"Fencing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in which one of the urchins, whooping and shouting, buried himself up to the middle; moth-eaten, stained, and ragged, the collegian's gown-relic of the dead man's palmy time; a bag of carpenter's tools, chiefly broken; a cricket-bat; an odd boxing-glove; a fencing-foil, snapped in the middle; and, more than all, some half-finished attempts at rude toys: a boat, a cart, a doll's house, in which the good-natured Caleb had busied himself for the younger ones of that family in which he had found the fatal ideal of his ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... an engine on his foe"—much as a modern prince might a gatling-gun; but it seems to have slowly dawned upon the royal ignorami that the Lord is usually on the side of the heaviest battalions—a fact which Napoleon emphasized. The practice of fencing in a nation with a few wild-eyed prophets, or sending a single soldier forth with a hair-trigger hoodoo and the jawbone of a defunct jackass to drive great armies into the earth, gradually fell into disuse—curses and blessings became ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... some Federal agents had Uncle Billy up in Tucson on a charge of fencing government land, for according to the records he had not gone through the formality of taking out some of the requisite papers for proper possession. That case is one instance of a man ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... had experience in boxing and fencing, and I say with confidence, that in neither nor both is there such a field for fine posturing, wide, graceful action, and studied accuracy, as is to be found in the new series ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... any use in fencing, so I answered: "You mean the 'Jo-Jo' song. It's a silly little ditty, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... Handwriting, Geometry, Cosmography, Geography, Perspective, Architecture, Secret Motions of Scenes, Fortifications, the Besieging and Defending of Places, Fireworks, Marches of Armies, Ordering of Battailes, Fencing, Vaulting, Riding the Great Horse, Music, Playing on all sorts of Instruments, Dancing, Drawing, Painting, Limning, and Carving,' etc. Certainly Sir Balthazar's was a sufficient catalogue of arts, sciences, and accomplishments. The lectures 'composed for the ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... stout galvanized iron wires strung on wooden posts supplies excellent conductors for practice purposes, provided the posts be quite dry. In wet weather there will be leakage. (Fencing with metal posts is, of course, unsuitable, as every post short-circuits the current.) The two wires selected for land lines must be scraped quite bright at the points where the connections are to ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... "But wire fencing is expensive—and so are good sheep to begin with. No. Slow but sure must be our motto. I mustn't advise any great outlay of money—that would ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... morning and received his friends and favourite pupils at any hour of the night. Indeed, it was to his rooms that the melancholy Smith was bound. Smith had been at Dr. Eames's lecture for the first half of the morning, and at pistol practice and fencing in a saloon for the second half. He had been sculling madly for the first half of the afternoon and thinking idly (and still more madly) for the second half. He had gone to a supper where he was uproarious, and on ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... day, "I have taught my boy ordinary sword play till, by Jove, sir, he is getting quicker than I am. I wish you would take him in hand and give him a little fencing." ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... a sword-arm that none might have expected in an American, for Barney Custer had been a pupil of the redoubtable Colonel Monstery, who was, as Barney was wont to say, "one of the thanwhomest of fencing masters." ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... fear to women. She recalled her transfer to the strolling players; her cheap pleasures, and cheaper rivalries and hatred—but always Teresa! the daring Teresa! the reckless Teresa! audacious as a woman, invincible as a boy; dancing, flirting, fencing, shooting, swearing, drinking, smoking, fighting Teresa! "Oh, yes; she had been loved, perhaps—who knows?—but always feared. Why should she change now? ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... the work for a while, then turned his attention to the fencing job out on the prairie. There was a mile of north-and-south fence to be built, and he set at once to work digging post holes well on the inside of ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... ill-suppressed eagerness in the tones of the man's voice as he asked this question that acted very much as a danger-signal to Leslie. It seemed to suggest that thus far the man had merely been fencing with him, but that he was now trying to get within his guard; that, in short, the object of the Minerva's visit to the island was nearing the surface. He ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... extremely, and an allusion so faintly veiled that everyone must understand, was under the circumstances most embarrassing, for the truth was she had not been asked. Her cheeks burned. Yet it was thanks only to some clever fencing on her part, and perhaps some words of caution to Augustus from his mentor, that she had not been, and she knew in her heart it must ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... things which Mr. Warrington now possessed, let alone the horses and the postchaise which his honour had bought. Also Harry instructed himself in the arts which became a gentleman in those days. A French fencing-master, and a dancing-master of the same nation, resided at Tunbridge during that season when Harry made his appearance: these men of science the young Virginian sedulously frequented, and acquired considerable skill and grace in ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... into the carriage and the men followed. A shriek from the engine, a jerk of the cars, and the train moved on. Before the rear carriage had cleared the platform a car rocked into the station-yard, dashing through the frail wooden fencing ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... fincture, carricade, and sly passata, Thy stramazon, and resolute stoccata, Wiping maudritta, closing embrocata, And all the cant of the honorable fencing mystery.'" ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... because he dreads the competition. In a little time their success in the woods makes them neglect their tillage. They trust to the natural fecundity of the earth, and therefore do little; carelessness in fencing often exposes what little they sow to destruction; they are not at home to watch; in order therefore to make up the deficiency, they go oftener to the woods. That new mode of life brings along with it a new set of manners, ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... still; just as the Established Church—if you'll excuse me saying it, is a going concern. Just as Oxford is—or Cambridge. Or any of those old, fine old things. Only it wants fresh capital, fresh idees and fresh methods. Light railways, f'rinstance—scientific use of drainage. Wire fencing machinery—all that." ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... mildew the laurels on the brows of the Muses' Sons. What a dear kind soul of a critic is old Christopher North! Watering the flowers of poetry, and removing the weeds that might choke them—letting in the sunshine upon them, and fencing them from the blast—proclaiming where the gardens grow, and leading boys and virgins into the pleasant alleys—teaching hearts to love and eyes to see their beauty, and classifying, by the attributes it has pleased nature to bestow on the various orders, the plants of Paradise—This is our occupation—and ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... the honor of your acquaintance, but a fencing-party can never be unpleasant to a man of honor; and if you will be my second, in a quarter of an hour we shall be on the ground. I am Paul de Gondi; and I have challenged Monsieur de Launay, one of the Cardinal's clique, but ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and anger of Laertes for the death of his father and Ophelia the king, Hamlet's wicked uncle, contrived destruction for Hamlet. He set on Laertes, under cover of peace and reconciliation, to challenge Hamlet to a friendly trial of skill at fencing, which Hamlet accepting, a day was appointed to try the match. At this match all the court was present, and Laertes, by direction of the king, prepared a poisoned weapon. Upon this match great wagers were laid by the courtiers, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the choice of commissioners. Any owner of one-fifth of the land, however, could negative the measure and often used his right to impose unreasonable clauses. It is well known that the legal expenses and fencing were very costly. The enclosure commissioners too often divided the land in an arbitrary and ignorant manner, and there was no appeal from them except by filing a bill in Chancery. Accounts were hardly ever shown by the commissioners, and if a proprietor refused to pay ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... been flooded, that it had not occurred to him that he had sustained any damage; but, after the subsiding of the waters, as he took his way down his favorite path through the grove, he saw that the waters had borne away every vestige of fencing around his cherished ten-acre lot. The highest part of the fence had been under water many feet on that calamitous night, and with the loss of the rails had gone down another of the earthly props on which he had leaned for his daily ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... novice in the art of fencing, but she was no match for him. Moreover, she could not meet the pitiless eyes that stared straight into hers. They distracted her. They terrified her. Yet every moment seemed to her to be something gained. Through all the wild chaos of her overstrung nerves ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... looking inquiringly at his uncle, "is digging a row of fence post holes along the main road to fence in our property. We want to put in concrete fence posts and a wire fence along the main road. After that's up we'll have lots of other fencing to be done." ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... genuine logicians for recognising the vital points of an argument. A day in a court of justice would have taught him more about evidence than a month spent over Aristotle. He had become fitter for the parade of the fencing-room than for the real thrust and parry of a duel in earnest. The mere rhetorical flourish pleases him as much as a blow at his antagonist's heart. Another glaring instance in the same paper is his apparent failure ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... mustache, bright eyes, and fine lips, was a man who seemed born and bred upon the boulevard. He was tireless in spite of his languid air, strong in spite of his pallor, one of those slight Parisians to whom gymnastic exercise, fencing, cold shower and hot baths give a nervous, artificial strength. He was known by his marriage as well as by his wit, his fortune, his connections, and by that sociability, amiability, and fashionable ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... using—and I saw it from a distance. Then I killed him. Unluckily I was very angry and made a little mistake, so that he lived twelve hours, and she had time to get a priest and marry him. She always pretends that he struck her in play, by accident, as he was showing her something about fencing. I was in the next room and the door was open—it did not look like play. And she still thinks that he was the paragon of all virtues. He was a handsome devil—something like you, but shorter, with a bad eye. I ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... Mother's doing. It has been her plan, ever since she heard that you were wrecked, that we should come out here to find you, and she has had me regularly trained for it. I had masters for fencing and gymnastics, we always talked Hindustani when we were together, and she has encouraged me to fight with other boys, so that I should ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... cheer and that of Beatrice, and for a moment all was confusion. The wing rose, fell, slid back; into the water and again dipped upward. The canoes canted; some took water; all were thrown against each other in the central group; and cries, shouts, orders and a wild fencing off ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... cried Bouchereau, his eyes opening wider and wider; "a man who passes his mornings in the shooting gallery and fencing room, and has a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... and full blue trousers; he carried, too, a common ash walking-stick, apparently more for show than use, as he flourished it about, with the hooked end downwards, except when he raised it for a few seconds, and throwing himself into a fencing attitude, made a pass or two at the side-scenes, or at any other object, animate or inanimate, that chanced to afford him a pretty good mark ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... however, another aspect of the matter which manifests itself in an opposite way from voice and gesture. Lazarus calls attention to the fact that the spectators at a fencing match can not prevent themselves from imitative accompaniment of the actions of the fencers, and that anybody who happens to have any swinging object in his hand moves his hand here and there as they do. Stricker[1] makes similar observations concerning involuntary movements performed ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... and sleep; and there are parts of the world where it can be said that these are characteristic and national pleasures. Secondly, there are the pleasures of muscular energy, such as walking, running, wrestling, dancing, fencing, riding and similar athletic pursuits, which sometimes take the form of sport, and sometimes of a military life and real warfare. Thirdly, there are the pleasures of sensibility, such as observation, thought, feeling, or a taste for poetry or culture, music, learning, reading, meditation, ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... when he was a comitaj had twice been caught by the Turks. Once he was shot in thirteen places at once, but was found by some Christian women and eventually recovered; the second time the Turks beat him almost to death with fencing staves, and though they thought him dying put him on an ox cart and sent him ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... leisure' are generally devoted to sport—hunting, yachting, horseback riding, fencing—or to travel, or to dilettantisme in the arts, and their activity, unproductive for themselves, provides an immense number of persons with profitable occupations" ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... The game of diplomatic fencing went on for some time, and envoys were continually passing to and fro between Athens and Sparta. The Athenians were required to raise the siege of Potidaea—to allow the Aeginetans to govern themselves—to rescind the decree against Megara; and when all these ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... gambler, who lives one knows not how! Nonsense! It is as if one should fight a duel with a fencing-master." ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... she'll listen, and it will go all right, for I'll ask so hard. And everything'll come out straight. Yu' see, I've not been spending to speak of since Billy's on my hands, and now I'll fix up my cabin and finish my fencing and my ditch—and she's going to like Box Elder Creek better than Shawhan. She's the first I've ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... week he abruptly took her out of the company and up to London to have each day an hour of singing, an hour of dancing, and an hour of fencing. "You'll ruin her health," protested Freddie. "You're making her work like ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... I affirm that this blackened, blood-soaked frontier is a barrier to England which she can never, never overcome, and though we win out to-day, and though we hang the rebels thick as pears in Lispenard's orchards, that barrier will remain, year by year fencing us in, crowding us back to the ocean, to our ships, back to the land from whence we English came. And for all time will the memory of these horrors set America's face against us—if not for all time, yet our children's children and their children shall not outlive ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... dwelling-houses nor farm offices, nor puts fences, gates, etc., in good order before he lets his land to a tenant. The cases where a landlord does any of these things are the exception. In most cases, whatever is done in the way of building or fencing is done by the tenant, and in the ordinary language of the country, dwelling-houses, farm buildings, and even the making of fences, are described by the general word, 'improvements,' which is thus employed to denote the necessary adjuncts of a farm without which in England or Scotland no ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... master, was quite a different person from de Witte, the exponent of liberal ideas, pleading the cause of an oppressed people before the Tsar; and an adamantine side of his character, quite unexpected, was revealed. The fencing between the two skilled diplomats, de Witte and Komura, afforded a fascinating study in racial methods and characteristics at a high point of development; the impression left being that the intense sincerity of purpose in the Japanese, and the lack ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... the years 1740 and '50, the Cedar Swamps of the county [Cape May] were mostly located; and the amount of lumber since taken from them is incalculable, not only as an article of trade, but to supply the home demand for fencing and building material in the county. Large portions of these swamps have been worked a second and some a third time, since located. At the present time [1857] there is not an acre of original growth ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... mind wasting it on doing your hair," returned Aunt Beatrice, smiling, but not grimly, for she enjoyed logical fencing, even to ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... observed, turning back; "the best way to drown all your cares is to drink a draught of good wine. I am very glad we are going to breakfast in my room. Under those great high vaults in the fencing-school, sitting round a small table, you feel just like mice nibbling a nut in a corner of a big church. Here we are, Fritz. Just listen to the wind whistling through the arrow-slits. In half-an-hour there will be ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... believe so, above all, now, is the care that was taken to render me as accomplished a cavalier as possible. The gentleman attached to my person taught me everything he knew himself—mathematics, a little geometry, astronomy, fencing and riding. Every morning I went through military exercises, and practiced on horseback. Well, one morning during the summer, it being very hot, I went to sleep in the hall. Nothing, up to that period, except the respect paid me, had enlightened ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... she's a corker. She dances like a dream already, and old Gaudet is ready to weep with joy over her fencing." ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... this come to? They have cozened one another into a quarrel; just like friends in fencing, a chance thrust comes, and then they fall ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... which had grown from the proven reliability of those tips, the voice was known as "Hello George." Hello George's tips were always good, so they had come to be followed as blindly as tips from God, even when they were not understood. Certainty was one thing men in the fencing and drug smuggling business most ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... invariably do) to be pleasant gentlemanlike companions. The boxing-gloves were soon produced by Captain Oughton, who soon ascertained that in the officer who "would peel so well," he had found his match. The mornings were passed away in sparring, fencing, reading, walking the deck, or lolling on the hen-coops upon the poop. The announcement of the dinner-hour was a signal for rejoicing; and they remained late at the table, doing ample justice to the captain's excellent claret. The evening was finished with cards, cigars, and brandy pawnee. ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was formed by "fencing in" a portion of the river-bed by an embankment built about a hundred feet out from the north shore and deepening the intervening space where necessary. There are two locks—one placed a little above the foot of the rapid (see map), and the other at the end of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... several acres of manure, and a considerable portion of the original surface soil; and the water brought down enough sand to make a beach, and spread it over the field to a depth of six inches. The flood also took half a mile of fencing from along the creek-bank, and landed it in a bend, three miles down, on a dummy selection, where it ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... pick a quarrel either with the ebullient Gascon or the hesitating Norman. The six bullies at the table knew well enough, and savage, masterful AEsop at the window knew well enough, that the swaggering Gascon was the first fencing-master in Paris, and that his colleague, the Norman, for all his air of ineffable timidity, was only second to him in skill with the weapon and readiness to use it. There was a moment's silence, and then Cocardasse observed: "I'm afraid of just ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to his uncle's, but was unable long to remain inactive, and taking fifteen followers he went with them in disguise to Ayr. Wallace, as usual, was not long before he got into a quarrel. An English fencing master, armed with sword and buckler, was in an open place in the city, challenging any one to encounter him. Several Scots tried their fortune and were defeated, and then seeing Wallace towering above the crowd he challenged him. Wallace at once accepted, and after guarding ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... I don't think he has any idea that I do. Now, we were talking about the Oracle a little while ago. We know he's an old ass; a good many outsiders consider that he's a bit soft or ratty, and, as we're likely to be mates together for some time on that fencing contract, if we get it, you might as well know what sort of a man he is and was, so's you won't get uneasy about him if he gets deaf for a while when you're talking, or does funny things with his pipe or pint-pot, or walks up and down by himself for an hour or so ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... mingled with this wondrous fellowship arrayed as a knight crusader leading three captive Saracen princes; namely, the two young Masters Loffelholz and Schlebitzer, who had stirred him to dress in the fencing-school, mounted on horses, and between them my squire Akusch on the bear-leader's camel, all in white as a Son of the Desert; and the three of them fettered ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the feasibility of buying at least a thousand head of sheep and fencing off a portion of the ranch ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... defend it; Prince Leopold to cross, and clear the ways. All Friday, Friedrich waiting at Friedland, was spent in these details. Leopold in due force started for Sorgau, himself with Cavalry in the van; Leopold did storm across, and go charging and fencing, some space, on the other side; but, seeing that it was in truth Lentulus, and Dragoons without limit, had to send report accordingly; and then to wind himself to this side again, on new order ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... consisted of 6,000 men, went in pursuit of Pugasceff. On this miserable route he did not encounter the mock Czar until the beginning of March. Pugasceff waited for his opponent in the forest of Taticseva. This so-called stronghold had only wooden walls, a kind of ancient fencing. It was good enough to protect the sheep from the pillaging Baskirs, but it was not suitable for war. The genius of the rebel leader did not desert him, and he was well able to look after himself. Round the fences he dug trenches, where he piled up the snow, on which he poured ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... And in January, 1587, one Thomas Lovelace, sentenced by the Star Chamber for false accusations, was carried on horseback about Westminster Hall, his face to the tail; he was then pilloried, and had one of his ears cut off. The execution, in 1612, of Lord Sanquire for the murder of a fencing-master, and of the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland and Lord Capel, on March 9, 1649, for so-called treason, took place in New Palace Yard. Here in 1630 Alexander Leighton was whipped, pilloried and branded for a libel on the ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... adjacent fencing were taken to line the parapet and to prevent the earth from falling back into the canal. All this was done at intervals of relief, by the different corps, assisted by labor from the plantations near. It was not until the seventh of January that the whole ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... conversation; a fencing match with words and phrases. Time after time she touched him; but with all his skill he could not break through her guard. Once or twice he thrust in a manner which was not in ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... elder Vorchtel was powerless to change his children's conduct, he never wearied of representing to his son how unjust and dangerous were the attacks with which, on every occasion, he irritated Wolff, whose strength and skill in fencing were almost unequalled in Nuremberg. In fact, the latter would long since have challenged his former friend had he not been so conscious of his own superiority, and shrunk from the thought of bringing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Accordingly, a few days after, she called for the clerk of the kitchen, and told him that she intended that night to sup out of little Day. He answered never a word, being resolved to cheat her as he had done before. He went to find little Day, and saw him with a foil in his hand, with which he was fencing with a monkey, the child being but three years old. He took him up in his arms and carried him to his wife, that she might conceal him in her chamber, along with his sister; and, in the room of little Day, cooked up a young kid ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... night carries thoughts from heart to heart that would be lost in the passage through the broken tumultuous sea of day. The thought that was in him he felt to be in her also, changed as her mind would change it, yet in essence the same. She had now no ironical smiles for him, no fencing, and no playing with her fate; and he had for her no talk of loyalty. The time for these was gone in the light of the confidence that her silence gave him; it told him everything, and he had no rebuke for its openness. At last ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... was M. Picot, fencing in mid-room. Of a sudden, foils turn to swords, M. Picot to a masked man, and Boston to the northland forest. I fall, and when I awaken M. Picot is standing, candle ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... yet again, high, striking out as she checked him. He was getting in a fury now, for his rider still was in place. Then with one savage sidewise shake of his head after another he plunged this way and that, rail-fencing it for the open prairie. It looked like a bolt, which with a horse of his spirit and stamina meant but one thing, no matter ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... numerous. There is little need to remind the reader, for instance, of the hand-to-hand encounters of Macbeth and Macduff, Posthumus and Iachimo, Hotspur and the Prince of Wales, Richard and Richmond. Romeo has his fierce brawl with Tybalt, Hamlet his famous fencing scene, and there is serious crossing of swords both in "Lear" and "Othello." English audiences, from an inherent pugnacity, or a natural inclination for physical feats, were wont to esteem highly the combats of the stage. The players were skilled in the use of their weapons, and would ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... AND FENCING, are all manly exercises when practiced solely with a view to their hygienic advantages and as ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... again and that he was asking many questions, so he made the captain welcome and gave him a great deal to eat and drink. One of the servants came in and pretended to admire the captain's sword till he got it into his own hands; and then he began to give an exhibition of fencing, making the sword whirl hither and thither and ending with a wonderful stroke that made the captain's head roll on ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... be inflicted on the vault by stabs with a knife or dagger, or by other sharp objects, such as the spike of a railing. More frequently a pointed instrument, such as a fencing foil, the end of an umbrella, or a knitting needle, is thrust through the orbit into the base of the brain. Occasionally the base of the skull has been perforated through the roof of the pharynx, for example, by the stem of a tobacco-pipe. All ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... ankle-deep, she paused again. Perhaps, after all, it was only a game—a fencing-match, a trial of skill! Of course, that must be it! Was it in the least likely to be anything more serious? And yet something within told her very decidedly that this was not so. A trial of skill it might be, but it was being conducted ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... did continue, as I could see by the glittering roof of a cavern, for such it was. But the floor attracted my attention as well as the roof, for on it were numerous cases not unlike coffins, bearing the stamp of a well-known Birmingham firm, labelled "fencing iron" and addressed to Messrs. Marnham & Rodd, Transvaal, via ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... far her idle play at fencing with her brother would bear her out; she provided as many loop-holes as she could devise. "I think you will find my skill slight. I have—I have grown so fast that I lack strength in my arms. And I have not exercised myself as much ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... making his training attractive to his pupil: he did not attend merely to his head; he thought of other things as well; joined him in the sports and exercises he knew, and taught him those in which he was uninstructed. Fencing, for instance, was one of these; Edward was a tolerable master of his foil, and in a few months Gustavus, under his tuition, could parry a thrust and make no bad attempt at a hit himself. His improvement in every way was so remarkable, that it was noticed by all, and its cause ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... was "Position," and acted only by gentlemen. An amateur, or rather a novice, was taking lessons in fencing, in order to defend himself against probable attacks upon him by the barbaric foreigners who next year would invade Paris, and he wished to be prepared sufficiently to resent ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... would be manifestly impossible for him to take part in the contests at Hampton in Virginia. While they conversed in low, eager tones, Peggy and Lieutenant Bradbury could be seen talking in another corner. Court had been adjourned, but the curious crowd still lingered. Jess and Jimsy stood by Roy, fencing off the inquisitive villagers and would-be sympathizers. The whole thing had taken place so rapidly that they all felt dazed and bewildered. Suddenly the thought of what his detention meant dawned ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... told, belonged to the Abbey of St Augustine in Canterbury, which also owned the Goodwin Sands, part, it is said, of the immense domain of Earl Godwin. Now it was in their hands that the money collected throughout Kent for the building and fencing of the coast against the sea had always been placed. We learn that "when the sea had been very quiet for many years without any encroachings," the abbot commuted that money to the building of a steeple and endowing of the church in Tenterden, ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... anticipate any disastrous issue of it. For the two men were singularly well matched, the prince using his skill with a sort of cynical confidence, the Sicilian using his with a murderous care. Few finer fencing matches can ever have been seen in crowded amphitheatres than that which tinkled and sparkled on that forgotten island in the reedy river. The dizzy fight was balanced so long that hope began to revive in the protesting priest; by all common probability ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... but allowed her to get excited and to chatter, to enumerate her causes for complaint against poor Count de Baudemont, who certainly had no suspicion of his wife's escapade, who would have been very much surprised if any one had told him of it at that moment, when he was taking his fencing ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... made elsewhere of his taking lessons in the sword exercise from Van Braam in these earlier years, and in 1756 he paid to Sergeant Wood, fencing-master, the sum of L1.1.6. When he received the offer of a position on Braddock's staff, he acknowledged, in accepting, that "I must be ingenuous enough to confess, that I am not a little biassed by selfish considerations. To explain, ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... wouldn't go there till I have had some fencing done," said Helbeck with decision. "The rain has loosened the moss and made it all slippery and unsafe. I saw some people gathering primroses there to-day, and I told Murphy to warn them off. We must ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... vacations he usually resorted to London, where he was assiduous in his attendance on the schools of Angelo, for the sake of accomplishing himself in the manly exercises of fencing and riding; and, at home, directed his attention to modern languages; and familiarised himself with the best writers in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese: "thus," he observed, "with the fortune of a peasant, he gave himself the education ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... head. He therefore, offered a reward of 500 dollars for the head of Monsieur La Fitte, who was well known to the inhabitants of the city of New Orleans, from his immediate connection, and his once having been a fencing-master in that city of great reputation, which art he learnt in Buonaparte's army, where he was a captain. The reward which was offered by the Governor for the head of La Fitte was answered by ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... the facts stated above, that in course of time I shall come to boast what a Paganini I became in time, what a Mezzofanti as a linguist, what a Buonarotti in art, what a Vestris in the dance, or what a Michael Toddy in fencing:—I hasten to remark that I do not even yet understand anything of all these things. I have only to relate how they taught ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... the road and came upon a stretch of old stump fencing. From one of the stumps appeared to be hanging a grotesque figure of some remarkable cut; it looked both ancient and romantic, sharply silhouetted against the ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... to take our meals out-of-doors. I had made a little lawn near the house, and surrounded it with a wire fencing, over which sweet peas were climbing. In the centre of this patch of grass was spread a rug made of green denim, just the colour of the grass, and on this stood a dinner-table of weathered oak. Here, in fine weather, we took all our meals. Breakfast ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... sub-Arctic Canada, combined with the adverse climatic conditions of the region, will guarantee the northern Indians a longer survival. In Tierra del Fuego, the encroachments of sheep-farmers and gold-miners from Patagonia twenty years ago, by fencing off the land and killing off the wild guanaco, threatened the existence of this animal and of the Onas natives of the island. These, soon brought to bay in that natural enclosure, attacked the farmers, whose reprisals between ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... boundaries; gambling, drunkenness and immorality, it was averred, had "disappeared"; there were larger and better crops; and "the habit of enjoying nature" had increased. The amusements of the village were wrestling, fencing, jujitstu, and the festivals. ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... we are aware of the advantages of repetition. We know that if practice in dancing, fencing, skating, and riding, is persevered in for a length of time sufficient to give the muscles the requisite promptitude and harmony of action, the power will be ever afterward retained, although little called into use; whereas, if the muscles have not been duly ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... were taken up by the students. One of them stood by Sancho; the other one took Don Quixote's point of view. Having once been involved, they argued first on one subject, then on another, until at last foils and the art of fencing became the subject. It so happened that one of them was carrying his foils with him, and he suggested that they settle their argument then and there. They did so under Don Quixote's chivalrous supervision, and when the engagement had come to an end, the one who had challenged was so worn and torn ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... at twelve years old was placed as page in some other noble household. There, for two years, he learned riding and fencing, and the use of arms. When the lord killed a deer the pages skinned it and carried it home. At a feast the pages carried in the chief dishes and poured the wine for their lords to drink. They helped the ladies of the house in many ways, and carried ...
— Royal Children of English History • E. Nesbit
... material which, pushed through a loop or button-hole, serves as a catch between different parts of a garment, &c. The word is also used of other objects which have a projecting knob-like character, e.g. button-mushrooms, the button of an electric bell-push, or the guard at the tip of a fencing foil; or which resemble a button in size and shape, as the button of metal obtained in assaying operations. At first buttons were apparently used for purposes of ornamentation; in Piers Plowman (1377) ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... more, Clarissa, and I vanish amidst the woods of Arden, through which I came like a poacher in order to steal upon you unawares by that little gate. And now, my darling, since we have wasted almost all our time in fencing with words, let us be reasonable. Promises such as you speak of are pledges given to the winds. They cannot hold an hour against true love. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... "MacFlecknoe"; and the same writer again brings him forward in the third act of "Limberham." It must be remembered that in those days the teacher of fencing and dancing occupied a very respectable position; and St. Andre's career was sufficiently prosperous to tempt a young kinsman, who felt the elements of success strong within him, to cross the seas in his own turn, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... comes to the first station, leaving Quokin, and Phillis his wife, quiet in their possessions; which tract of land, (except Mary Richards' fields and plantation,) which is within the said boundaries, and wood for Mary's own use, and fencing stuff for her fences as they now stand, with all the appurtinances and privileges thereunto belonging, shall be forever for the important purpose of propagating the Gospel in Marshpee, without any let, hindrance or molestation. In confirmation whereof, we have hereunto set our hands ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes
... dog died after three or four hours' great suffering, and was buried the next day at the foot of a tree in the forest. His loss was especially felt by George, who busied himself for some hours in raising a little mound over the grave, and then fencing it round, as a mark of esteem, he ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... square of theirs. For this reason we left Kellermann's heavy brigade and also my own Hussars at Padua on the mainland. But Suchet with the infantry held the town, and he had chosen me as his aide-de-camp for that winter, because he was pleased about the affair of the Italian fencing-master at Milan. The fellow was a good swordsman, and it was fortunate for the credit of French arms that it was I who was opposed to him. Besides, he deserved a lesson, for if one does not like a prima donna's singing ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... their cruelties and lusts, as the very prerequisite of his being regarded and acknowledged to be a man and a warrior. The girls have, with their mother and sisters, to toil and slave in the village plantations, to prepare all the materials for fencing these around, to bear every burden, and to be knocked about at will by the ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... instructions were exceedingly voluminous, consisting of thirty closely written folio pages, and they contain plans for the rotation of crops for several years, as well as specific directions regarding fencing, pasturage, composts, feeding stock, and a great variety of other subjects. In them one can find our Farmer's final opinions on certain phases of agriculture. To draw them up must have cost him days of hard ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... grew up, he was obliged to find his pleasures chiefly in those bodily exercises which were the samurai's early and constant preparations for war,—archery and riding, wrestling and fencing. Playmates were found for him; but these were older youths, sons of retainers, chosen for ability to assist him in the practice of martial exercises. It was their duty also to teach him how to swim, to handle a boat, to develop his young muscles. ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... did. But I was forced to answer once every ten minutes at least—and Flush, my usual companion, does not exact so much—and so I am tired and come to rest myself on this paper. Your name was not once spoken to-day; a little from my good fencing: when I saw you at the end of an alley of associations, I pushed the conversation up the next—because I was afraid of questions such as every moment I expected, with a pair of woman's eyes behind them; and ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... parliament assembled. The usual fencing occurred between the leaders of parties. Lord Derby was fiery and impetuous, Lord Aberdeen reserved and pragmatical. Law reform first engaged the attention of the peers. The lord chancellor did not possess the confidence ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... snow covered the ground, but the axemen went on with their labours, and the tall trunks they felled could now with greater ease be dragged either to the saw-mill, to the spots where log-huts were to be erected, to form snake fencing, or to the great heaps prepared for burning. Donald was surprised to find how rapidly the months went by, and how soon the period of the year at which he had arrived ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... Accomplishments of Musick, Dancing, and Fencing, they may be taught by such as the President and Masters shall appoint at such certain Times, as they ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... to go about, as we heard a humorist say, "making statues all over the stage." No picture can equal the scene where Horatio and Marcellus swear by his sword, he holding the crossed hilt upright between the two, his head thrown back and lit with high resolve. In the fencing-bout with Laertes he is the apotheosis of grace; and since, though his height and shoulder-breadth are perfect, he is somewhat spare in form, you call to mind—in accounting for this charm of motion, not studied, "like old Hayward's, between two looking-glasses"—the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... astronomer. The Academy of Design. Professor Anderson's classes for working men, 72. Smith and Watt, 73. Smith's connection with Foulis's Academy of Design, 74. Smith and Wilson's type-foundry, 77. Proposed academy of dancing, fencing, and riding in the University, 79. Smith's opposition to the new Glasgow theatre, 80; his generally favourable views on theatrical representations, 81. His protests against Professor Anderson voting for his own translation to Natural Philosophy chair, 83. Joins in refusing ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... was when he sent me to beautiful music-loving Helsingfors, in Finland—where all seems to be bloodshed and confusion now—to play a recital in his own stead on one occasion, and how proud he was of my success. Yet Auer had his little peculiarities. I have read somewhere that the great fencing-masters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were very jealous of the secrets of their famous feints and ripostes, and only confided them to favorite pupils who promised not to reveal them. Auer had his little secrets, too, with ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... called up the general offices of the C. & S. C. and asked for Mr. Porter. There was some little delay in getting the connection, and then three or four minutes of fencing while a young man at the other end of the line tried to satisfy himself that Bannon had the right to ask for Mr. Porter, let alone to talk with him, and Bannon, steadily ignoring his questions, continued ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... captain gets his old accordion and squeezes out the Russian National Hymn, while Bush and I go on deck to inhale a few breaths of pure fresh fog, and chaff the second mate about his sea-serpent. In reading, playing checkers, fencing, and climbing about the rigging when the weather permits, we pass away the day, as we have already passed away twenty and must pass twenty more before we can ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... seldom bring him in intelligence; but only return stained with charcoal grime and red murder: up to late last night, he had not known where Friedrich was at all; had idly thought him busy with the Schaumburg Redoubt, on the other side of Oder, fencing and precautioning: but now (night of the 23d), these Cossacks do come in with news, "Indisputable to our poor minds, the Prussians are at Klossow yonder,—captured a dozen green vagabonds of us, and have sent us galloping!"—which news, with the night closing in on him, was astonishing, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... Liberal Percycrossian. It might be so in other boroughs, but of other boroughs he knew absolutely nothing. Who paid for the beer? Mr. Trigger at once acknowledged that it was paid for out of the general funds provided for the election. Who provided those funds? There was not a small amount of fencing on this point, during the course of which Mr. Joram snapped very sharply and very frequently at the counsel on the other side,—hoping thereby somewhat to change the issue. But at last there came out these two facts, that there was a general fund, to which ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... given my promise to show Mere Man what a woman can do in the matter of turning a mile-long furrow. I feel rather audacious over it all. And I'm glad to inject a little excitement into life ... I'm saving up for a new sewing-machine ... Tarzanette has got rather badly cut up in some of our barb-wire fencing. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... is 'pourquoi'? do or not do? I would I had bestow'd that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and bear-baiting! O, had I but ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... the {112} vineyard. And follow this order of mine and you shall have your freedom from me. And the master of the servant went abroad. Now when he had gone the servant took and fenced the vineyard, and when he had finished the fencing of the vineyard he saw that the vineyard was full of weeds. Therefore he reasoned in himself, saying: I have finished this order of the Lord; I will next dig this vineyard, and it will be better when it is ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... work done of necessity, and, after all, the leisure class is one which is rapidly increasing in America, and which needs, especially among its new recruits, the very kind of advice I am now giving. Severer games, such as cricket, which I see girls playing with their brothers, tennis, fencing, and even boxing, have for both sexes moral values. They teach, or some of them teach, endurance, contempt of little hurts, obedience to laws, control of temper, in a word, much that under ordinary ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... theatre came in turn all the London players; and once the mysterious Chevalier D'Eon was exhibited on its stage in a fencing bout with a military swordsman. The Promenade Grove, which covered part of the ground between New Road, the Pavilion, North Street and Church Street, was also an evening resort in fine weather (and to read about Brighton in its heyday is to receive ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... have already stated, the burgher had to boil or roast his own meat. The roasting was done on a spit cut in the shape of a fork, the wood being obtained from a branch of the nearest tree. A more ambitious fork was manufactured from fencing wire, and had sometimes even as many as four prongs. A skillful man would so arrange the meat on his spit as to have alternate pieces of fat and of lean, and thus get what we used to call a ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... "Well, nothing interesting ever has happened in my humdrum life before." But old Naylor pursed up his lips in contempt of her fencing. "It did seem to me a great—a great experience. Not the burglars and all that—though some of the things, like the water-butt, did amuse me very much—but our being apart from all the world, there by ourselves, against the whole world ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... stand loudly boasting of his own skill, and sounding the praises of his marvelous tinctures and salves, ere he solemnly examined the glass of urine brought by some old woman, or applied himself to pull a poor peasant's tooth. Two fencing-masters, dancing about in gay ribbons and brandishing their rapiers, met as if by accident and began to cut and pass with great apparent anger; but after a long bout each declared that the other was invincible, and took up a collection. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... extensors of the thumb, and it is most frequently met with in those who follow occupations which involve prolonged use or excessive straining of these tendons—for example, washerwomen or riveters. It also occurs as a result of excessive piano-playing, fencing, ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... done in about a month; and during that time, as Mrs. Seagrave and Juno would be, for the greatest part of it, left at the house, they were to employ themselves in clearing the garden of weeds, and making preparation for fencing it in. ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... little of this fencing with each other, in which he satisfied himself that my ignorance was not affected, he took a sudden resolution, as if it were a relief to him to ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... Coleridge showed, in the spirit of his manner, a profound sensibility to the nature of a gentleman; and he felt too justly what it became a self-respecting person to say, ever to have aped the sort of flashy fencing which might seem fine to ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... heavy, hard, strong, tough, coarse-grained, checks considerably in seasoning. Used in construction, interior finish of houses, carriage-and boatbuilding, agricultural implements, in cooperage, railway ties, fencing, etc., etc. Ranges from Quebec to Georgia and westward to Arkansas. Never abundant. Most ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... agreeably surprised to find that what I had looked forward to as a very melancholy banishment, was likely to prove a most agreeable sojourn. Under Webber's directions there was no hour of the day that hung heavily upon our hands. We rose about eleven and breakfasted, after which succeeded fencing, sparring, billiards, or tennis in the park; about three, got on horseback, and either cantered in the Phoenix or about the squares till visiting time; after which, made our calls, and then dressed for dinner, which we never thought of taking ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... down the curtain, then, and overscreen This too-protracted verbal fencing-scene; And let us turn to clanging foot and horse, Ordnance, and ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... name for a theatre was the playhouse, a house intended for all kinds of games and sport, such as fencing, bear-fights, bull-fights, jigs, morris-dances, and pantomimes, as well as for ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... go out of the house into the flower garden, there you feel again the order and fine arrangement manifest all over the great farm; in the fencing and hedging, in the windbreaks and sheds, in the symmetrical pasture ponds, planted with scrub willows to give shade to the cattle in fly-time. There is even a white row of beehives in the orchard, under the walnut trees. You feel that, properly, Alexandra's house is the big out-of-doors, and that ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... not, might tell both for and against her. Granting that she lacked true dignity, native refinement, might it not have been expected that artfulness would supply their place? Artful fencing would have stamped her of coarse nature. But coarseness she had never betrayed; he had never judged her worse than intellectually shallow. Her self-surrender might, then, indicate a trait worthy of admiration. ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... even worse. According to the old surveys, these terraces on different levels were the natural divisions of the property,—one heir or his tenant taking one, and another taking another,—an easy distinction that saved the necessity of boundary fencing or monuments, and gave no trouble to people who were either kinsmen or lived in lazy patriarchal concord. That is the form of division they are trying to reestablish now. Well," he continued, suddenly lifting ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... glad to hear what you say about the fencing school, Guy; it will be good for you to have such training. And indeed 'tis well that you should have some employment, for time would hang but wearily on your hands were you to remain long caged up here. I shall be very glad for you to go. It will make no ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... was the usual wrangle between counsel, and an attempt was made to oust or invalidate the writ by asserting that six years and a half before it (the writ) was purchased the animal had been surrendered. After this preliminary fencing counsel for the defence produced his real case, which was that by the King's charter the burgesses of Cambridge had a franchise to this extent, that when clerks or other persons were in debt they might seize their horses or other property ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... similar circumstances. Sent to Leipzig in his seventeenth year, he finds himself an awkward, ungainly lad, and sets diligently to perfecting himself in the somewhat unscholastic accomplishments of riding, dancing, and fencing. He also sedulously frequents the theatre, and wrote a play, "The Young Scholar," which attained the honor of representation. Meanwhile his most intimate companion was a younger brother of his old tutor Mylius, a young man of more than questionable morals, and who had even written a satire ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... not follow McNally's comments, and it humiliated him. Miss Porter was quick to observe his silence, and endeavored to draw him into the conversation, while Mr. McNally seemed determined to hold the reins. There was some good-natured fencing, then Mr. Porter rose. ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... $500.00 down and balance payable monthly," and of ten-acre "ranches" and five-acre "ranches"—he who had been used to numbering acres by the thousand and to whom the word "ranch" meant miles of wire fencing and beyond that ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... twenty shillings per acre. The tenant occupies it, cultivates it, pays the rent and improves it. At the close of his term, he is found to have built a good house on it instead of the old rookery he found there, while by fencing, draining, manuring and subsoiling he has doubled its productive capacity, and consequently its annual value. He wishes to cultivate it still, and offers to renew the lease for any number of years, and pay the rent punctually. "But no," says the landlord, "you ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... was hopeless for immediate results. Dale then returned to Jamestown "where the most companie were, and their daily and usual works, bowling in the streets." This game was interrupted and the men put to work felling timber, repairing their houses and providing pointed pickets for fencing a new town, which Dale proposed to ...
— Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Lyman Carrier
... me, and then when we play Hamlet, you can be Laertes, and we'll make a fine thing of the fencing scene." ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... the fields of practical philosophy, he seems to have left his genius behind him. Even the peculiar 'cunning of his right hand'—even his unexcelled logical power avails him little, so continually does he fail to see distinctly the conception with which he is fencing.... As long as he is applying given principles to the solution of practical questions; as long as he has to do with the process of an argument, he proves himself a most able instructor and guide. But when he has to grapple with a metaphysical problem, ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel |
