduction ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... impossible for her to feel anything but bitterness and hopeless disappointment. For weeks she had been working hard, without the fillip of congenial atmosphere, doggedly sticking to it in spite of depression and discouragement, and now that the results of her labour were ready to be given to the world, she was strung up to a high pitch and ill-prepared to receive ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... a great fillip was given to the extension of railways in Ireland by the passing of the Light Railways (Ireland) Act. It was familiarly known as "Balfour's Act." Mr. Balfour was then Chief Secretary of Ireland, and it was due to him that it was passed. ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... stubbornly-shaped black frock-coat and a pair of black trousers of uncompromising Derry cut. However it be, Mr. Lewis would stand no reflections upon his white waistcoat, and gave the new World an appreciable fillip on its career by haling it into court on a charge of libel, which Lord Coleridge dismissed without thinking it necessary ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... a fillip to your already blunted purpose," said the lawyer with a curious smile. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... a noble object accomplished, gives a fillip to the spirits, an exhilaration to the feelings, like that imparted by Champagne, only more permanent. It is, indeed, admirably well said by one wise to discern the truth of things, and able to give to his thought a vigorous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... out in high feather,—occasionally pinching Sally's cheek, and asking if she were going as captain or mate upon the vessel after it was launched, for which he got in return a fillip of his sleeve or a sly twitch of his coat-tails, for Sally and her old father were on romping terms with each other from early childhood, a thing which drew frequent lectures from the always exhorting ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... earth high upon the mountain-side. Cannot you almost behold the scene? May we not, with the brush of fancy, paint for our mental vision many a strange, weird picture? Here we see, high on the mountain-front, a mass of crystal salt—many millions of tons—thrown, by a mere fillip of terrestrial power, thirty thousand feet above the ocean level, to rest and sparkle like a gem on the bosom of that old mountain-god, Olympus. Then, still higher, on the very summit—for even here, in the glare of this great ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... percussion, concussion, collision, occursion|, clash, encounter, cannon, carambole[obs3], appulse[obs3], shock, crash, bump; impact; elan; charge &c. (attack) 716; beating &c. (punishment) 972. blow, dint, stroke, knock, tap, rap, slap, smack, pat, dab; fillip; slam, bang; hit, whack, thwack; cuff &c. 972; squash, dowse, swap, whap[obs3], punch, thump, pelt, kick, punce|, calcitration[obs3]; ruade[obs3]; arietation|; cut, thrust, lunge, yerk|; carom, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a fillip from an accidental meeting with Kilmeny, the first since the night of her engagement. Joyce and Moya were coming out of a stationer's when they came face ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... While I was giving a lesson to little Ravanne, I saw, out of a corner of my eye, that you were a skillful swordsman, and I love brave men. Then, in return for a little service, only worth a fillip, you made me a present of a horse which was worth a hundred louis, and I love generous men. Thus you are twice my man, why should I not ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... though she could neither read nor write, she had caught the manners and speech of white people, by living almost exclusively with them, and she was, by habit, as familiar with French as English, beside having a little smattering of Spanish. To have his ingenuity praised by her operated as a fillip upon his vanity, and he inwardly resolved to run the risk of a flogging, rather than fail to do her bidding. He was also most loyal in the service of Rosa, whose beauty and kindliness had won his heart, before his sympathy had been called out by her misfortunes. But none ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... claret; which I dilute with a good deal of water, serves me for drink; I drink a little of it pure towards the end of the repast. Sometimes, when I feel fatigued, I substitute champagne for claret, it is a certain means of giving a fillip to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... of the new tax on imported films the Cinema industry in England has received a new fillip, and a wave of enterprise is passing over the studios. In place of the familiar—almost too familiar— American dramas we are to have English. No more of those square-jawed stern American business ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... hurry the bottle round for five or six rounds without prosing yourself or permitting others to prose. A slight fillip of wine inclines people to be pleased, and removes the nervousness which prevents men from speaking—disposes them, in short, to be amusing and to ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... with a fillip, and gave himself tip to the lecture. But the tall stranger, half rising ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... this morning was filled with an unrehearsed mob, anxious, thrilled, hysterical. The morning papers had carried wireless news that the ship had been chased by a French gunboat and had escaped only through the timely warning of the Dresden, a German gunboat. That had added the last fillip to an already tense situation. Tears were streaming down half the faces upturned toward the crowded decks. And ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... must close. Roustan misunderstood me, though his hint Serves as a fillip to a flaccid brain.... —How gild the sunset sky of majesty Better than by the act esteemed of yore? Plutarchian heroes outstayed not their fame, And what nor Brutus nor Themistocles Nor Cato nor Mark Antony survived, Why, why ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... than the throng of fancies that comes in a solitary breakfast. Then one reaches hands of greeting to all the lone artists taking their morning acquavite in Rome; to the young students of Germany at their early coffee and eggs; even remembering the lively grisette of Paris, as, with a parting fillip to her canary, she flits forth from her upper room; and finally drinks to the memory of our own Irving at his bachelor breakfast among the fountains and flowers in the Court of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... serious reverses, because difficult game had not heretofore interested him. Entering half interestedly with Nan into what he vaguely intended as one of his numerous, harmless, artistic, perfumed flirtationlets, he had found himself unexpectedly held at arm's length. Just this was needed to fillip his fancy. He went into the game as a game. Sansome made himself useful. By dint of being on hand whenever Keith's carelessness had left her in need of an escort, and only then, he managed to establish himself on a recognized ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... told him of their tears, And pray'd him, "If they pay this tax, they starve". Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed, "You would not let your little finger ache For such as these?"—"But I would die," said she. He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul; Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear; "O ay, ay, ay, you talk!"—"Alas!" she said, "But prove me what it is I would not do." And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand, He answer'd, "Ride you naked thro' the town, And I repeal it"; and nodding as in scorn, He parted, ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... march with the convalescents, sixty in number, among whom were five officers. "He has brightened up a deal the last four days, and his wound looks distinctly more healthy. I have a strong hope that all those splinters have worked out now, and your being here has given him a fillip, so that he is altogether better and more cheerful. I hope by the spring he will be able to rejoin us. I can tell you I am mighty glad to be off again myself. It has been pretty hard work here, for I have had, for ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... perhaps, may have an easy conscience and a good digestion. Conscience! Hear me speak. You would think I was some good, old, decent Christian, would you not? But no, not I; I never canted. Voltaire might have canted if he'd stood in my shoes; but the brains"—with a rattling fillip on his bald head—"the brains were clear and active, and I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Montfaucon, the great grisly Paris gibbet, stood hard by the St. Denis Road, and the pleasantry touched him on the raw. As for Tabary, he laughed immoderately over the medlars; he had never heard anything more light-hearted; and he held his sides and crowed. Villon fetched him a fillip on the nose, which turned his mirth ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... slighted by Bella's declaration that she would not quarrel, or whether her spitefulness was evoked by Bella's return to the sphere of Mr George Sampson's courtship, or whether it was a necessary fillip to her spirits that she should come into collision with somebody on the present occasion,—anyhow she made a dash at her stately parent ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... get a little fillip of excitement. One evening, as I was leaning over the railings, more than forty yards from the nearest sentry, a short man with a red moustache walked quickly down the street, followed by two colley dogs. As he passed, but without altering his pace in the ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... the like, appertain to the department of the mistress. Without a knowledge of the etiquette to be observed on these occasions, a mistress would be unable to enjoy and appreciate those friendly pleasant meetings which give, as it were, a fillip to life, and make the quiet happy home of an English gentlewoman appear the more delightful and enjoyable. In their proper places, all that is necessary to be known respecting the dishes and appearance of the breakfast, dinner, tea, and ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... snitchell his gigg; fillip his nose: grunter's gigg; a hog's snout. Gigg is also ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... her cupboard to take out her own teapot, and her eye fell upon a small medicine bottle marked "Brandy." Milly was a convinced teetotaller; all the more reason, thought Tims, why a dose of alcohol should give her nerves and circulation a fillip, only she must not know of it, or she would certainly refuse ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... rock, tiptoed around the corner, sent a mechanical glance upward toward the swaying branches of an overhanging tree, pulled out his six feet of silk line with a sweep of his arm, and with a delicate fillip, sent the fly skittering over the ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... despised a man who could so dismiss the great social problem and its prophets with a fillip of his thumb. She turned to go in to the assemblage of prophets. They were all that was left her in life. But she did not go in. She went to her bare chamber, and took Hero up on her lap and cried over him. "You ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... bare its heart. He has been