"Foppery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the poet speaks adequately then only when he speaks "a little wildly, or with the flower of the mind." Tennyson, the clearest- headed of poets, is our wild poet; wild, notwithstanding that little foppery we know of in him—that walking delicately, like Agag; wild, notwithstanding the work, the ease, the neatness, the finish; notwithstanding the assertion of manliness which, in asserting, somewhat misses that mark; a wilder poet than the rough, than the sensual, than ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... acceptance of some knee-buckles, which had taken the country farmer's fancy the day before, as he had been gazing into the shops, but which, being too small for his purpose, he took the liberty of offering to Monsieur Pierre. Pierre, a French boy, inclined to foppery, was charmed, ravished by the beauty of the present and with monsieur's goodness, and he began to adjust them to his breeches immediately, as well as he could, at least, in his mother's absence. The Norman, whom Pierre kept carefully on the outside of the threshold, stood by, ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... in the comparative simplicity of the Province, found the foppery of the aging man slightly ridiculous; yet he was aware that Mr. Winscombe's essential character had no expression in his satin and powder; his will was as rugged and virile as that of any adventuring frontiersman clad in untanned hides. He was, Howat decided, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... be forgotten? Yes, a schism Nurtured by foppery and barbarism, Made great Apollo blush for this, his land. Men were thought wise who could not understand His glories: with a puling infant's force, They swayed about upon a rocking horse And thought it Pegasus. Ah, dismal-souled! The winds of heaven blew, the ocean rolled Its gathering waves—ye ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... and natural order, its suppleness lends itself to almost any gymnastic, and its lucidity prevents total confusion from arising. Eustathius has availed himself of these opportunities for "raising his mother tongue to a higher power" to the very utmost. No translation can do justice to the elaborate foppery of even the first sentence,[186] with its coquetry of arrangement, its tormented structure of phrase, its jingle of sound-repetition, its desperate rejection of simplicity in every shape and form. To describe precisely the means resorted ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... the late Rebellion against him. After which he will bring you acquainted with the Inhabitants themselves, whence you may know their different Humours, Ranks and Qualities. Then you may visit their Temples such as they are, and see the Foppery of their Priests Religious Opinions and Practices both in their Worship and Festivals, and afterwards go home to their Houses and be acquainted with their Conversation and Entertainment, see their Housewifery, Furniture, Finery, and understand how they Breed and Dispose of their Children ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... plain Suits a Year: For being perfectly satisfied in Eutrapeluss Contrivance of making a Mohock of a Man, by presenting him with lacd and embroiderd Suits, I would by no means be thought to controvert that Conceit, by insinuating the Advantages of Foppery. It is an Assertion which admits of much Proof, that a Stranger of tolerable Sense dressd like a Gentleman, will be better received by those of Quality above him, than one of much better Parts, whose Dress is regulated by the rigid Notions of Frugality. A Man's Appearance falls within the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... defects. His wit had nothing sharp or bitter in it; his manners were not supercilious; his intercourse with women expressed the respect they like,—it was neither too deferential, nor too familiar; his foppery went no farther than a care for his personal appearance which made him agreeable; he showed consideration for rank; he allowed young men a certain freedom, to which his Parisian experience assigned due limits; though skilful with sword and pistol, he was noted for a feminine gentleness for ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... friend. Some extremely dowdy females we see riding in a barouche are the wife and daughters of a high official, who is stingy to his woman-kind, so they say. Two youths we pass are in striking contrast, as they walk along arm-in-arm. One is got up according to the fullest Auckland idea of Bond Street foppery, while the other prefers to go about in very "creeshy flannen;" yet the two sit at the same desk in one of the banks, and earn the same salary; and neither they themselves, nor anyone else, seems to notice any peculiarity in the costume ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... on this occasion. Perhaps it is an instance of self-inflation absolutely unique where he says, 'My kindness for a man of letters'; this, it seems, caused him to feel pain at seeing Gray descending to what he, the Doctor (as a one-sided opinion of his own), held to be a fantastic foppery. The question we point at is not this supposed foppery—was it such or not? Milton's having cherished that 'foppery' was a sufficient argument for detesting it. What we fix the reader's eye upon is, the unparalleled arrogance ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... display of the common-places of school oratory, dressed up with dazzling splendour, and thundered forth with emphasis. On the other hand, does the master value himself for the delicacy of his taste, for the foppery of glittering conceits and tinsel ornament; the youth who has been educated under him, sets out with the same artificial prettiness, the same foppery of style and manner. A simper plays on his countenance; his elocution is soft and ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... breaking bad habits in other points of vice and virtue, have given up the struggle, and concluded that "a speckled ax was best"; for something, that pretended to be reason, was every now and then suggesting to me that such extream nicety as I exacted of myself might be a kind of foppery in morals, which, if it were known, would make me ridiculous; that a perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... blue, brown, or olive-green coat, and waistcoat of glaring color—scarlet, or blue, or green striped—but it must be showy; and a pair of trowsers, generally blue, with a width nearly as ample as a sailor's, and not only guiltless of the foppery of being strapped down, but if he find the road rather dirty, or the grass dewy, they are turned up three or four inches at the bottom, so as to show the lining. On those days, he has a hat of modern shape, that has very lately cost ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... taking charge of this youth, or your title to give him this idle character of page, if such was your pleasure; though what the education of a boy in the train of a female can tend to, save to ingraft foppery and effeminacy on conceit and arrogance, it passes my knowledge to discover. But I blame you more directly for having taken little care to guard him against the perils of his condition, or to tame and humble a spirit naturally haughty, overbearing, and impatient. You have brought into your bower ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... is very hard If they can only be kind to us out of pity If they chop upon one truth, that carries a mighty report If they hear no noise, they think men sleep If to philosophise be, as 'tis defined, to doubt Ignorance does not offend me, but the foppery of it Impotencies that so unseasonably surprise the lover Ill luck is good for something Imagine the mighty will not abase themselves so much as to live Imitating other men's natures, thou layest aside thy own Immoderate either seeking or evading glory or reputation ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... anything that could be considered supercilious or offensive. His dress was tastefully within the fashion, but not in its extreme, and his admirable figure thus displayed to the best advantage; whilst his whole person was utterly free from every symptom of affectation or foppery. Nor was the change in the tone of his features less striking. Their style of beauty was at once manly and intellectual, combining, as they did, an expression of great sweetness, obvious good sense, and remarkable ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... remains of yesterday's meal afforded, were successively brought forward by the dark eyed daughter of the farmer, who, as De Courcy had remarked, seemed by no means indisposed towards the gay looking invaders of her home. There was a recklessness about the carriage of most of these, and even a foppery about some, that was likely to be any thing but displeasing to a young girl, who, French Canadian by birth, although living under the Government of the United States, possessed all the natural vivacity of character peculiar to the original stock. Notwithstanding the pertinacity ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... Frenchman entirely as a petit-maitre, and his view, though far removed from Chesterfield's, is not incompatible with that of many of his cleverest contemporaries, including Sterne. He conceives of the typical Frenchman as regulating his life in accordance with the claims of impertinent curiosity and foppery, gallantry and gluttony. Thus: ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character which degrades it. If no mischief had annexed itself to the folly of titles, they would not have been worth a serious and formal destruction. Let us, then, examine the grounds upon which ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... Estimate of the People from the Opinion they have of those whom they set up for their Legislators & Magistrates. And besides, if we look into the History of Governors, we shall find that their Principles & Manners have always had a mighty Influence on the People. Should Levity & Foppery ever be the ruling Taste of the Great, the Body of the People would be in Danger of catching the Distemper, and the ridiculous Maxims of the one would become fashionable among the other. I pray God we may ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... shabby mourning, sat in obscure corners, not noticing the scene before them, nor noticed themselves. A strange equipage, with two horses extravagantly bedizened with rosettes and bouquets, stood at the door; and as I looked, a pale, haggard-looking man, whose foppery in dress contrasted oddly with his care-worn expression, hurried from the shop, and sprung into the carriage. In doing so, a pocket-book fell from his pocket. I took it up, but as I did so, the carriage was already away, and far beyond my power ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... men of first fashion, in whom tranquillity is the prime merit, a sort of quietism of foppery, if one can use the expression, have one capital name for a fellow that outres and outroars the fashion, a sort of high-buck as they were called in my days. They hold him a vulgarian, and call him a tiger. Mr. Gibson came in, and we talked over ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... is, the first part was. His friends were set to work to collect subscribers. Caryll alone got thirty-eight. Pope fully entered into this. He was always alive to the value of his wares, and despised the foppery of those of his literary friends who would not make money out of their books, but would do so out of their country. ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... Falkland but matter of contempt, they appeared to be never weary of recounting his praises. Such dignity, such affability, so perpetual an attention to the happiness of others, such delicacy of sentiment and expression! Learned without ostentation, refined without foppery, elegant without effeminacy! Perpetually anxious to prevent his superiority from being painfully felt, it was so much the more certainly felt to be real, and excited congratulation instead of envy in the spectator. It is scarcely ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... the thought in this sonnet is, however, if possible, surpassed in another, "addressed to Haydon" the painter, that clever, but most affected artist, who as little resembles Raphael in genius as he does in person, notwithstanding the foppery of having his hair curled over his shoulders in the old Italian fashion. In this exquisite piece it will be observed, that Mr Keats classes together WORDSWORTH, HUNT, and HAYDON, as the three greatest spirits of the ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney |
