"Foil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his own with them, discussing questions which in their opinion demanded a special training. For an uncouth country ploughman gifted with song they were prepared, but they did not expect one who could meet them in conversation with the fence and foil of a skilled logician. We may see also his burning desire for distinction in that scene in school when he led the self-confident schoolmaster into debate and left him humiliated in the eyes of the pupils. Even ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... foil it now,' Sarrasin said carelessly. 'We should be pretty simpletons if we couldn't foil the plot now that we have the ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... courtyard drew her hurriedly from her retirement. There, beside his horse, stood Lassiter, his dark apparel and the great black gun-sheaths contrasting singularly with his gentle smile. Jane's active mind took up her interest in him and her half-determined desire to use what charm she had to foil his evident design in visiting Cottonwoods. If she could mitigate his hatred of Mormons, or at least keep him from killing more of them, not only would she be saving her people, but also be leading back this bloodspiller to some ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... 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 ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... sense of reverent appreciation that makes one linger long after the usual round of "sights" has been accomplished. The war memorial, dignified and austere, that was placed outside the west front in the autumn of 1921, is a most effective foil to the singularly unimposing pile of stone and glass behind it. But, however it may lack the elegance of the usual west "screen," this end of Winchester Cathedral has the great merit of being ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... in nitric acid, if evaporated, affords a salt which produces an effect on tin that will surprise you, and I have prepared some from the solution we made before, that I might show it to you. I shall first sprinkle some water on this piece of tin-foil, and then some of the salt. —Now observe that I fold it up suddenly, and press it ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... of tobacco in this country and abroad, and that this had been done by combinations made with a purpose and effect to stifle competition, control prices, and establish a monopoly, not only in the manufacture of tobacco, but also of tin-foil and licorice used in its manufacture and of its products of cigars, cigarettes, and snuffs. The tobacco suit presented a far more complicated and difficult case than the Standard Oil suit for a decree which ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... concerning this troublesome case, says: "I am aware thou hast passed through many trials in the prosecution of this matter. Condemned by the world, censured by some of thy friends, and discouraged by the weak, thou hast had much to bear. But thou hast been able to foil thy enemies, and to pass through the flames without the smell of fire on thy garments. Thy Christian firmness is an example to us all. It reminds one of those ancient Quakers, who, knowing themselves in the right, suffered wrongs rather than compromise their principles. For the sake ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... the other overtopped them by pealing out still more loudly and exultantly, 'And David his ten thousands.' To be brought into comparison with this unknown stripling was bitter enough, but to be used as a foil to set off his superiority was too much to be borne. There are few men, holding high places in any walk of life, who could have stood such a comparison without wincing. Suppose a great soldier in our day, coming home from a ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... 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 Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... "Ma foil!" exclaimed Mademoiselle. She seized an end of the boa and drew Gwendolyn to her knee. "You make ze head buzz. Come!" She reached for a book on the ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... 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 as far as Plymouth, where he was to take ship, when he was overtaken by a messenger ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... eyes revealed that he would have said more, but the room was meantime filling with players from the stage, some exchanging compliments, some strutting before the glass, and he would not so degrade his dignity before them. Dick, foil in hand even in the manager's room, was testing the steel's strength to his utmost, ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... He was not engaged in conversation at the time; he was contemplating his handsome wife with critical admiration, as he might have contemplated a new acquisition in his gallery of antique marbles. In his eyes the little girl beside her was a mere golden-haired, rosy, plump rustic, who served as a foil to ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... His friends, and He ours! The very ugliness of character ascribed to the owner of the loaves, selfish in his enjoyment of his bed, in his refusal to turn out on an errand of neighbourliness, and in his final giving, thus serves as a foil to the character of Him to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... printed from large, clear type on a superior quality of flexible paper and bound in English vellum cloth, assorted colors, containing charming female heads lithographed in twelve colors, as inlays; the titles being stamped in harmonizing colors of ink or foil. Cloth, 12mo size. ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... king shall be welcome, his majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall end his part in peace;[40] and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for't.[41]—What players ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... explain to you the character of what you are to read: I conceive you as a man quite beyond and below the reticences of civility: with what measure you mete, with that shall it be measured you again; with you, at last, I rejoice to feel the button off the foil and to plunge home. And if in aught that I shall say I should offend others, your colleagues, whom I respect and remember with affection, I can but offer them my regret; I am not free, I am inspired by the consideration of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he, "I thee forgot, And see thy cause of foil; An hog came since into my house, And broke thy ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... reads like a book with a purpose from which the purpose has been by some oversight omitted. When a young person fails to "find herself" (as the phrase used to go) there should surely be provided some foil to her instability, either implicit in the behaviour of other characters or expressed in the meditations of the author. Even if the author only means to tell us that human life is all like this, she ought at least to let us know that she means it. Gabrielle Brenda is presented ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... love he cannot agree; love is not of the olden time, but present and youthful ever. The speech may be compared with that speech of Socrates in the Phaedrus in which he describes himself as talking dithyrambs. It is at once a preparation for Socrates and a foil to him. The rhetoric of Agathon elevates the soul to 'sunlit heights,' but at the same time contrasts with the natural and necessary eloquence of Socrates. Agathon contributes the distinction between love and the works of love, and also hints incidentally that ...
— Symposium • Plato
... be inured to hardships and hazards, as they ought to be. They will not endure to see them return all dust and sweat from their exercise, to drink cold drink when they are hot, nor see them mount an unruly horse, nor take a foil in hand against a rude fencer, or so much as to discharge a carbine. And yet there is no remedy; whoever will breed a boy to be good for anything when he comes to be a man, must by no means spare him when young, and must very often ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... I'm coming with my expeditionary forces, and you and I'll foil them yet. One of our office men was taken sick, that was the trouble. And I've been so busy doing his work and my own, and getting this crew of wild Indians ready to invade Temple Camp, that I haven't had ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... subsidiary characters, two, Vautrin and Rastignac, furnish a second interest in the story parallel to that of Goriot and his daughters, and constituting a foil. Under the influence of Paris surroundings and experience, Rastignac passes from his naive illusions to a state of worldly wisdom, which he reaches all the more speedily as Vautrin is at his elbow, commenting with Mephistophelian shrewdness on ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... similarly immersed; lastly the crown itself was immersed, and of course—for the story must not lack its dramatic sequel—was found bulkier than its weight of pure gold. Thus the genius that could balk warriors and armies could also foil the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... who plays 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... possibly hear a word or so that would give 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 experience ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... the tops of his very high boots, and his shirt-bosom was broad and none too clean, and his flowered silk waistcoat was cut so low that two buttons sufficed to keep it in place. He wore a flowing, black necktie, glistening foil-back studs, and ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... ia ka malua ula. The malua-ula was a variety of tapa that was stained with hili kukui (the root-bark of the kukui tree). The ripe kukui nut was chewed into a paste and mingled with this stain. Mama ula refers to this chewing. The malua ula is mentioned as a foil to the pa-u, ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... the kingdom, they never would be sure that they can profit by them, for they see between them and the king a power without any well-defined functions, and without responsibility, meddling with every thing and directing nothing—this power can foil the plans of the ministers at any time, reverse their measures, and counteract ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... which were all removed and it was used for the accommodation of the lady guests. On the walls of the temporary structure hung red satin and silk banners on which were pinned ideographs cut out of gold foil or black velvet, expressive of beautiful sentiments and good wishes for many happy returns of the day. The Emperor, wishing to do this official honour, has informed him that on his mother's birthday an imperial present will ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... Even 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 ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... counterpart and foil. Six feet and three inches tall, he was long-legged, lantern-jawed and goggle-eyed. Bilious in his constitution, he was melancholic in his temperament, had been crossed in love and soured at twenty, betrayed ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... Sprawler, who is very nice to look at, whose back is very beautiful, and who sprawls most gracefully over the railings, and pays her those delightful, absurd compliments about her and her horse "being such a capital pair," while, as a foil to so much grace and splendour, a poor little snub-nosed, ill-dressed, ill-conditioned dwarf of a snob looks on, sucking the top of his cheap cane in abject admiration and hopeless envy! Then she pats and kisses the nice soft nose of Cornet Flinders's hunter, ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... their noses in the cool water, and sent the bright drops in showers about us, I looked down upon her, the dark green of her riding-habit making a rich foil to the soft glow of her cheek, and the drooping plume of her hat falling over her snowy neck and mingling with the dark ringlets, and one little hand from which she had drawn the glove playing with Fatima's tawny mane—and ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... departments of art. To endeavour to imitate him in that respect, with any the least weakness either of hand or design, is only to set the weakness in a more glaring light, dressing it up, not in the gorgeous array and real jewellery of the court, but in the foil and tinsel glitter, and mock regality of a low theatrical pageantry. And this would be the case even if we had in use his luscious vehicle; but with an inferior one, too often with a bad one, the case of weakness is aggravated, and not unseldom the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... the boxes came the eight women to eat pieces of dark meat from a tin set on the top of the sitting-room stove—then cheese and bread. The watery night turned into sleet and rattled like tin-foil on ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... character or fate of the victims; and as for "Hamlet," so far is he from any idea of blood revenge, that he doubts and disobeys the message from the other world, doubts indeed the existence of any other world, and dies at last not a bloody death, but by a foil "unbated and envenomed." ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... 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." ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... near to the north-gate of the Forest (Here General Hawley thought it prudent to change his horse for a true-blue that staid up the hills). Billy Ives likewise took a horse of Sir Harry Liddell's, went quite through the Forest and run the foil through Nightingale Bottom to Cobden at Draught, up his Pine Pit Hanger to My Lady Lewknor's Puttocks, through every mews she went in the morning; went through the Warren above Westdean (where we dropt ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... those who would limit art by the banishment of all that recalls the baser side of life. "Now, as in geometry, the oblique must be known as well as the right. So in the actions of our life, who seeth not the filthiness of evil, wanteth a great foil to perceive the beauty of virtue. This doth the comedy handle so ... as with hearing it we get, as it were, an experience.... So that the right use of comedy will, I think, by no body be blamed." No doubt, the moral aspect of comedy is here marked ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... courtiers, as both Hamlet and Laertes were known to excel at this sword play; and Hamlet taking up the foils chose one, not at all suspecting the treachery of Laertes, or being careful to examine Laertes' weapon, who, instead of a foil or blunted sword, which the laws of fencing require, made use of one with a point, and poisoned. At first Laertes did but play with Hamlet, and suffered him to gain some advantages, which the dissembling king magnified ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Nature in the highest form. It is of no use to ape it, or to contend with it. Somewhat is possible of resistance and of persistence and of creation to this power, which will foil all emulation." ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... for a keyboard, designed to provide some protection against dust and {programming fluid} without impeding typing. 4. 'elephant condom': the plastic shipping bags used inside cardboard boxes to protect hardware in transit. 5. /n. obs./ A dummy directory '/usr/tmp/sh', created to foil the Great Worm by exploiting a portability bug in one of its parts. So named in the title of a comp.risks article by Gene Spafford during the Worm crisis, and again in the text of "The Internet Worm Program: An Analysis", Purdue Technical Report ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... alyk. But of it we have sundrie diphthonges: oa, as to roar, a boar, a boat, a coat; oi, as coin, join, foil, soil; oo, as food, good, blood; ou, as house, mouse, &c. Thus, we commonlie wryt mountan, fountan, quhilk it wer more etymological to wryt montan, fontan, according ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume
... not succeed in our first attempt; some little neglect or accident may foil our present efforts, but the present enterprise will result in gathering stores of experience which will make the next effort certain. Not that I do not expect success now, but accidental failure now will not be the evidence ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... rubies, the stones set in foil, and six in number," continued the methodical chatelain, whose eye now lighted with the triumph ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... have been quite a fine ladies' argument. Kenloe puts it in the mouths of leaders of polite society. As coolly as if it had been a question of parlor decoration, they appear to have argued that the black background of the general misery was a desirable foil to set off the pomp of the rich. But, after all, this objection was not more brutal than it was stupid. If here and there might be found some perverted being who relished his luxuries the more keenly for the ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... given us a complete portrait of the boy that he was, in 'The Prelude'? He says not a word about the picture of his grandmother that he broke with his whip because the other children gave him a 'dare,' nor about the day when he went up into the attic with an old fencing-foil to commit suicide, nor about the girl with whom he fell in love while he was in France. Do you suppose that Stevenson's 'Memories and Portraits' represent the youthful R. L. S. with photographic accuracy and with all his frills? Not at all. Stevenson's essays are charming; and Wordsworth's ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... the seats inside the hearth, did Mr. Hempseed, for he was an authority and important personage not only at "The Fisherman's Rest," where Mr. Jellyband always made a special selection of him as a foil for political arguments, but throughout the neighborhood, where his learning and notably his knowledge of the Scriptures was held in the most profound awe and respect. With one hand buried in the capacious pockets of his corduroys underneath his elaborately-worked, well-worn smock, ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... 