inhaling its delicious soul this half hour: let us see what he does with it." And as they looked they saw Reyburn lift the half-forgotten flower, whose pale bloom had begun to tarnish ever so little, glance at it lightly and give it a careless fillip to the marble floor of the hall where he was walking up and down, and where, as he came back, he set his heel upon it without knowing that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... grazing, Charlie led him along a cattle track, through the bush up the slope, to the prairie level above. Here there were three big pastures running into a hundred acres or more, all well fenced, and the wire in perfect order. Bill's improving spirits received a further fillip. The grazing, Charlie told him, lay behind these limits upon the open plains, over which the newcomer had spent so much ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... the uneasy sense that I am bound, so to speak, to pay for my entertainment by being brisk, lively, or sympathetic. The immediate consequence is, that I get as near to all three qualities as I ever get. We simply live our own lives quietly, in company. My presence gives a little fillip to the proceedings; and I myself get all the benefit of change of scene, together with simple ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... In all his philosophy he would have been quite willing to dispense with God. But he had to make Him give a fillip to set the world in motion; beyond this, he has no further need ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... A certain fillip was given to Cambo by the retreat here of Edward Rostand, the author of "Cyrano" and "L'Aiglon." In his wake followed litterateurs and journalists, and the fame of the hitherto unworldly little spot—sheltered from all the winds that blow—was bruited abroad, and the Touring Club de France erected ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... display of traits, with which he supposed that they could not have credited him even in imagination. Thus besides relieving him of a host of compliments which he did not enjoy, and enabling him the better to evade an ill-bred curiosity, the disguise no doubt was the same sort of fillip to the fancy which a mask and domino or a fancy dress are to that of their wearers. Even in a disguise a man cannot cease to be himself; but he can get rid of his improperly "imputed" righteousness—often the greatest burden he has to bear—and of all ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... Short was heard of—said to me, one day, as he sat feeling my pulse on the actual sofa which my poor dear sister Jane worked before her spine came on, and laid her on a board for fifteen months at a stretch—the most upright woman that ever lived—said to me, "What we want, ma'am, is a fillip." ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... course. They thirsted for mock horrors, and two glaring moons rising swiftly over a hill gave the psychological fillip to their imaginations. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... excess of venery capable of being enjoyed by three women and one youth. In fact, we all indulged rather too freely, if I may judge from the fact that, at least to Miss Frankland and myself, the rod had almost become a necessity, and occasionally even my sisters admitted it gave them a fillip. Under the able tutorship of Miss Frank-land we became the most perfect adepts in every voluptuous indulgence of lubricity. But I must also give her the credit of never neglecting our education. Indeed, ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... the blade between the first and second fingers of the right hand, and fillip it with a jerk so that the knife turns once around in the air and strikes the point into ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... viz. the killing of a man in defence of property; so also in defence of one's person, which is a species of excusable homicide; because, although cases may happen where these also are commendable, yet most frequently they are done on too slight appearance of danger; as in return for a blow, kick, fillip, &c; or on a person's getting into a house, not anirno furandi, but perhaps veneris causa, &c. Bracton says, 'Si quis furem noctupnum occiderit, ita demum impune foret, si parcere ei sine periculo suo non potuit; ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the corner-stone of my philosophy: I would not give a denier for the man Who, on such provocation as this earth Yields, could not chuck his babe beneath the chin, And send it with a fillip to its grave. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... irritation caused by the well-meant suggestion throws him back for the next six hours. Presently he tries Macaulay, whom some flatterer has fulsomely called 'as good as a novel,' but, though the trial of Warren Hastings gives him a fillip, the rout of Sedgemoor does away with the effect of it, and, happening upon the character of Halifax, he suffers a severe relapse. As a bedfellow, Macaulay is too declamatory, though, at the same time, strange ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... year was drawing to its close, and it was generally agreed at Dr. Parker's that it had been the jolliest ever known. The boating episode and that of the tea at Oak Farm had been events which had given a fillip to existence. The school had been successful in the greater part of its cricket matches, and generally every one was well satisfied with himself. On the Saturday preceding the breaking up Frank, with Ruthven, Charlie Goodall and two of the other naturalists, started along the seashore to look ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... morning on our little trip, Polly," said the old gentleman, catching her infectious spirit, and giving the old horse a fillip with the whip. "Meantime, not a word, my dear, ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... A fillip was given to the conversation when Adam told of his seeing Lady Arabella, on her way to Castra Regis. They each had something to say of her, and of what her wishes or intentions were towards Edgar Caswall. Mimi spoke bitterly of her in every aspect. She had not forgotten—and never ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... Mr. Boffin in all his parliamentary experience had known nothing like it. Mr. Boffin had been sure that British honour was going to the dogs and that British greatness was at an end. But the secession of Sir Orlando gave a little fillip to his life. At any rate he could walk home with his old friend and talk of the horrors of ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... my love of women was now a little erratic; normal connection began to lose fascination. As long ago I had formulated untutored the rationale of coitus, so now imagination, groping in the dark, conceived a fresh fillip for the appetite—cunnilinctus. But this, though for a while quite adequate, soon ceased to gratify. At this juncture, Christmas of my first college year, I was appointed editor of a small magazine, an early stricture ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... poorer students there was little romance in it. Now and then a demonstration against an unpopular professor, a "bolt," i.e. abstention en masse from a recitation; or a rarer invasion of the town and hostile demonstration gave us a fillip, but the doctor had so well policed the college and so completely brought under his moral influence the town, that no serious row ever took place in my time. Later he told me how he managed one of the worst early conflicts, in which the students ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... beside her to the door of the miserable log shack under the second cliff, still strangely shaken, but striving manfully to be himself again. The needed fillip came when the mountaineer staggered to the threshold to swear thickly at his daughter. In times past, Tom would quickly have put distance between himself and Tike Bryerson in the squirrel-eyed stage of intoxication. But now his promise ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... not a fool," Saton answered calmly, "but there is another side to the whole matter. A meeting such as to-night's gives an immense fillip on the part of society to what they are pleased to call the supernatural. It is only the fear of ridicule which keeps half the people in the world from flooding our branches, every one of them eager to have their fortunes told. ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the monkey obeyed, and the tortoise trotted off to the sea, swam to the spot over the Queen's palace, and in a fillip of the finger was down in the gardens ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... me good. For in my belly I am very costive, and cannot well cagar without gnashing my teeth and making many filthy faces. Then Pantagruel, thus destitute of a staff, took up the end of his mast, striking athwart and alongst upon the giant, but he did him no more hurt than you would do with a fillip upon a smith's anvil. In the (mean) time Loupgarou was drawing his mace out of the ground, and, having already plucked it out, was ready therewith to have struck Pantagruel, who, being very quick in turning, avoided all his blows in taking only the defensive part in hand, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... muscular strength of Tiberius Claudius Nero was, in the prime of his manhood, almost as supernatural as his crimes; that he could with his outstretched finger bore a hole through a sound apple (integrum malum digito terebraret), and wound the head of a child or even a youth with a fillip, (caput pueri, vel etiam adolescentis, talitro vulneraret.) His excesses must, however, have enervated his frame long before his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... the curtain went up,—though not on the play, let me tell you! On slighter joys, a fillip to the taste. A juggler, "all complete" in black small-clothes and white kid gloves, stood there ready to burn up our handkerchiefs, change our watches into rabbits, and make omelets in our best go-to-meeting hats. I cannot remember all the wonderful things he did (everything, I believe, judging ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... his friends and continued his ride toward the rear. The column passed slowly on in silence. Now and then gusts of rain lashed across his face, but he liked the feeling. It was a fillip to his blood, and his nerves began to recover from the tremendous strain and excitement of ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Johnson (the latter had replaced Kirkby) was secured to come if possible and give the final fillip that set the engine going. It's a well-known thing that you may turn at a car for ten minutes and not get her going, and a fresh hand will come and do so ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... fancying it has occasion for some instruction, some detail, some figures, or some explanation, it presents itself, hat in hand, at the door of the departments to consult the ministers, the usher receives it in the antechamber, and with a roar of laughter, gives it a fillip on the nose. Such are the ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... made public that four more fish like the present one would fill us bung-up, and that we should then, after a brief visit to the Bluff, start direct for home. This announcement, though expected for some time past, gave an amazing fillip to everybody's interest in the work. The strange spectacle was witnessed of all hands being anxious to quit a snug harbour for the sea, where stern, hard wrestling with the elements was the rule. The captain, well pleased with the eagerness manifested, had his boat ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... good. It gives a fillip to their jaded senses. 'Twas here that I made my start, Labret—here that I delivered my first speech as though for a joke; here it was that I first began to hate the dogs who sat amongst us with all their fine clothes and perfumes and rottenness ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... in North Virginia—later, New England. Weymouth had powerful backers, and with him sailed old adventurers who had been with Raleigh. Coming home to England with five Indians in his company, Weymouth and his voyage gave to public interest the needed fillip towards action. Here was the peace with Spain, and here was the new interest in Virginia. "Go to!" said Mother England. "It is time to place our children in ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... the prize? I leave it to impartial eyes.' Provoked, the juggler cried, ''tis done. In science I submit to none.' Thus said, the cups and balls he played; By turns, this here, that there, conveyed. The cards, obedient to his words, Are by a fillip turned to birds. His little boxes change the grain: Trick after trick deludes the train. 20 He shakes his bag, he shows all fair; His fingers spreads, and nothing there; Then bids it rain with showers of gold, And now his ivory eggs are told. But when from thence the hen he draws, Amazed spectators ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... something like dismay. It was not only Bob Evers who was misconstruing my little attentions to Mrs. Lascelles. I was more or less prepared for that. But here were outsiders talking about us—the three of us! So far from putting a stop to the talk, I had given it a regular fillip: here were Quinby and his friends as keen as possible to see what would happen next, if not betting on a row. The situation had taken a sudden turn for the worse. I forgot the pleasant hours that I had ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... themselves at the tables of the great, were mostly dung stupid with not knowing what to think. A council meeting or two was held in the gloamings, to take such a serious business into consideration; some expressing their fears and inward down-sinking, while others cheered them up with a fillip of pleasant consolation. Scarcely a word of the matter, for which they were summoned together by the town-officer—and which was about the mending of the old bell-rope—was discussed by any of them. So after a sowd of toddy was swallowed, with the hopes ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... Nature proffers us this her virgin fruit; more rich and sumptuous are to follow, but the wild delicacy and fillip of the strawberry are never repeated,—that keen feathered edge greets the tongue ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... fatherly nod he hurried off down a side street, and Milly went home with a new fillip ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... real sweet, you know, primping herself that way. Her face was a little flat, but it was young, and the scar gave it just the fillip it needed. ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... this dignified group was Uncle Gottfried, by complacent nod and smile acknowledging his good wife and niece, who indeed had received many a previous glance and bow from friends passing beneath. But Master Sorel was no new spectacle in a civic procession, and the sight of him was only a pleasant fillip to the excitement of ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... admirers and flatterers, that they would look at a shilling, for which many an honest labourer was happy to toil for ten hours under a broiling sun, with the utmost contempt; would blow upon it derisively, or fillip it into the air before they pocketed it; but when nothing was given them, as would occasionally happen—for how could they receive from those who had nothing? and nobody was bound to give them anything, as they had certain wages from their employers—then what a scene would ensue! Truly the ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... a way this had added to her interest in him. It had seized hold of her imagination, kept him vividly before her mind as nothing else could have done, and now Olga Lermontof's strange hints and innuendos gave a fresh fillip to her desire to know in what way Max Errington differed from ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... she entered, was lovely enough. The young men and young women she saw there were interesting, and she was not wanting for admirers. The most aggressive of these youths—the most forceful—recognized in this maiden a fillip to life, a sting to existence. She was as a honey-jar surrounded ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... come to the house, but resolved to prolong his visit in the hope that Corona might return. Sant' Ilario was unaccountably silent, but his father kept up a lively conversation, needing only an occasional remark from Gouache to give a fillip to ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... though the axis of which the whole treaty turns. We believe, for we have never seen them, that the last letters thence brought accounts of great loss, especially by the sickness. Colonel Burgoyne(243) has given a little fillip to the Spaniards, and shown them, that though they can take Portugal from the Portuguese, it will not be entirely so easy to wrest it from the English. Lord Pulteney,(244) and my nephew,(245) Lady Waldegrave's ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... 'gainst me, my mode of life or rule, But nothing 'gainst the truth of that brief record. Why, those few lines contain the history Of all things human: hear—"Sardanapalus, The king, and son of Anacyndaraxes, 250 In one day built Anchialus and Tarsus. Eat, drink, and love; the rest's not worth a fillip."[10] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... breeding-stables to enter the kingdom of heaven. Too often the grave, the majestic significance of the meeting of the sexes—holding as it does the fate of the golden pageantry of life, sacrificially spending as it does the present for the future—is nothing to them. They see it only as a fillip to appetite. So Sally Haggard usually spent most of the money earned by Reddin's ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... been honored with any such intimate association with the German Emperor as would enable me to say whether he has a highly developed sense of humor or not. I can only say for myself, that if I had lived through his Majesty's last twenty-five years, I should need no other fillip to digestion than my chuckles over the prophecies ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... way he was beginning his life all over again,—that life which his reason, with cold, inexorable logic, had classified as a hopeless ruin. He could not see wherein the ruin was lessened by embarking upon this lone adventure into the outlying places. Nevertheless, something about it had given a fillip to his spirits. He felt that he would better not inquire too closely into this; that too keen self-analysis was the evil from which he had suffered and which he should avoid. But he said to himself that if he could get pleasure out of so simple a thing as a canoe trip in ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... way to the front of the circle. During his absence with his betrothed, the crowd in the Chamber had grown thin, the candles had burned an inch shorter in the sconces. But though many who had been there had left, the more select remained, and the King's return to his seat had given the company a fillip. An air of feverish gaiety, common in the unhealthy life of the Court, prevailed. At a table abreast of the King, Montpensier and Marshal Cosse were dicing and disputing, with now a yell of glee, and now an oath, ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... victrola in the corner, too, and this they kept going to stimulate their nerves, which already were sufficiently on edge without the added fillip of ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... freedoms taken by the Caesar beyond the bounds of an innocent gallantry," said Agelastes; "but the Countess, I must needs say, is dangerous. She killed this day the Scythian Toxartis, by what seemed a mere fillip on the head." ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... usual; but his mind was not running on such vanities now. His unspoken thought must have gone on "and uncle of my girls." I suspect that he had been roughly handled by Captain Anthony up there, and the resentment gave a tremendous fillip to the slow play of his wits. Those men of sober fancy, when anything rouses their imaginative faculty, are very thorough. "Just think!" he cried. "The three of them crowded into a four-wheeler, and Anthony sitting deferentially opposite that astonished ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... fillip, resumed his petulance, and proceeded in this manner:—"Hark ye, friend, I might, as Mrs. Gobble very justly observes, trounce you for your audacious behaviour; but I scorn to take such advantages. Howsomever, I shall make ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... Some fillip was needed to bring it to an easy flow, and the simultaneous scrape of their feet turning round showed the direction of ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... CARLYLE,—I have heard, this morning, from my Father, that you are to set out on Tuesday for Scotland: so I have determined to fillip away some spurt of ink in your direction, which may reach you before you move ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... of the invading armies; the latter, as a patriotic and successful demonstration of the hatred of the Belgians for their temporary masters and of their determination to hinder them by every means in their power. It gave the spirit of the people a fillip, and, despite the redoubled severity of the Germans, the Liegeois went about their businesses with a prouder air, as if conscious that, though temporarily overcome, they were very far ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... tears; and then in soft caresses and inarticulate sounds of love. Once or twice she began, 'It is such a pleasure,' and there she stopped short. But the eloquence of these five words sank deep into Cynthia's heart. She had returned just at the right time, when Molly wanted the gentle fillip of the society of a fresh and yet a familiar person. Cynthia's tact made her talkative or silent, gay or grave, as the varying humour of Molly required. She listened, too, with the semblance, if not the reality, of unwearied interest, to Molly's continual recurrence to all ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... cry; young knights-errant, singly or in groups, pressed their way up and down, shouting the battle-cry, and quenching all lights within reach, while striving to maintain the flame of their own; using now the whisk of a handkerchief, now a puff of breath, now the fillip of a finger; contriving to extinguish a fair lady's taper with the same effusion of vain words wherewith they told her of their passion. Most of the ladies thus assailed sat in the lower balconies, elevated ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... helps by advertising to the consumer in magazines and newspapers, always featuring the name of his brands; and he supplies the grocer with educational pamphlets and booklets on the growing, preparation, and merits of coffee in general, with an added fillip about the desirability of his particular brand. Through his salesmen the packer shows the grocer how to display the coffee on the counter and in the window, and often supplies him with placards and cut-outs ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... recollect, they were actually fired to give the car a fillip when it reached the dead-point on its way back to ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... hand."—Old Maxim. "The substance of the Criticisms on the Diversions of Purley was, with singular industry, gossipped by the present precious secretary of war, in Payne the bookseller's shop."—See Key. "Worship makes worshipped, worshipper, worshipping; gossip, gossipped, gossipper, gossipping; fillip, fillipped, fillipper, fillipping."—Nixon's Parser, p. 72. "I became as fidgetty as a fly in a milk-jug."—Blackwood's Mag., Vol. xl, p. 674. "That enormous error seems to be rivetted in popular opinion."—Webster's Essays, p. 364. "Whose mind iz ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the thumb, was to show they had performed their duty. Barnaby Rich describes this custom: after having drank, the president "turned the bottom of the cup upward, and in ostentation of his dexterity, gave it a fillip, to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... into the little back smoking-room, borrowed an atlas from the library, poked up the fire, and sat down to think. Mr Blenkiron had given me the fillip I needed. My mind was beginning to work now, and was running wide over the whole business. Not that I hoped to find anything by my cogitations. It wasn't thinking in an arm-chair that would solve the mystery. But I was getting a sort of grip on a ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... that was the final cruelty. To love and be loved—this, he had come to know, was all that mattered. Yesterday, to love and die had seemed felicity enough. Now he knew that the secret, the open secret, of happiness was in mutual love—a state that needed not the fillip of death. And he had to die without having ever lived. Admiration, homage, fear, he had sown broadcast. The one woman who had loved him had turned to stone because he loved her. Death would lose much of its sting for him if there were somewhere in the world just one woman, however lowly, whose ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... of their calculations; something for them, mentally, to chew on. Mystification is a good thing sometimes. It gives the brain a fillip, stirs memory, puts the gears of imagination in mesh. One man, an old, tobacco-chewing fellow, began to stare harder at the face on the floor. Something moved in ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... conversation the general gave an anecdote of himself in early life, when serving under Prince Eugene. Sitting at table once in company with a prince of Wurtemberg, the latter gave a fillip to a glass of wine, so as to make some of it fly in Oglethorpe's face. The manner in which it was done was somewhat equivocal. How was it to be taken by the stripling officer? If seriously, he must challenge the prince; but in so doing he might fix on himself the character ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Sitting gave only possible fillip to interminable Debate on Land Purchase Bill. BRER FOX still away, so comparative peace reigns in Irish Camp. TIM HEALY no one to butt his head against; COLONEL NOLAN too busy deploying his army of five men; showing them how to retreat in good order ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various
... the course of Max's punishing onslaught, in which he was leaping in and out with unceasing agility, he—stumbled! This was just what Pelle was waiting for, and then, like the fillip of a spring-board, the heavy boot ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... believed that her daughter was not the type to arouse more than a passing interest in such a man as Channing. Her beauty, her flattered response to his attentions, her fresh, unsophisticated charm of gaiety, might well appeal to him for a time, adding the fillip of the unaccustomed to a jaded palate. But it was an appeal that must be constantly renewed, that would not outlast any continued absence. She believed that Channing, while he would accept with eagerness whatever ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... your loneliness, and that he, as a kind of relation, may go and see you on Sunday, as long as he doesn't make love to you, and he can take you to the Zoo—don't see him in your sitting-room. That will give him just the extra fillip, and he will go, and you will be demure, and then by those stimulating lions' and tigers' cages you can plight your troth. It will be quite respectable. Wire to me at once on Monday to Sedgwick, and you must come back to Park Street directly I return on Thursday, if ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... opening of the case (for actors engaged at a hundred a day for the run of the piece do not crack whips behind experts engaged at ten or twenty a day; the pace had therefore been dignified), and England wanted a fillip. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... the act, exclaiming, "Who are you?" The mob which gathered round applauded to the very echo, and thought it the most capital joke they had ever heard, the very acme of wit, the very essence of humour. Another circumstance of a similar kind gave an additional fillip to the phrase, and infused new life and vigour into it just as it was dying away. The scene occurred in the chief criminal court of the kingdom. A prisoner stood at the bar; the offence with which he had been charged was clearly proved against him; his counsel ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... secret order, ruthlessly suppressed by Sanders, and practised by trembling men, each afraid of the other despite their oaths; and the fillip it received when the news went forth—"Sandi ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace |
