"Foil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Kirkbank in her cotton frock was a spectacle at which youth laughed and age blushed. But after all it did not matter to Lesbia. She would have liked a less rowdy chaperon; but as a foil to her own fresh young beauty Lady Kirkbank ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... dress that a gentleman ever appears in; and during a pause she happened to notice Colonel Colquhoun, who had stepped back to judge the effect of some drapery he was putting up. Mr. Price was a little behind him, and two of the younger men, the three making an excellent foil to Colonel Colquhoun. Evadne was struck by the contrast. The outside aspect of the man still pleased her. There was no doubt that he was a fine specimen of his species, a splendid animal to look at; what a pity he should have had a regrettable past, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... some way to even increase the shade; but Janet fitted that which was frank, open, and aboveboard. And so she used the black for contrast rather than obscurity—besides which there was another sort of contrast, for a soldier hat on Janet was a striking foil for her utter femininity. And its romantic pretense (so different from the dark gypsy-like romantic) was such an arrant little piece of make-believe that it had the effect of playful candor, acknowledging how impossible a man she would make; and while it was, strikingly, ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... appears to be derived from the same root as Paup-puk-ke-nay, a grasshopper, the inflection iss making it personal. The Indian idea is that of harum scarum. He is regarded as a foil to Manabozho, with whom he is frequently brought in contact in ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... much Applause. I don't want to be put in mind how very Defective I am in every thing that is Ugly: I am too sensible of my own Unworthiness in this Particular, and therefore I only propose my self as a Foil to the Club. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... creature; looking at her lover with complacent looks of possession and smiles of welcome. Dolly never knew what sort of a figure the third was; she could not see herself, and she never thought about it. Yet she was a foil to the other two, and they were a foil to her, as she sat there at the corner of the hearth on a low cushion, in her black dress, and with no ornament about her other than the cameo ring. A creature very different from the beauty at the other ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... To foil these attempts at concealment is the business of the observers who gather information for Army Headquarters and G. H.Q. For observers on corps work the detective problems are somewhat different. This department deals with hidden saps and battery positions, and draws and photographs conclusions ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... to the knife between her and me. If she succeed, it must be with you. I will do anything to foil her except lie." ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... Strings of pop-corn festooned the branches, and flakes of cotton-wool snow were cunningly disposed here and there. Bright apples peeped from amid the green, and from every tip hung a splendid star of tinsel or tin foil. No "boughten stuff" these; all through the year Miss Fidely patiently begged from her neighbors: from the women the tinsel on their button-cards, from the men the "silver" that wrapped their tobacco. Carefully pressed under the big Bible, they waited till Christmas, to ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... her foil turned aside. She began to lose patience. Her boot patted the sod. "Monsieur, since the countess is not high enough, since gold and honors have ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... towering soul of MONTAGU, Her sex's glory, and her country's too; Who gave the spotted plague one deadly blow, And bade its mitigated poison flow With half its terrors; yet, with loathing still, We hous'd a visitant with pow'r to kill. Then when the healthful blood, though often tried, Foil'd the keen lancet by the Severn side, Resisting, uncontaminated still, The purple pest and unremitting skill; When the plain truth tradition seem'd to know, By simply pointing to the harmless Cow, Though wise distrust to reason might appeal; What, when hope triumph'd, what ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... by high mountains, and again crowned by the snowy peaks of those more distant, lay before us, its whole surface dotted with a multitude of white forts surrounded by a belt of the most vivid green, the barrenness of the uncultivated spots acting as a foil to the rich vegetation which springs under the foot of the Affgh[a]n husbandman wherever he can introduce the fertilizing stream. We rode leisurely on through this wilderness of gardens, till on approaching the ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... still, and I should be Fit for this cell, which wrongs me—but for thee. The very love which locked me to my chain Hath lightened half its weight; and for the rest, Though heavy, lent me vigour to sustain, And look to thee with undivided breast, And foil the ingenuity ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... Our foes should fling us down their mortal gage, And with a hostile step profane our sod! We shall not shrink, my brothers, but go forth To meet them, marshalled by the Lord of Hosts, And overshadowed by the mighty ghosts Of Moultrie and of Eutaw—who shall foil Auxiliars such as these? Nor these alone, But every stock and stone Shall help us; but the very soil, And all the generous wealth it gives to toil, And all for which we love our noble land, Shall ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... the advanced organization of a civilized state in the mode of impression, by which they were carefully protected from the process of counterfeiting usual in that age—the plating of inferior metal with thin silver-foil. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Sir Francis Drake came near involving him in serious trouble, but ultimately ended by procuring him the commission he had so long desired. Tired of a life of inactivity, anxious to foil the Spanish in the New World, and sick to death of the busy idleness of the court, Sidney at length determined to go with Drake to a new world and a new career. Accordingly, he made ready, and actually went ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... dead boy. You see I was over to the dairy fair at the exposition building Saturday night, and when they were breaking up, me and my chum helped to carry boxes of cheese and firkins of butter, and a cheese-man gave each of us a piece of limberger cheese, wrapped up in tin foil. Sunday morning I opened my piece, and it made me tired. O, it was the offulest smell I ever heard of, except the smell when they found a tramp who hung himself in the woods on the Whitefish Bay road, and had been dead three weeks. It was just like a old back number ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... Antigone resolves to disregard the ordinance, and pay the funeral rites to her brother Polynices. The conflict between the law of the State and the divine law which Antigone obeys is the moral key-note of the play. Ismene is Antigone's weaker sister and serves as a foil to her. Antigone is betrothed to ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... considered that Scotland was never before, under any of his ancestors, so united and so animated in its own defence; yet had often been able to foil or elude the force of England, combined heartily in one cause, and inured by long practice to the use of arms. How much greater difficulty should he find, at present, to subdue by violence a people inflamed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... foil is sometimes vaguely referred to the verb foil, to baffle, with which it has no connection. The Fr. feuille, leaf, is also invoked, and compared with Fr. fleuret, a foil, the idea being that the name was given to the "button" at the point. Now the earliest foils and fleurets were not buttoned; first, because they were pointless, and secondly, because the point was not used in early fencing. It was not until gunpowder began to bring about the disuse ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... that they thought it was necessary to have Major-Generals; adding that so they 'might have gone on,' if they had not insisted on his calling the Parliament of 1656, against his will, which had given them 'a foil.'[62] ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... Against such foil the mistress stood— A pearl upon a cross of gold— White with consistent womanhood, And fixed with unrelaxing hold Upon ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... no-lies, I had good Aqua vitae, Rosa so-lies: With sweet Ambrosia, (the gods' own drink) Most excellent gear for mortals, as I think, Besides, I had both vinegar and oil, That could a daring saucy stomach foil. This foresaid Tuesday night 'twixt eight and nine, Well rigged and ballasted, both with beer and wine, I stumbling forward, thus my jaunt begun, And went that night as far as Islington. There did I find (I dare ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... a foil Used by Tecumseh to augment his greatness; And, by good husbandry of incantation, And gloomy charms by night, this Prophet works So shrewdly on their braves that every man, Inflamed by auguries of ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... from him!" he cried out in an agony too great for words. To realize that she was in the mercy of such a man was a sorrow so great that all else on earth paled before it. Then a mighty resolve came to him—to foil the villainous plot, weak though he was; he must make his escape and fly ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... There are sentences, and perhaps passages, in this volume, that some people will not like; but they are about things that I do not like. A propagandist should use his pen as a weapon rather than a fencing foil. At any rate, my style is my own; it is copied from no model, or set of models; although I confess to a predilection for the old forthright literature of England, before "fine writing" was invented, or "parliamentary" eloquence came into vogue, or writers were anxious ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... feathers make fine birds. I saw many who were vastly richer dressed than your friends, but I will venture to say that I saw none neater or more elegant: which praise I ascribe to the taste of Mrs. Temple and my mantuamaker; for, after having declared that I would not have any foil or tinsel about me, they fixed upon the dress ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of overdrive and lingered for twenty-four seconds. Willis had moved the squad ship from that position, but the sergeant had left a substitute. The small object he'd dropped from the ejector tube now swelled and writhed and struggled. In pure emptiness, a shape of metal foil inflated itself. It was surprisingly large—almost the size of the squad ship. But in emptiness the fraction of a cubic inch of normal-pressure gas would inflate a foil bag against no resistance at all. This flimsy shape even jerked into motion. Released gas ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Bakkus sang his ballads and an occasional humorous song of the moment to Andrew's accompaniment on mandolin or one-stringed violin, and Andrew conjured and juggled comically, using Bakkus as his dull-witted foil. A complete little performance, the patter and business artistically thought out and perfectly rehearsed. They wore the conventional Pierrot costume with whited faces and ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... this mystery to the bottom," thought he. "I shall foil the conspirators, if so they be, with their own weapons; art with art; chicane with chicane; ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Hissing and seething at the opposition she offered, the larger waves burst over her bows, and swept the deck from stem to stern; but her ample scuppers discharged it quickly, and up she rose again, dripping from the flood, to face and fight and foil ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... longing and vexation dimmed her eyes as she thought of the golden, halcyon days of youth that would never return. At any rate, Felipe and Chiquita must not meet until after she had warned the latter. Blanch must be used as a foil as long as possible. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... sender or funnel-shaped tube, with its open mouth-piece standing toward the operator; the diaphragm and stylus connected therewith, which receives the sound spoken into the tube; and thirdly, the revolving cylinder, with its sheet-coating of tin-foil laid over the surface of a spiral groove to receive the indentations of the point of the stylus. The mode of operation is very simple. The cylinder is revolved; and the point of the stylus, when there is no sound agitation in the funnel or mouth-piece, makes a smooth, continuous depression ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... the fire up; and then the snare of its leaping flames and glowing coal bed drew her from her work; she sat looking and thinking, in a fulness of happiness to which all the roar of the storm only served for a foil. She heard the drip, drip of the rain; the fast-running stream from the overcharged eaves trough; then the thunder of the wind sweeping over the house in a great gust; and the whistle of the elm branches as they swung through the air like tremendous lithe switches, beating and ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... stopped in the doorway bowing gracefully, his hat held before him and his hand on his stick as though it were resting on a foil. He had the face and carriage of a gallant of the days of Congreve, and he wore his modern frock-coat with as much distinction as if it were of silk and lace. He was evidently amused. "I couldn't help overhearing the last line," he ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... will gather round, and they'll launch me in the ground, And pile the stones the timber wolf to foil; And the moaning pine will wave overhead a nameless grave, Where the black snake in the sunshine loves to coil. And they'll leave me there alone, and perhaps with softened tone Speak of me sometimes in the camp-fire's glow, As a played-out, broken chum, who has gone to ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... questionable blood-guiltiness. With Miriam, it is a guilt which has for excuse that it was the only resort against an unnatural depravity in Father Antonio. But as if to emphasize the indelibleness of blood-stains, however justly inflicted, we have as a foil to Miriam the white sensitiveness of Hilda's conscience, which makes her—though perfectly free from even the indirect responsibility of Miriam—believe herself actually infected. In both cases, it is the shadow of crime which weighs upon the soul; but Miriam, in exactly the position of ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... night, to open the cheese. It was one of the cream cheeses, so popular in Canada, no bigger than my closed hand. We gingerly unwrapped the tin foil and broke it open. To our great joy, in the hollow heart of it there was tucked away the tiny compass Simmons had written for from Vehnmoor just before our second escape. With it were ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... cigar. "Well, well, we certainly have made a stir with our little meetings here. An inspired English Cabinet Minister, travel-stained and dusty, arrives with his valet and a black dispatch-box, to foil our schemes. Send him along, my friend. We are not at all afraid of Mr. Simpson. Perhaps we may even ask him to join us ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... antecedents, but he had read his character aright. He was instantly on the alert. Crane evidently was on a thief's errand, and was likely to steal not only Miles's money but Tom's. Our hero was alive to the emergency, and resolved to foil him. He had his revolver with him; for in the unsettled state of society, with no one to enforce the laws, and indeed no laws to enforce, it was the custom for all men ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... very suddenly to explain about the Christmas tree. There were lots of little pencils on the table. And blocks of paper. And nice cold, shining sheets of tin-foil. There was violet-colored tin-foil, and red-colored tin-foil—and green and ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... both all arm'd—with gilded Lances and Shields of Black, with golden Suns painted. The Musick plays a fighting Tune. They fight at Barriers, to the Tune.—Harlequin is often foil'd, but advances still; at last Scaramouch throws him, and is Conqueror; all give ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... no King, French Jews unjustly to the Crown to bring; No Edward, Richard, to lose rule and life, Nor no Lancastrians to renew old strife; No Duke of York nor Earl of March to soyle Their hands in kindred's blood whom they did foil. No crafty Tyrant now usurps the Seat, Who Nephews slew that so he might be great; No need of Tudor Roses to unite, None knows which is the Red or which the White; Spain's braving Fleet a second time is sunk, France knows how oft my fury she hath drunk; ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... all other smiths, both in the Rhine country and elsewhere, to equal that piece of workmanship, or else acknowledge themselves his underlings and vassals. For many days had Mimer himself toiled, alone and vainly, trying to forge a sword whose edge the boasted armor of Amilias could not foil; and now, in despair, he came to ask the help of his pupils ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... hope of a future for the idea. Kruesi, when he had nearly finished it, asked what it was for. I told him I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb,' etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. I was never so taken aback in my life. Everybody was astonished. I was always afraid of things that worked the first time. Long ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... brilliant—imitation of the cucuius. By looking at our picture you will see the shape of the insect. Cut this out of a piece of cork about three inches long, and make the legs of thin wire (after the manner of the spider we described in a previous number); then get some strips of thin tin-foil, and gum them on the back of the cucuius; then paint over the whole with transparent green color (oil paints if possible). Now gouge out two holes about the size of the head of a common match, and then cut off the heads of two common matches, ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... really to be considered a forgery, this, instead of being a matter of surprise, ought to be just the thing to be expected; because a clever fabricator, foreseeing that he would be suspected, and eager to foil detection, would know that the curious inquirer into a research of the present description would thus become baffled at every turn from inability, if not to discover it himself, at least, to explain to the satisfaction and conviction of others, the incompatibility of the workings of ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... found the copper gongs used in the dances, and here too grew the wonderful tree which bore the agate beads so prized by the women. This spirit gave the Tinguian rice and sugar-cane, taught them how to plant and reap, how to foil the designs of ill-disposed spirits, the words of the diams and the details of many ceremonies. Further to bind himself to the people, it is said, he married "in the first times" a woman from Manabo. He is summoned in nearly every ceremony, and ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... thing, and rich in blossoms and fruits of all kinds. Let the wonderful plant, which I will not name, have its place. It will serve at least as a foil to the bright-gleaming pomegranate and the yellow oranges. Or should there be, perhaps, instead of this motley abundance, only one perfect flower, which combines all the beauties of the rest ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Mr. Feis, Shakspere detested such a creed and such conduct as Hamlet's, and made him die by poison in order to show his abhorrence of them—this, when we know Hamlet to have died by the poisoned foil in the earlier play. On that view, Cordelia died by hanging in order to show Shakspere's conviction that she was a malefactor; and Desdemona by stifling as a fitting punishment for adultery. The idea is ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... plans for misleading them came to him. But none seemed practicable. Frank was intensely dogged in his determination to accomplish anything he had set out to do. The idea of giving up now, even to mislead his pursuers and so save Captain Greene from capture, was repugnant to him. He wanted to foil the men behind him—unless, as was possible, he only imagined that they were behind him—and still do what he had set out to do, which was in this instance to refill that empty petrol ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... measures, and her phenomenal leanness made her only comfortable in the national dress. She travelled from place to place in Spain with another woman whom she had taught to dance, and whose beauty she used cleverly as a foil to her own uncomeliness; and so wasted herself in these low resorts, earning hardly sufficient to keep body and soul together. I wish I ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... Soc. Chem. Ind., xxiv., April 1905) process is as follows:—The cap composition is removed by squeezing the cap with pliers, while held over a porcelain basin of about 200 c.c. capacity, and removing the loosened foil and broken composition by means of a pointed wooden chip. Composition adhering to the shell or foil is loosened by alcohol, and washed into the dish by means of alcohol in a small wash bottle. The shell and foil are put to one side and subsequently weighed ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... is to make someone happy, and her endeavour carries with it a train of incident, solving a mystery which had thrown a shadow over several lives. A charming foil to her grave elder sister is to be found in Miss Babs, a small coquette of five, whose humorous child-talk ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... the Society as out of date? You do not think, as is sometimes said, that the establishment of the Grosvenor took away the raison d'etre and original intention of the Society—that of being a foil to the ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... place! All the snow was gone from the hills; the stream that gathered its three forks at this point roared over its rocks; the stunted willows were in full leaf; the thick, soft moss of every dark shade of green and yellow and red made a foil for innumerable brilliant flowers. The fat, gray conies chirped at us from the rocks; the ground-squirrels, greatly multiplied since the wholesale destruction of foxes, kept the dogs unavailingly chasing hither and thither whenever they were loose. We never ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... had to "consider his position" in the church. To him as to innumerable other honest, middle-aged and comfortable men, Darwinism came as a dreadful invitation to go out into the wilderness. Over my head and just out of range of my ears he was debating that issue with Siddons as a foil and my cousin as a horrified antagonist. Slowly he was developing his conception of compromise. And meanwhile he wasn't going out into the wilderness at all, but punctually to and fro, along the edge of the lawn by the bed of hollyhocks and through the little green door ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... the symmetry improves them. Whenever the materials of ornament are noble, they must be various; and repetition of parts is either the sign of utterly bad, hopeless, and base work; or of the intended degradation of the parts in which such repetition is allowed, in order to foil ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... says I. "You see, right after dinner Brink was missin' and everybody was wonderin' what had become of him, when all of a sudden he bobs up through a tin-foil lake in the middle of the table and proceeds to do this crab impersonation in costume. They say it ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... tin is for protective platings on household utensils and in wrappings of tin-foil. Tin forms an important part of many alloys such as babbitt, Britannia metal, bronze, gun metal ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... explanation is to be found in the incentive given to his energies by the conditions of his life, and of his father's affairs, at this formative period. To the habitually poor, poverty is a familiar; to the patrician who has had reverses, it may be a foil to his spirit: he still has his pride of family and caste. To the burgher class, in which Shakespeare moved in Stratford, the loss of money was the loss of caste. To provide for the future of his children and to restore the declining fortunes and prestige of his family became ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... legerete. What makes me think the tradition that Celimene was Mademoiselle[1] Moliere true, is that Moliere was certainly in love with Celimene. She is made as engaging as possible, and her worst faults do not rise above foibles. Her satire is good-natured. Arsinoe is her foil, introduced to show ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... look," he declared, "only Marjolaine did smile sometimes. You have rather the air of wondering if you'd left out enough tea for the servants' breakfast. Don't mind my teasing; I love you to look like that, and besides, it makes a splendid foil to my Harlequin—my selfishness coming to the fore again, you see. But you really are to go home the moment you're bored; the excellent Kelnicort gets heaps of dances throughout the winter, so don't ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... mercury on a tin foil, smoothly laid on a flat table, and rub it gently with a hare's foot. It soon unites itself to the tin, which then becomes very splendid, or is what they call quickened. A plate of glass is then cautiously, passed upon the tin leaf, in such a manner as to sweep ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... quantities cannot be distinguished from butyric (c) Evaporate to dryness; mix acid by tests within the with equal quantity of scope of the bacteriological arsenious oxide and heat laboratory. on platinum foil. ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... from Nature's toilet, their wild untutored elegance was singular and bewitching. Indeed, Katherine, or "Kattern," as she was more generally called, was the cynosure of this clime—a jewel, that needed not the foil of its homely setting; the envy and admiration of the whole neighbourhood—well known at church, and at Ormskirk market, where she attended weekly—at the latter place to dispose of her produce. Here she was the torment of many a rustic, unable to conquer, or even to understand, the power ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... him what I wished to do, and after a little persuasion he agreed to carry a letter to her on his next marketing trip. My message was prepared by writing it on tissue paper, which was then compressed into a small pellet, and protected by wrapping it in tin-foil so that it could be safely carried in the man's mouth. The probability, of his being searched when he came to the Confederate picketline was not remote, and in such event he was to swallow the pellet. The ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan
... which foil every attempt at relief, I have been aiming, for some time past, to make such a change in the constitution of the patient, as might give a chance of success to ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... of the substance is wanting, as potassium nitrate was shown not to give an explosive substance with tin. A thin layer of a mixture of sulphur and potassium nitrate was placed between sheets of tin and copper foil, and allowed to stand, being kept constantly moist. After a time the copper was found to have become coated with sulphide, while the tin was largely converted into the explosive basic nitrate. The conditions are obviously the same as those found in the powder machinery, where bronze ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... Kittredge, talking incessantly to the bewildered freshman "home" whom she guarded, batted balls with ferocious lunges of her big fist back to the centre field, where a dainty little freshman with soft, appealing brown eyes, half hidden under a mist of yellow hair, occasionally managed to foil T. Reed's pursuit and sent them pounding back into the outstretched arms of a tall, ungainly home who tossed or dropped them—it was hard to tell which—into the freshman basket. It was a shame to let her play, the sophomores grumbled. She was a giantess, not ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... against her, her surprise gave place to a mingled feeling of impatience and anger. She drew her foot back with a sudden movement, but unfortunately the foot went one way and the slipper another. A fencing-master, who sees his foil carried ten steps away from him by a back stroke, could not feel more astonishment than that felt by Madame de Bergenheim. Her first movement was to place her foot, so singularly undressed, upon the ground; an instinctive horror of the damp, muddy walk made her draw it quickly back. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... man at her side in the uniform of an American captain with his black curls and dark face, made a splendid foil for Ruth's beauty. Behind him walked his twin sister—as like Tom Cameron as another pea in a pod—and Ann Hicks, both in rose-color, completing a color scheme worthy of the taste of whoever had originated it. For the sheer beauty of the picture, ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... exploring the subtleties of the human heart. The pen of Dickens portrayed all classes of society except, perhaps, that which Thackeray made his peculiar field. The historians, too, furnish singular contrasts: the vehement pugnacity of Freeman is a foil to the serene studiousness of Acton; the erratic career of Froude to the concentration of Stubbs. The influence exercised on their contemporaries by recluses such as Newman or Darwin may be compared with the more worldly activities of Huxley and Samuel ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... if they cannot run clear. Sparkling and pellucid rills, wherein we can all see our own-selves and trace our own dreams, irradiated with light like the flickering of gems, and set off with rich foil, are those to attract the popular eye. Genuine humor, pathos, elevation and delicacy of fancy seek no disguise, but aim at the utmost simplicity of expression. Inversions, like affectation in every shape, are foreign ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... take heed; they stop in full career. Yon crowding flock, that at a distance gaze, Have haply foil'd the turf. See that old hound! How busily he works, but dares not trust His doubtful sense; draws yet a wider ring. Hark! Now again the chorus fills. As bells, Sally'd awhile, at once their paean renew, And high in air the tuneful thunder rolls, See how they toss, with animated ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... just this charming degree of manly frankness from monsieur. A button is a button, too, and a devilish serious thing when, say, off a foil." ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... you may be right; do as foil would be done by is the golden rule after all. But, here comes Mr. John Effingham; so ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... rapid combustion, the body, if not already black, ought to be blackened. When metals are to be burned, it is necessary to blacken or otherwise tarnish them, so as to diminish their reflective power. Blackened zinc foil, when brought into the focus of invisible rays, is instantly caused to blaze, and burns with its peculiar purple light. Magnesium wire flattened, or tarnished magnesium ribbon, also bursts into flame. Pieces of charcoal suspended in a receiver full of oxygen are also set on ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... for some time, during which she was endeavouring to get it off, to effect which she made use of the small bone of the leg of the kangaroo, round the point of which Bennillong had rolled some punk, so that it looked not unlike the button of a foil. She held it every now and then to the fire, then applied and pressed it to the navel until it cooled. This was persevered in, till the mother thought the cord sufficiently deadened, and then with a shell ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... verse for a young friend's Album (six will be enough). M. Burney will tell you who she is I want 'em for. A girl of gold. Six lines—make 'em eight—signed Barry C——. They need not be very good, as I chiefly want 'em as a foil to mine. But I shall be seriously obliged by any refuse scrap. We are in the last ages of the world, when St. Paul prophesied that women should be "headstrong, lovers of their own wills, having Albums." I fled hither to escape the Albumean persecution, and had not been ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... ask what Mr. OWEN NARES was doing in this galley; and I cannot tell you. I can only say that he was very brave about it all. In a sense it was a serious performance, the only one of its kind in the play; yet not serious enough to serve as a foil for the general frivolity, for he was constantly bringing his own high sentiments into ridicule, and so burlesquing the OWEN NARES that we love ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... of the staircase, cosily and femininely draped, where, by the light of the shaded lamp, he saw a woman of full round figure reclining upon a couch in such a position as not to disturb a pile of magnificent hair on the crown of her head. A deep purple dressing-gown formed an admirable foil to the peculiarly rich brown of her hair-plaits; her left arm, which was naked nearly up to the shoulder, was thrown upward, and between the fingers of her right hand she held a cigarette, while she idly breathed from her plump lips a thin ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... they do fencers or wrestlers, who if they come in robustiously and put for it with a deal of violence are received for the braver fellows; when many times their own rudeness is a cause of their disgrace, and a slight touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. But in these things the unskilful are naturally deceived, and judging wholly by the bulk, think rude things greater than polished, and scattered more numerous than composed; nor think this only to be true in the sordid multitude, ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... men, who at the time when these prints were first published, were noted for teaching the arts of defence by different weapons, and who are here drawn from the life; one of whom is a Frenchman, teacher of the small-sword, making a thrust with his foil; the other an Englishman, master of the quarter-staff; the vivacity of the first, and the cold contempt visible in the face of the second, beautifully describe the natural disposition of the two nations. ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... would soon have wearied her. A warm, bright nature, loving to please others, but to be pleased in return, cruelly hurt by surging against this rock-bound coast, piqued and almost angered, sent into moods of daring, seductive warmth and gayety, quite capable of making a foil of Dr. Maverick, who was strangely puzzled by her contradictory moods. But for one thing, he must have tried to cage the dazzling, elusive spirit: he, too, had a strong sense of honor toward his friend; and he could ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... behind me; and poor Dad saying, '"'Pon my honour, Arthur, I can't account for it!" Oh, how my cheeks tingled when I reached my room! But Cissie had laid out my very best evening dress, the white satin one, vandyked at the bottom with spots of morone foil, and the pearl knots, you know, catching up the drapery from the left shoulder. I had poor mother's lace ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... the love-affairs of three young people, with an old-fashioned romance in the background. A tiny dog plays an important role in serving as a foil for the heroine's talking ingeniousness. There is poetry, as well as tenderness and charm, in this tale of a weaver ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... the part, was excellent in his quiet moods, and when he was obliged to rant was no worse than other ranters. The superb solidity of Mr. SASS as the Russian officer served as an admirable foil to the mercurial methods of Quixano. Miss PHYLLIS RELPH as the heroine mitigated the effect of her obvious sincerity by a bad trick of showing her nice teeth. Mr. PERCEVAL CLARK, as a young American millionaire, was pleasantly British. Humorous relief of a cosmopolitan order was provided by the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... were to begin at nine o'clock. They were to come in this order: Standing broad jump, running broad jump, high jump, foil match, revolver contest and ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... the guerdon ye sought with your bloodshed and toil, Was it slaves, or dominion, or rapine, or spoil? No! your lofty emprise was to fetter and foil The uprooter of Greece's domain, When he tore the last remnant of food from her soil, Till her famished ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... and eleven frigates, under Vice-Admiral Villaret. In this action three French ships were taken; the rest fled for protection to their own port and their own land batteries. In the West Indies the English cruizers and squadrons were not so successful; all their vigilance was not sufficient to foil the daring projects of Victor Hugues. The French, indeed, recovered the whole of Guadaloupe, attacked with success the fort of Tiburon, in St. Domingo; and made themselves masters of St. Lucia; Grenada, Dominico, and St. Vincent's were with difficulty preserved. But in these victories ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... sending all the merry company for a drive, and now Carrie came in alone. It was the first time that Hurstwood had had a chance to see her facing the audience quite alone, for nowhere else had she been without a foil of some sort. He suddenly felt, as she entered, that her old strength—the power that had grasped him at the end of the first act—had come back. She seemed to be gaining feeling, now that the play was ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... The Nights serves admirably as a foil to the absolute realism of the picture in general. We enjoy being carried away from trivial and commonplace characters, scenes and incidents; from the matter of fact surroundings of a work-a-day world, a life of eating and drinking, sleeping and waking, fighting ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... make the victory more definite," replied the poet, testing his foil and saluting the ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... is her son, Fathom, the hero of the book. Because he is placarded, "Shrewd villain of monstrous inhumanity," we are fain to accept him for what his creator intended; but seldom in word or deed is he a convincingly real villain. His friend and foil, the noble young Count de Melvil, is no more alive than he; and equally wooden are Joshua, the high-minded, saint-like Jew, and that tedious, foolish Don Diego. Neither is the heroine alive, the peerless Monimia, but then, in her case, want of vitality ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... seek him, but was almost slain, Perhaps is dead now; everywhere The knights come foil'd from the great quest, in vain; In vain they ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... Sammy Brown was shone upon by the far-flung rays of the renaissance. Sammy, with his ultra clothes, his horseshoe pin, his plump face, his trite slang, his uncomprehending admiration of Ravenel—the broker's clerk made an excellent foil to the new, bright unseen visitor to the ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... jester had acquainted him with the discovery just made of the secret hoard, and he was therefore compelled to have recourse to this desperate move. But I was apprized of his intentions by Will Sommers, and have come in time to foil him." ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the box, and the umpire broke open a pasteboard box, brought out a ball that was wrapped in tin foil, removed the covering, and tossed the snowy sphere to the freshman pitcher Yale had so ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... destiny of Nature's calling, Foil'd and frustrate! Just then the evil tide was crawling To drown ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... of passion in Mr. ASQUITH'S measured criticism of the Allied Council and of the PRIME MINISTER'S speech on the subject in Paris. His foil was carefully buttoned, and though it administered a shrewd thrust now and again it was not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... fine ivory carving from chamber 23, showing a bound captive; the large stock of painted model vases in limestone in a box in chamber 20; the set of perfect vases found in chamber 21; a fine piece of ribbed ivory; a piece of thick gold-foil covering of a hotep table, patterned as a mat, found in the long chamber west of the tomb; the deep mass of brown vegetable matter in the north-east chamber; the large stock of grain between chambers 8 and 11; and the bed ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... is made of two pieces of tin-foil, four by ten, and three pieces of waxed paper a little larger than the foil. A piece of wire is twisted into the end of each piece of foil, and then one sheet of foil is laid on a sheet of paper. This is then covered ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... bar admirably, wrestles with amazing dexterity, and is an excellent cricketer. He runs like a buck, leaps like a wild goat, and plays at skittles like a wizard. Then he has a fine voice for singing, he touches the guitar so as to make it speak, and handles a foil as well as any fencer in Spain.—Cervantes, Don Quixote, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... and she smiled and said, kindly this time: "Look ye, Squire, I am hot and weary, and ill-content; but presently it will be better with me; for my knees have been telling my shoulders that the cold water of this little lake will be sweet and pleasant this summer noonday, and that I shall forget my foil when I have taken my pleasure therein. Wherefore, go thou with thine hounds without the thicket and there abide my coming. And I bid thee look not aback as thou goest, for therein were peril to thee: I shall not keep ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... not Antony's passion for Cleopatra which ruins him. He has not the cohesion which obtains success. He is loose-bonded. Caesar is his complete foil and contrast. Caesar exists dramatically to explain Antony. Antony's challenge to single combat and the speeches he makes to his servants are characteristic. The marriage to Octavia, more than his Egyptian ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... daughter could scarcely have a worse one—was that my own dear father, knowing Lord Castlewood's bad behavior, and his own sad plight in consequence, and through that knowledge caring little to avenge his death, for wife and children's sake preferred to foil inquiry rather than confront the truth and challenge it. He might not have meant to go so far, at first beginning with it; but, starting once, might be driven on by grievous loss, and bitter sense of recreant friends, and the bleak despair of a homeless world before him. ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... the reason, that, while they are the least essential, and on the whole the least interesting, of domesticated animals, they have had a certain place in civilization. They afford, moreover, a capital foil by which to set off the virtues of the dog. Nowhere else, indeed, among the creatures which are intimately associated with men, do we find two related forms which afford, along with a certain likeness, ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... the level part of the forest, which has a rich black soil. Great sarmentous plants climb here up to the tops of the trees: wild Grapes, the climbing, poisonous Sumach, (Rhus toxicodendron,) and the vine-like Cinque-foil, which transforms withered, naked trunks into green columns, Bignonias, with their brilliant scarlet trumpet-flowers, are the most remarkable. The Thuja occidentalis, which may be met with in European ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... from an unwelcome suitor? She knew full well that her friend would resent the slightest semblance of love-making on the part of any man on board. Already her astonishment at Elsie's unlooked-for vivacity was yielding to the humor of meeting such a rival. The Count might serve as a foil, but the real quarry now was the captain. That very night there would be a moon. And the sea was calm as a sheltered lake. Isobel's lips parted in a delighted smile as she tried to imagine Courtenay deserting her to discuss those celebrities whom Elsie had made the most of. And how she ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... if you choose. That's your way: giggle over everything. But when I play background, I want it to be with something worth while in the foreground. I don't hanker after making myself a foil to show off such fellers as our officers ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... own stamp. I foresaw the position I should occupy in his establishment. I had once been sent to the plantation for punishment, and fear of the son had induced the father to recall me very soon. My mind was made up; I was resolved that I would foil my master and save my children, or I would perish in the attempt. I kept my plans to myself; I knew that friends would try to dissuade me from them, and I would not wound their ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent) |