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 ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... Rose, though not so lofty in proportion; and many a bold heart beat loud, and no, shame to them, as she began firing away merrily,, determined, as all well knew, to wipe out in English blood the disgrace of her late foil. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... 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 ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... quiet holiday, His Cousin Adair, by GORDON ROY. The book has all the requisites of a good novel, including the perhaps rarest one of literary style. Cousin Adair is well worth knowing, and her character is skilfully portrayed. As a foil against this high-minded, pure-souled unselfish girl, there are sketched in two or three of the sort of people, men and women, more frequently met with in this wicked world. But Cousin Adair is good enough to leaven ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... his fastnesses and bring him to a bloody end. Here the interest centred itself in the Bandit's child, who, we need not say, was the little girl in the wreath and spangles, styled in the playbill "Miss Juliet Araminta Wife," and the incidents consisted in her various devices to foil the pursuit of the Baron and save her father. Some of these incidents were indebted to the Comic Muse, and kept the audience in a broad laugh. Her arch playfulness here was exquisite. With what vivacity she duped the High Sheriff, who had the commands of his king to take the Bandit ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... them well, ye mighty men, ye warriors stern and bold, And let your cords be very strong, your fetters manifold! For neither they nor He they trust shall foil my kingly ire, Or save them from the wrathful flame of ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... Into my head that all the world without Was but a Masque, and I was creeping back, Back from the Mourner's Feast to Truth again. Yet—I grew bold, and tried the Southern door. 'Twas locked, but held no key on the inner side To foil my own, and softly, softly, click, I turned it, and with heart, sirs, in my mouth, Pushed back the studded door and entered in ... Stepped straight out of the world, I might have said, Out of the dusk ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... dangerous and fatal nature. Villain as he is, and as he knows he stands convicted in my eyes, I cannot—dare not, openly break with or defy him. You also, Mr. Osbaldistone, must bear with him with patience, foil his artifices by opposing to them prudence, not violence; and, above all, you must avoid such scenes as that of last night, which cannot but give him perilous advantages over you. This caution I designed to give you, and it was the object with which ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Her teeth were white, but not exactly even. The small-pox had left one only mark on her chin, which was so large, it might have been mistaken for a dimple, had not her left cheek produced one so near a neighbour to it, that the former served only for a foil to the latter. Her complexion was fair, a little injured by the sun, but overspread with such a bloom that the finest ladies would have exchanged all their white for it: add to these a countenance in which, though she was extremely bashful, a sensibility appeared almost incredible; and ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... considered by grave critical authorities, the best living interpreter of Chopin. He was a Pole—any one could tell that by the way he spelt his name—and a perfect foil to Paderewski, being short, thick-set and with hair as black as a kitchen beetle. His fat amiable face, flat and corpulent fingers, his swarthy skin and upturned nose, were called comical by the women who thronged his recitals; but Mychowski at the keyboard was a different man from the ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... modulated; but recollecting that those parts of the mouth must be more ready to use for the purpose of forming the vowels, which were in the habit of being exerted in forming the other letters; I rolled up some tin foil into cylinders about the size of my finger; and speaking the vowels separately through them, found by the impressions made on them, in what part of the mouth each of the vowels was formed with somewhat greater accuracy, but not so ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... readers know anything of carpentering, let them examine the structure of their chisels. They are not made wholly of hard steel, as in that case they would be liable to snap, just as does the blade of a foil when undue pressure is brought to bear upon it. Moreover, the operation of sharpening would ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... many a change—a dark and wild turmoil; Sometimes the snake around his enemy's neck Locked in stiff rings his adamantine coil, Until the eagle, faint with pain and toil, Remitted his strong flight, and near the sea Languidly fluttered, hopeless so to foil His adversary, who then reared on high His red and burning crest, radiant ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... from under his coat a bottle of champagne, and set it on the table, where the lamp's ray fell full on its gold foil. Her eyes opened wide; for he had always visited this house in his oldest clothes and ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... jars the loss due to air is comparatively small, as the tinfoil coatings are large, close together, and the charged surfaces not directly exposed; but when the potentials are very high, the loss may be more or less considerable at, or near, the upper edge of the foil, where the air is principally acted upon. If the jar be immersed in boiled-out oil, it will be capable of performing four times the amount of work which it can for any length of time when used in the ordinary way, and the loss will ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... and I cannot write Aught that may foil the fatal wing of Time. Silent, I look at Fame: I cannot climb To where her Temple is—Not mine the might:— I have some glimmering of what is sublime— But, ah! it is a ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... three other characters, who serve to set off the main figure. Eulalia is an observer, Luitolfo a foil, Ogniben a touchstone. Eulalia and Luitolfo, though sufficiently worked out for their several purposes, are only sketches, the latter perhaps more distinctly outlined than the former, and serving ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... lest by falsely extolling this moral determining principle as a spring, making its source lie in particular feelings of pleasure (which are in fact only results), we degrade and disfigure the true genuine spring, the law itself, by putting as it were a false foil upon it. Respect, not pleasure or enjoyment of happiness, is something for which it is not possible that reason should have any antecedent feeling as its foundation (for this would always be sensible and pathological); and consciousness ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... every letter since has given me pleasure, by telling me how rapidly you recovered, and how perfectly well you are again. Pray, however, do not give me any more such Joys. I shall be quite content with your remaining immortal, without the foil of any alarm. You gave all your friends a panic, and may trust their attachment without renewing it. I received as many inquiries the next day as if an archbishop was in danger, and all the bench hoped he was ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... some nine hundred to a thousand paces. Vessels could pass up the river only at the mercy of the cannon on this island, and we deemed the location the most advantageous, not only on account of its situation and good foil, but also on account of the intercourse which we proposed with the savages of these coasts and of the interior, as we should be in the midst of them. We hoped to pacify them in the course of time, and put an end to the wars which they carry on with ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... third with large and important additions in 1679. The Second Part, after an interval of seven years, followed early in 1685. Between the two parts appeared two of his most celebrated works—the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman," published in 1680, originally intended to supply a contrast and a foil to "The Pilgrim's Progress," by depicting a life which was scandalously bad; and, in 1682, that which Macaulay, with perhaps exaggerated eulogy, has said, "would have been our greatest allegory if the earlier allegory had never been written," the "Holy War made by Shaddai upon ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... crayon points, Nos. 1, 2 and 3, Holder for the above crayons, Conte crayon, in wood, Nos. 0 and 1, 6 B. Faber's holder for Siberian lead pencil points, 4 H. Faber's holder with Siberian lead pencil point, Velour crayon, Peerless crayon sauce, Black Conte crayon sauce, in foil, White crayon, in wood, Bunch of tortillon stumps, Large grey paper stumps, Small grey paper stumps, The Peerless stump, Large rubber eraser, 4 inches by 3-4 inches square, bevelled end, Two small nigrivorine erasers, Holder for nigrivorine erasers, Piece of chamois skin, Cotton batting ...
— Crayon Portraiture • Jerome A. Barhydt
... extinguish the primitive Christian attraction to chastity, even apart from the influence of the Church authorities in repressing its romantic manifestations. In the first place, the submergence of the old pagan world, with its practice and, to some extent, ideal of sexual indulgence, removed the foil which had given grace and delicacy to the tender freedom of the young Christians. In the second place, the austerities which the early Christians had gladly practised for the sake of their soul's health, were robbed of their charm and spontaneity ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... guess what he will do? Thou child! Abet thee! Nay! he would set his foot upon thy plan and foil thee at once ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... M. de Valensolle must not be arrested. It was better to follow him on his pretended journey to Geneva, which was probably but a blind to foil investigation. It was therefore agreed that Roland, whose disguise, however good, was liable to be penetrated, should remain at the lodge, and Michel and Jacques should head off the game. In all probabilities, M. de Valensolle would not set out ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... was almost an unknown article in the United States, but in 1820 a pair of India-rubber shoes were exhibited in Boston. Even then they were regarded as merely a curiosity, and were covered with gilt foil to hide their natural ugliness. In 1823, a merchant, engaged in the South American trade, imported five hundred pairs from the Para district. He had no difficulty in disposing of them; and so great was the favor with which they were ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... should answer the expectation he has been led to form from the book of fate, he considers it as a duty to return to the temple and to burn a sheet or two of painted paper, or of paper covered with tin foil, and to deposit a few pieces of copper money on the altar, in token of gratitude for the favour he has received[52]. In this manner is consumed the greatest part of the tin that is carried to China by the trading companies of Europe. I have already observed that they ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... silently in the darkness. She was not willing to plant a seed of distrust in the bosom of her brother, yet she remembered bitterly and indignantly what Angelique had said of her intentions towards the Intendant. Was she using Le Gardeur as a foil to set off her attractions in the eyes ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... you; of course father will pay for it, but I promise you it shall be pretty, and suitable to your complexion. I mean to have eight bridesmaids. Jocelyn will be one, of course, and I shall get that tall, fair Grace Underley to act as a foil to her bigness. I shall not ask poor Lesbia to be one; it would be too trying for her, and I know you will not care about it; but you must come for a week, and see all my pretty things, and help poor mamma, for she has only Jocelyn: so remember you are to keep yourself disengaged ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... tortured with thirst, he had ventured near the spring at the headwaters of Broderson Creek, on Quien Sabe, and had all but fallen into the hands of the posse that had been watching for that very move. It was useless now to regret that he had tried to foil pursuit by turning back on his tracks to regain the mountains east of Bonneville. Now Delaney was almost on him. To distance that posse, was the only thing to be thought of now. It was no longer a question of hiding till pursuit should flag; they had driven him ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... in a hundred fights should in his hundred-and-first, [Footnote: "The painful warrior, famoused for fight, After a thousand victories once foil'd, Is from the book of honor razed quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd." Shakespeare's Sonnets.] as in his first, risk the loss of that particular battle, is inseparable from the condition of man, and the uncertainty of human means; but that the loss of this one ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... man, with a brown, squarish face, quite thin, and twinkly blue eyes and a lot of dark hair that blew around like Jerry's. He looked from one to the other of us and nodded his head to himself. I suppose we did look very queer,—quite dirty, and Jerry with the tin-foil-buckled belt still around him and no shirt; and my bloomers dangling down like a Turkish person's because of the elastics having ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... of 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 ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... to her sister, except that she was much younger, being barely eighteen years of age; but there were not wanting indications that her charms would one day even surpass those of the lovely Mrs Henderson Mrs Gaunt was a petite blonde, very pretty and engaging, and an excellent foil to Mrs Henderson, the two ladies being of exactly opposite types of beauty. Of the children no more need be said than that they were light-hearted, joyous, and just well-behaved enough to show that their parents did not intend to spoil them if ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise," Phoebus replied, and touch'd my trembling ears; "Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies: But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; As he pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in heaven ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... master, too confident of his own powers, to trifle. He delivered one of his favorite thrusts; it was a stroke of his own invention; three times out of five, in years past, it had carried home the button of his foil to his opponent's jacket. It was executed with the directness and rapidity ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... dead leaves. Steam-sieves sift it into grades, with jarrings and thumpings that make the floor quiver, and the thunder of steam-gear is always at its heels; but it continues to mutter unabashed till it is riddled down into the big, foil-lined boxes and lies ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... "Skilful Companions" cycle (see No. 11), where the hero merely directs his servants, doing none of the work himself. On the other hand, in 3, b, g, the wonderful companions are more or less impedimenta: the hero himself does all the hard work; they are merely his foil. For the "Genossen" in other Maerchen of "John the Bear" type, see Panzer, 66-74; ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... usual uncompromising aggressiveness. Then Quisante put his arms on the table, interrupted Morewood without apology, and began to talk. May thought that she would not have known how good the talk was—for it came so easily—had she not seen how soon Morewood became a listener, or even a foil, ready and content to put his questions not as puzzles but as provocatives. Yet Morewood was proverbially conceited, and he was fully a dozen years Quisante's senior. She stole a look round; the brothers were open-mouthed, Mrs. Gellatly looked almost frightened. Next her eyes scanned Quisante's face; ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... with a sigh of relief. A companion like Miss Martin makes a most excellent foil to solitude, and after she had departed, Lady Gore lay for a while in a state of pleasant quiescence. Why, she wondered, even supposing she herself did think too well of her husband, should Miss Martin object? Why do onlookers appear to resent the spectacle of a too united family? ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... intimate friend, Ned Chapman, differed from him in every respect, and made an admirable foil for the other's impetuous temperament. Ned's father was a merchant in moderate circumstances, and he had just reason to be proud ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... arms. From the ceiling of his place of business, Bone, the barkeep, cut down a fluffy lot of colored paper, stuck there in a great rosette, and with this he added much original beauty to the pile. Out of cigar-boxes came a great heap of bright tin-foil that went on the branches in a way that only ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... retouching Peter Bell; Watering his laurels with the killing tears Of slow, dull care, so that their roots to Hell Might pierce, and their wide branches blot the spheres Of Heaven, with dewy leaves and flowers; this well 30 May be, for Heaven and Earth conspire to foil ...
— The Witch of Atlas • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the fair picture of the Servant of Jehovah drawn by Isaiah is placed in the middle of the Gospel (xii. 18-21), that we may recognize it as the true portrait of Christ. Close to it on either side the blasphemies of the Pharisees are skilfully depicted as a foil to His divine beauty. We have already noticed the bearing of these quotations on the origin of the Gospel, but we must speak further of their bearing on the evangelist's view of the Old Testament. His Messianic quotations are introduced by such phrases as "that it might be fulfilled which was ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... 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 blue and ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... soft garnish of health on her cheeks, and the vigorous play of young life in her eyes; while the silvery glance of the sloping shore, and breezy ruffle of the darkening sea, did nothing but offer a foil for the form of the shell-colored frock and ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... of that wild time grew up for Vic Gregg, and the thought of free men who laughed at the law, strong men, fierce men. What would one of these have done if the girl he intended to marry had treated him like a foil? ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... Oechalian Eurytus, who, both, The Gods themselves in archery defied. Soon, therefore, died huge Eurytus, ere yet Old age he reach'd; him, angry to be call'd To proof of archership, Apollo slew. But if ye name the spear, mine flies a length By no man's arrow reach'd; I fear no foil 280 From the Phaeacians, save in speed alone; For I have suffer'd hardships, dash'd and drench'd By many a wave, nor had I food on board At all times, therefore I am much unstrung. He spake; and silent the Phaeacians sat, Of whom alone Alcinoues thus replied. Since, stranger, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... my final instructions to Amar Mitter, a high school friend who planned to accompany me to the Himalayas. We had chosen the following day for our flight. Precautions were necessary, as Ananta exercised a vigilant eye. He was determined to foil the plans of escape which he suspected were uppermost in my mind. The amulet, like a spiritual yeast, was silently at work within me. Amidst the Himalayan snows, I hoped to find the master whose face often appeared to ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... word 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
... water which fills a rubber tube; first of all the tube is distended, and its compression, or secondary effect, really transmits the impulse. A remedy for this is a condenser formed of alternate sheets of tin-foil and mica, C, connected with the battery, B, so as to balance the electric charge of the cable wire (Fig. 60). In the first Atlantic line an impulse demanded one-seventh of a second for its journey. This was ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... still smarting from the humiliation of De Montfort's reproaches, and as he laid aside his surcoat and plumed hat to take the foils with De Fulm, his eyes alighted on the master of fence, Sir Jules de Vac, who was advancing with the King's foil and helmet. Henry felt in no mood for fencing with De Fulm, who, like the other sycophants that surrounded him, always allowed the King easily to best him in ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... well known in the all-night restaurants as Oscar Hammerstein is on Forty-second Street. He was a great poker player, and wore an amalgamated copper mask when engaged in a stiff game; it was a helpful foil when trying to work his passage on a pair of trays. This, mind you, was in the stone age of poker, when a man couldn't hide his feelings when he held a full hand. To-day the player sits disconsolate and looks woebegone when glancing ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... the basement called him back down to where Izzy was busily going through piles of crates and boxes stacked along one wall. He was pointing to a lead-foil-covered box. "Dope! And all that other ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... to 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 ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... did the maiden ladies say? Have one of these," he exclaimed, exhibiting some large cigars elaborately wrapped in gold foil. "They're something peculiarly choice which a friend of ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant |
