"Foul" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I show you my magic, Hokosa," answered Owen cheerfully, "since, to speak truth, though I know you to be wicked, and guess that you would be glad to be rid of me by fair means or foul; yet I have taken a liking for you, seeing in you one who from a sinner ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... he, 'for not looking after your Army better. There was mutiny in the midst, and you didn't know—you damned engine-driving, plate-laying, missionary's-pass-hunting hound!' He sat upon a rock and called me every foul name he could lay tongue to. I was too heart-sick to care, though it was all his foolishness ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... dawn and Miriam like night, and as one irritated him with her calm, the other roused him with her fire, and he came to watch for Helen that he might sneer inwardly at her, with almost as much eagerness as he watched for Miriam that he might mutter foul language, ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... Nancy and Mr. Henry Lord on to the floor as head couple; a result attained by that young lady by every means, fair or foul, known to woman; at least a rudimentary, budding woman of seventeen summers! His coming to the party at all was regarded by Mother Carey, who had spent the whole force of her being in managing it, as nothing short of a miracle. He had accepted partly from secret ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... All this was familiar and satisfying; but the ancient armies of drays, and struggling throngs of men, and mountains of freight, were gone; and Sabbath reigned in their stead. The immemorial mile of cheap foul doggeries remained, but business was dull with them; the multitudes of poison-swilling Irishmen had departed, and in their places were a few scattering handfuls of ragged negroes, some drinking, some drunk, some nodding, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... cursed for no fault, but to please the cruel temper of a master; of patient women, who had so much to bear—so that sometimes he had dark thoughts of why God made the world so fair, and then left so much that was amiss, like a foul stream that makes a clear pool turbid. And there came into his head a horror of taking the lives of creatures for his own use—the shell-worm that writhed as he pulled it from the shell; the bright fish ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... movements. A day later, when the Council was about to institute special proceedings, Bonaparte again intervened with the remark that the action of the tribunal would be too slow, too restricted: a signal revenge was needed for so foul a ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... people regarded it as a duty to make every proper effort to bring the perpetrators of the foul assassination of their leaders to justice; sixty names were presented to the local grand jury, and of the persons so designated, nine were indicted. After a farcical semblance of a trial, these were acquitted, and thus was notice, sanctioned by ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... there be any prejudice against it? Surely it is better to give the remains of what we loved (or pretended to love) to cleansing fire and pure air than to lay them in a cold vault of stone, or down, down in the wet and clinging earth. For loathly things are hidden deep in the mold—things, foul and all unnameable—long worms—slimy creatures with blind eyes and useless wings—abortions and deformities of the insect tribe born of poisonous vapor—creatures the very sight of which would drive you, oh, delicate woman, into a fit ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... by my sowl, this thratemint is foul— To put your best frinds to the blush; An' wor you sinsare, in what you sed there We'd tie up your whistle, my thrush! But ULICK, machree, you can't desave me, By sayin' the word you don't mane; Or make her beleeve who ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... I'm going too,' continued Fry. 'Well, when I found 'twas Sir Blount my spet dried up within my mouth; for neither hedge nor bush were there for refuge against any foul spring 'a might have made ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... This foul smelling production seems to have a specially attractive fragrance to many animals, and for general use is much esteemed by trappers. It is a vegetable drug from Persia and the East Indies, and is imported in the form of concrete ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... pursue the question? And here, Callicles, I would have you consider how you would reply if consequences are pressed upon you, especially if in the last resort you are asked, whether the life of a catamite is not terrible, foul, miserable? Or would you venture to say, that they too are happy, if they only get ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... do. I don't deny it. There are some men who are not entirely corrupt,—some who do not cheat systematically, and lie by the compass and the rule. But these are the exceptions. This life and humanity are foul sin from the beginning. Trust no one, young man—not even me; I may turn out a rogue. I am no better than ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... the privileges of Literature in this respect have been sharply curtailed within the past eighty or ninety years. Fielding and Smollett could portray the beastliness of their day in the beastliest language; we have plenty of foul subjects to deal with in our day, but we are not allowed to approach them very near, even with nice and guarded forms of speech. But not so with Art. The brush may still deal freely with any subject, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... later time he was head of the Grand Army of the Republic, and conspicuous in various stirring eleemosynary efforts on behalf of the old soldiers, their widows and orphans. A fine American, flag-waving, tobacco-chewing, foul-swearing little man was this—and one with noteworthy political ambitions. Other Grand Army men had been conspicuous in the lists for Presidential nominations. Why not he? An excellent orator in a high falsetto way, and popular ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... the air over the heads of the centres, who jump into the air for its possession or endeavour to bat it towards the opposing goal. From this moment the ball is in play until it falls into a basket, or passes the boundary-lines, or a foul is made. After a goal has been scored, the ball is again put in play by the referee in the centre. Should it be thrown across the boundary, a player of the opposing side, standing on the line at the point where the ball went over, puts it in play by passing ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... road, but the water was muddy and foul, for it communicated with the river, and the flood had ascended it like a tide; but a quarter of a mile farther on he came across the stream again, trickling now among watercress by the side of the ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... from whom we guard our spoons; Ye smug defaulters; ye obscene buffoons; Come all, of every race and size and form, Corruption's children, brethren of the worm; From those gigantic monsters who devour The pay of half a squadron in an hour, To those foul reptiles, doomed to night and scorn, Of filth and stench equivocally born; From royal tigers down to toads and lice; From Bathursts, Clintons, Fanes, to H— and P—; Thou last, by habit and by nature blest With every gift which ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... scoundrel has dared venture into Green's Landing so soon," said Frank, grimly. "And he knows he did not succeed in his foul attempt to ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... attention to things gross and palpable, but follow the more closely those minute clews which, interlacing and concentering, often as a whole, lead them, with the greatest certainty, to the dark hand that did the foul deed. Here is ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... the perusal of a novel; Eliza was gone to attend a saint's-day service at the new church—for in matters of religion she was a rigid formalist: no weather ever prevented the punctual discharge of what she considered her devotional duties; fair or foul, she went to church thrice every Sunday, and as often on week-days as there ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... soon enough. Being at war - O noble lion of war, that would not suffer Injustice done in Italy!—he led The very flower of chivalry against That foul adulterous Lord of Rimini, Giovanni Malatesta—whom God curse! And was by him in treacherous ambush taken, And like a villain, or a low-born knave, Was by him on the public ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... lost in amazement: there I stood with my hands full—two papers, a packet, a stiletto, and a diamond ring! "Well," thought I, "this time I am most assuredly taken for somebody else—for a bravo I am not. There is some foul work going on, which, perhaps, I may prevent." "But why a sky-blue domino?" said he. I may well ask the same question. "Why the deuce did I come here in a sky-blue domino, or any domino at all?" I put the ring on ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... a time, the wicked canons of the cathedral murdered their bishop; in consequence of which foul deed, they and their successors for ever, were enjoined, by way of penance, annually to send one of their number to Rome, there to chaunt the epistle at the midnight mass. In the course of revolving centuries, this vexatious duty fell to ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... charge. As soon, therefore, as he recovered from his surprise, with indignant pride he exclaimed: "What! Gomez Arias charged with treason, when he comes to afford the most incontestable proofs of his love and devotion to his country? Where—where is the villain who dares affix so foul a stigma to the name of Gomez Arias? Where is he?—let him appear, that I may confound and chastise the miscreant;" then looking round with haughtiness, he added, "who dares charge me ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... And yet.., and yet... if I had cause to think it true, I'd... I'd run you through the vitals—jus' so," and he prodded Richard's waistcoat with the point of his pipe-stem. His swarthy face darkened, his eyes glittered fiercely. "Are ye sure ye're norrer foul traitor?" he demanded suddenly. "Are y' sure, ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... our king, and bless this land With plenty, joy, and peace, And grant henceforth that foul debate ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... teaches us that the party hangs the people. By the way, you've done Webb a good turn; Rann is going to fight you fair and foul—mostly foul." ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... bad odor with his dogship—and cursing him for a misbegotten wolf, Big Black Burl would be all afire in the flash of a gun-flint, and ready to pulverize the false muzzle that dared dab the fair name of his four-footed chum with a slur so foul. Sometimes, though, the white hunters, also, would curse Grumbo—denouncing him as a dog too wanting in the milk of human kindness to be allowed a place in human society, unmuzzled, excepting when on duty. Too mindful of what was expected of him as a man of ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... which the air is kept by means of a bellows, and therefore cannot escape unless at its normal tension. In the Rouquayrol apparatus such as we use, two india rubber pipes leave this box and join a sort of tent which holds the nose and mouth; one is to introduce fresh air, the other to let out the foul, and the tongue closes one or the other according to the wants of the respirator. But I, in encountering great pressures at the bottom of the sea, was obliged to shut my head, like that of a diver in a ball of copper; and it is to this ball of copper that the two ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... of the foul-mouthed rowdies would make me writhe with disgust. As a rule they were ostensibly addressed to some of the other fellows or to nobody in particular, their real target being the nearest girls. These would ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Algy, "he asked me what I meant by making a foul chimney of my nose and stewing my brain all day long in a mess of nicotine. He further asked me why I didn't give ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... the Londoner was ill provided with outdoor pleasure resorts. It is true he had the Paris Garden at Bankside, which Donald Lupton declared might be better termed "a foul den than a fair garden. It's a pity," he added, "so good a piece of ground is no better employed;" but, apart from two or three places of that character, his al fresco amusements were exceedingly limited. It should not be forgotten, ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... Mand of Muresc, son of Daire, of the Domnandach, to fight Cuchulainn. Own brothers were lie and Fer Diad, and two sons of one father. This Mand was a man fierce and excessive in eating and sleeping, a man ill-tongued, foul-mouthed, like Dubthach Doeltenga of Ulster. He was a man strong, active, with strength of limb like Munremar Mac Gerrcind; a fiery warrior like Triscod Trenfer of ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... the strength of ten men living; but I gripped it with all my might—the slippery, oozy, horrible thing. The dead white eyes seemed to stare at me out of the dusk; the putrid odour of rank sea-water was about it, and its shiny hair hung in foul wet curls over its dead face. I wrestled with the dead thing; it thrust itself upon me and forced me back and nearly broke my arms; it wound its corpse's arms about my neck, the living death, and overpowered me, so that I, ...
— The Upper Berth • Francis Marion Crawford
... and Yucouf bled! A dead king blocks my door!' 'If thy halls and walls be red, Shall Samarcand ask more? Or my song shall cleanse thy house or my heart's blood foul thy floor!' ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... pass that way! Would his body confront some wandering shepherd or some sportsman months hence, when the snows had gone, and, perhaps—horrible thought, yet possible to be realized!—after carrion birds had made their onslaught on the foul thing it had become? ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... the dog I chide, The flesh and fish and fowl we feed on Are kindred, too; is that agreed on? Then kindred blood I quite disown, Though it descended from a throne, For it connects us down, also, With everything that's mean and low— Insects and reptiles, foul and clean, And men a thousand times more mean. Let's hear no more of noble blood, For noble brains, or actions good, Are ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... a fungus that has grown in a wine-cask, whose presence nobody suspected. It sucks up all the generous liquor to feed its own filthiness, and when the staves are broken, there is no wine left, nothing but the foul growth. Many a Christian man and woman has the whole Christian life arrested, and all but annihilated, by the unsuspected influence of a secret sin. I do not believe it would be exaggeration to say that, for one man ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... love must come on silken wings, With bridal lights of diamond rings,— Not foul with kitchen smirch, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... "With foul augury have ye left the abode of your country, thinking to harry these fields in War. What idle notion mocks your minds? What blind self-confidence has seized your senses, that ye think this soil can thus be won. The ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the Prince Royal executed. Hwaiti is considered the first Chinese emperor to have fallen into the hands of a foreign conqueror. Two years after his capture, Hwaiti was compelled to wait on his conqueror at a public banquet, and when it was over he was led out to execution. This foul murder illustrates the character of the new race and men who aspired to rule over China. The Tartar successes did not end here, for a few years later they made a fresh raid into China, capturing Hwaiti's ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... when in sinking his foundations he finds the rock like a petrified sponge—but not like a sponge in this, that the galleries are artificial. A paysan lets himself down his well to clean it out, as the water is foul. He finds that in the side of the shaft is the opening of a passage; he enters, follows it, and finds a labyrinth ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... for them. On one occasion, when the queen attempted to make her way up the Thames in the hope of joining her son at Windsor, the citizens assailed her barge so fiercely from London Bridge that she was forced to return to the Tower. The foul insults which the rabble poured upon his mother deeply incensed Edward and he became a bitter foe of the city for the rest of his life. For the moment the hostility of London was decisive against Henry. Once more the king ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... devil in person," thought Brigitte; "not a word of excuse about all that glass, but he must needs fall foul of my brandy too!—Monsieur," she resumed, in the same raised diapason, "as Monsieur Felix is not coming, don't you think your family will be ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... however, immediately falls foul of the word 'opinion' here, abstracts it from the universe of life, and uses it as a bare dictionary-substantive, to deny the rest of the assumptions which it coexists withal. The dictionary says that an opinion ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... of discovery round the world. During many successive years he saw a great deal of hard service, and so constantly had he to contend, on his various expeditions, with adverse gales and dangerous storms, that he was nicknamed by the sailors, "Foul-weather Jack." It is to this that Lord Byron alludes in his ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... cards carefully, to make double sure it was not a foul hand, wrote a sum on a paper slip, and slid it into the pot, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... circumstances good and loyal subjects. But the efforts of the apostle Paul, to crush the monster abolitionism, did not entirely succeed, for it has continued to agitate the church, from that day to the present hour. Yes, the foul fiend, with head erect, and brazen front, is stalking over our beloved country ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... his chair and got to his feet, overcome by a choking sensation like that of being, asphyxiated by foul gases. He must get out at once, or faint. What he had seen in the man's eyes had aroused in him sheer terror, for it was the image of something in his own soul which had summarily gained supremacy and led him hither, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in many ways found stumbling-blocks in the first foster-children of the excellent Jedediah. The very pious and learned, if not exactly humorous or shrewd, Dr. M'Crie, fell foul of the picture of the Covenanters given in Old Mortality. No one who knows the documents is likely to agree with him now, and from hardly any point of view but his could the greatness of the book be denied. Although Scott's ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... stimulating. (Beside, there is no law prohibiting profanity in books: the whole inquiry here is but so much lagniappe.) On page 408, in describing a character called Daniel C. Summerfield, Dreiser says that the fellow is "very much given to swearing, more as a matter of habit than of foul intention," and then goes on to explain somewhat lamely that "no picture of him would be complete without the interpolation of his various expressions." They turn out to be God damn and Jesus Christ—three of the latter and five or ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... given. The defendant claimed that it should be given by word of mouth, being anxious to know who had earned their money. Staienus and Bulbus were the first to vote. To the surprise of all, they voted "Guilty." Rumors too of foul play had spread about. The two circumstances caused some of the more respectable jurors to hesitate. In the end five voted for acquittal, ten said "Not Proven," and seventeen "Guilty." Oppianicus suffered nothing worse than banishment, a banishment which did not prevent him ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... I stand here to-night, a Southerner speaking for my section, and addressing an audience from all sections, there is one foul blot upon the fair fame of the South, at the bare mention of which the heart turns sick and the cheek is crimsoned with shame. I want to lift my voice to-night in loud and long and indignant protest against the awful horror of mob violence, ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... make you happy—there's nothing before you but misery—and death—and hell." Barry shook like a child in the clutches of its master—"Yes, Barry; misery and death, and all the tortures of the damned. It's to save you from this, my own brother, to try and turn your heart from that foul love of money, that your sister is now speaking to you from her grave.—Oh, Barry! try and cure it. Learn to give to others, and you'll enjoy what you have yourself.—Learn to love others, and then you'll know what it is to be loved yourself. Try, try to soften ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... may be effected. We read that in old times, when the villeins were driven to revolt by oppression, when the castles of the nobility were burned to the ground, when the warehouses of London were pillaged, when a hundred thousand insurgents appeared in arms on Blackheath, when a foul murder perpetrated in their presence had raised their passions to madness, when they were looking round for some captain to succeed and avenge him whom they had lost, just then, before Hob Miller, or Tom Carter, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... as he watched from the rampart the lines and movements of the enemy, heard many comments no less uncomplimentary than those of his master-of-the-horse, and couched in language almost as coarse as that of the Numidians themselves. It seemed as if the foul words of the barbarians were passed on thus to the man held responsible for Romans being compelled to listen ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... his breath. "It's the thing I run foul of every time I try to enforce the law against these people. But just the same I'm going to get this fellow, somehow, for he's one of the gang that fired into the Pallozzos and killed Tony Alto. That's another thing I know but can't prove. What made you ask if that ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... thereto is yet incumbered With the descending spectres of the killed. 'Tis said they choke hell's gates, and stretch from thence Out like a tongue upon the silent gulf; Wherein our spirits—even as terrestrial ships That are detained by foul winds in an offing— Linger perforce, and feel broad gusts of sighs That swing them on the dark and billowless waste, O'er which come sounds more dismal than the boom, At midnight, of the salt flood's foaming surf,— Even ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... it wuz this way: I was coming ercross Noo Mexico about a month back, when I runs foul o' a hombre what is all in. He hadn't et fer so long thet yer could see ther bumps made by his backbone through his shirt. I hed some grub in my war bag, an' I fed an' watered him. This yer nag wuz all in, too, an' he hed a long way ter go, so when ther feller ups an' perposes ter trade ponies ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... be canned. There were cattle which had been fed on "whisky-malt," the refuse of the breweries, and had become what the men called "steerly"—which means covered with boils. It was a nasty job killing these, for when you plunged your knife into them they would burst and splash foul-smelling stuff into your face; and when a man's sleeves were smeared with blood, and his hands steeped in it, how was he ever to wipe his face, or to clear his eyes so that he could see? It was stuff such as this that made the "embalmed beef" that had killed several times as many United ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... public affairs do many things through hatred or favour. And, as a proof of what we have advanced, it may be observed, that whenever a sick person suspects that his physician has been persuaded by his enemies to be guilty of any foul practice to him in his profession, he then rather chooses to apply to books for his cure: and not only this [1287b] but even physicians themselves when they are ill call in other physicians: and those who teach others ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... foul, to be sure, but once past the first ten or a dozen feet I mounted quickly. Towards the top the shaft narrowed so that for a while I had my doubts if it could be squeezed through: but I found, on reaching it, that the brickwork shelved ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... adventure for hell, is a most uncharitable thought, and, uttered, a more malicious slander. For my particular, I can, and from a most clear conscience, affirm, that I have ever trembled to think toward the least profaneness; have loathed the use of such foul and unwashed bawdry, as is now made the food of the scene: and, howsoever I cannot escape from some, the imputation of sharpness, but that they will say, I have taken a pride, or lust, to be bitter, and not my youngest infant but hath come into the ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... should be at the gate regularly to receive letters and parcels, and this involved constant attention to the time of the mail passing. When no one was there, the coachman left the property of the family at the side of the road. Hobbs, however, was usually up to time, fair weather and foul, and this was the first time his master had been called on ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... The first ship it lifted completely on to the ice; the next was nearly stove in, and many of her timbers were broken; and then, getting more in earnest, it regularly dashed to pieces the four next it got foul of, sending them flying over ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... kill envoys," said the Molimo, "but if they are foul-mouthed, I throw them out of my walls. Your message, ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... him through life, the primitive ideal that what a man desires he must fight for and take as best he may. From his youth upwards he had coveted little that he had not obtained; the success was everything, the means used did not trouble him. If fair ones failed, foul ones were resorted to, and his conscience troubled him not at all. If, without hindrance to himself, he could return some service for one rendered, he did so, and with a certain class of men and women won for himself ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... sister province was long hermetically sealed against the footprints of the white man. Twenty or even ten years ago to venture within its limits would have cost a European his life. Its capital, Changsha, was the seat of an anti-foreign propaganda from which issued masses of foul literature; but the lawless hostility of the people has been held in check by the judicious firmness of the present viceroy, and that city is now the seat of numerous mission bodies which are vying with each other in their efforts to diffuse light and knowledge. ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... require the assumption of a soul to make it foul up a robot's works. He doesn't have any emotions, either. And he can't handle something that he can't experiment with. It would have driven him insane, all right. But he ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... lodgings at a dirty little hotel close by, called the "Stadt Frankfort." If there is any worse place to be found in Stockholm, it must be the very worst on the face of the earth, for the "Stadt Frankfort" is next thing to it. Being dirty and foul of smell, and abounding in vermin, of course the charges are, as usual in such cases, proportionally high, for which reason I recommend it to any gentleman traveling in this direction whose main object is to get rid of his money for ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... were upon a little island, between two shallow arms of the stream. The camp of the pearl fisher lay at the lower end; and never have I seen or smelled so foul a place for human habitation. The one large tent served as shelter, and a rude awning sheltered the ruder table in the open air. But directly about the tent, and all around it in every direction, lay heaps of clam shells, most of them opened, some not yet ready for opening. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... the strict construction school. Many were conquered by expediency and threw logic to the winds; some preferred to be consistent and spoil a good cause. The bill did not sail on untroubled seas, even after it had been steered clear of constitutional shoals. It narrowly ran foul of that obstinate Western conviction, that the public lands belonged of right to the home-seeker, to whose interests all such grants were inimical, by reason of the increased price of ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... Police depot were swallowed up in the humid murk, and again I found myself being carried through the darkness of those narrow streets, which, like a maze, hold secret within their labyrinth mysteries as great, and at least as foul, as that of Pasiphae. ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... not seem monstrous to wise men, that the heart of the greatest conqueror of the world should be found in the hands of the weakest creature of nature? of a woman? of a captive? Ermines have fair skins but foul livers; sepulchres, fresh colours but rotten bones; women, fair faces but false hearts. Remember, Alexander, thou hast a camp to govern, not a chamber; fall not from the armour of Mars to the arms of Venus, from the fiery assaults of war to the maidenly skirmishes ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... dead! Foul thought From lies of vaunting Treason caught, And Fear's pale minions, wrapped in sorrow's pall. Great Freedom dead! In God-like power, 'Tis Freedom rules e'en this dread hour, And guides the tempest 'neath whose blows we fall. Yea! War and Anarchy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... feet, and to ponder as to who it was that my lady had sent me thither to mark. Had I not loved my lady with all my heart, methinks I could not have stood the terms that were heaped upon me by the brawlers. I will not repeat the foul slanders; suffice it to say, I sustained for one half hour what few men are called upon to ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... after the cold and misery of the past two days. Astara (though the port of Tabriz) is an insignificant place, its sole importance lying in the fact that it is a frontier town. On one side of the narrow river a collection of ramshackle mud huts, neglected gardens, foul smells, beggars, and dogs—Persia; on the other, a score of neat stone houses, well-kept roads and paths, flower-gardens, orchards, a pretty church, and white fort surrounded by the inevitable black-and-white sentry-boxes, guarded by a company ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... color, and the snow-peaks reared themselves against the near horizon in glaring blocks and dazzling spires. Rowland made his way to several chalets, but most of them were empty. He thumped at their low, foul doors with a kind of nervous, savage anger; he challenged the stupid silence to tell him something about his friend. Some of these places had evidently not been open in months. The silence everywhere was horrible; it seemed to mock at his impatience ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... Valley of Humiliation poor Christian was hard put to it. For he had gone but a little way before he espied a Foul Fiend coming over the field to meet him. His name is Apollyon. Then did Christian begin to be afraid and to cast in his mind whether to go back or to stand his ground. But he considered again, that he had no armour for his back, and therefore thought that to turn the back to him ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... the life of the commercial clerk. The labourer's tasks are at least changed by the seasons; but time brings no such diversion to the clerk. It is this horrible monotony which so often makes the clerk a foul-minded creature; driven in upon himself, he has to create some kind of drama for his instincts and imaginations, and often from the sorriest material. When I played single-handed cribbage with the few trivial interests which I knew, I at least took an innocent diversion; ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... him in one event of his life; that life's first great tragedy; forms well remembered—never to be forgotten. He saw the form of one who had been betrayed and forsaken, bowed and crushed by grief, and staring with white face and haggard eyes; he saw the form of the false friend and foul traitor slinking away with averted face; he saw the form of the true friend, true as steel, standing up solidly in his loyalty between those whom he loved and the Ruin that was before them; and, lastly, he saw the central figure of all—a ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... question," said Babadul; "times are critical, heads fly in abundance, and a poor tailor's may go as well as a vizier's or a capitan pacha's. But pay me well, and I believe I would make a suit of clothes for Eblis, the foul fiend, himself." ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... him was Ylario, whom the coming reward of the /mayordomo/ship must have greatly stimulated, for McGuire chained him to a bitter existence. The air—the man's only chance for life—he commanded to be kept out by closed windows and drawn curtains. The room was always blue and foul with cigarette smoke; whosoever entered it must sit, suffocating, and listen to the imp's interminable ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... people, my honour and my blood, if need be, even in the dust I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and courage of a king, and of a King of England too. And I think foul scorn that Spain, or any Prince of Europe, should dare to invade the ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae
... Sir Rudolph said, "It were a sorry joke. If I to-night should make my bed On the turf, beneath an oak! Poor Roland reeks from head to hoof;— Now, for thy sake, good roan, I would we were beneath a roof, Were it the foul fiend's own!" ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... when countless billions drift on to the beaches and die and become green and grey with corruption, the fumes are by no means in proportion to the marvellous littleness of the individual plants. Then we know by the organs of scent and sight that August has come. The beaches are foul. The breakers roll in unbroken or with a muddy, froth, for the scum acts as ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... wrought for righteousness, the purer religious life that followed amply proves. The true poet is also a prophet; and Robert Burns was a prophet when he spoke forth boldly and fearlessly the truth that was in him, and dared to say that sensuality was foul even in an elder of the kirk, and that profanities were abhorred of God even though sanctioned and sanctified under ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... Tinker grew more angry than ever, and smote again with all his might and main. Again Robin warded two of the strokes, but at the third, his staff broke beneath the mighty blows of the Tinker. "Now, ill betide thee, traitor staff," cried Robin, as it fell from his hands; "a foul stick art thou to serve me thus in mine hour ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... but snowflakes born to shine for a moment and then to fade, to die, to disappear, to become part of the black, the foul-smelling slough of mud below? The drama in muslin was again unfolded, and she could read each act; and there was a 'curtain' at the end of each. The first was made of young, hopeful faces, the second of ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... neither the cold rain nor the howling wind had given him such a chill as crept through all his body, when memory and realization drove forth this sweet flower of his imagination. All the cruel hopelessness, the horror of his position, rushed in upon him like a foul nightmare. He saw himself shunned and despised, the faces of all men averted from him; all that had gone to make his life worthy, and even famous, forgotten in the stigma of an awful crime. He saw her ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thou, O Bard! with rapture glow: Thou hast not bent, with slavish meekness, Before our age's shame thy brow; The splendours of the wicked spurning, Thou wav'dst a torch, terrific burning, Whose lurid lustre fiercely fell On that foul nest of vulture-rulers; Loud rang thy lash and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... him for leaving her the task of meeting the little tradesmen, who grew foul-mouthed and truculent over an account of two or three shillings, as is their wont in that part of London. Rather, she sorrowed over the far smaller share of worry which did fall to him, and tried to take it all on to her own shoulders. ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... was a lie, but what was I to do, knowing how dangerous it would be for Carmel to have it publicly known where my affections were really centred and what a secret tragedy of heart-struggle and jealous passion underlay this open one of foul and murderous death. "I am in no position to conceal anything from you. I did love Miss Cumberland. We have been engaged for a year. She was a woman of fortune but I am not without means of my own and could have chosen a penniless girl ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... proper To execute at once upon the Jew The penal laws in such a case provided By papal and imperial right, against So foul ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... my best information since, that Thomas Paine had a noble personality, as exhibited in presence, face, voice, dress, manner, and what may be call'd his atmosphere and magnetism, especially the later years of his life. I am sure of it. Of the foul and foolish fictions yet told about the circumstances of his decease, the absolute fact is that as he lived a good life, after its kind, he died calmly and philosophically, as became him. He served the embryo Union with most precious service—a service that every man, woman and child in our ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... thousand on his own account—still, I'm bound to say the odds were against the pony. The whole of Delhi got into a state of excitement about it, natives and all, and every day I got letters warning me to take care, as there might be foul play. The stable the pony was in was a big one, and I had a wall built across it, and put a man with a gun in the outer compartment. I bought all his corn myself, in feeds at a time, going here, there, and everywhere ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... ship met with such foul weather, out at sea, as don't blow once in twenty year, my darling. There was hurricanes ashore as tore up forests and blowed down towns, and there was gales at sea, even in them latitudes, as not the stoutest wessel ever launched could live in. Day ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... buildings themselves, the deeply-sunk and humid soil, which in fact formed an open sewer that drained the adjacent streets, supported several permanent gibbets arranged in the form of a cross; while the thoroughfares by which it was approached were foul and fetid lanes, breathing nothing ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... claim my own, and to clear Harold from the foul suspicion heaped upon him—by whom, at first, I do not know, but it was helped on by you. I have seen the paper, have heard the whole from grandma, and am here to defend him. It was I who gave him the diamonds! It was for me he kept silent, ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... unguardedly you yield to fatigue and give yourself over to rest—what demon is it that then enters through the open portal, inoculates your heart with a black drop, stirs up and discolors and poisons with it all your blood until, foul and heavy as lead, it forces its way through ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... sin. 'Tis written, one way is there, one, to win This life's race, could man keep it from his birth, A true clean spirit. And through all this earth To every false man, that hour comes apace When Time holds up a mirror to his face, And girl-like, marvelling, there he stares to see How foul his heart! Be it not ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... and drunk them up, leaving an atmosphere of fever heat and crystal pureness from horizon to horizon, the mists had still been there, and we knew that this paradise was haunted by killing damps and foul malaria. The fences along the line bore but two descriptions of advertisement; one to recommend tobaccos, and the other to vaunt remedies against the ague. At the point of day, and while we were all in the grasp of that first chill, a native of the state, who had got in at some way station, pronounced ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sent in answer, and that Sylvia being to write with her own hand begot a new doubt, insomuch as the whole business was at a stand: for when it came to that point that she herself was to consent, she found the project look with a face so foul, that she a hundred times resolved and unresolved. But Philander filled her soul, revenge was in her view, and that one thought put her on new resolves to pursue the design, let it be never so base and dishonourable: 'Yes,' cried she at last, 'I can commit no action ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... least offensive titles are such as "blockhead," "liar" and "apostate," exceed even the wide limits of abuse customary in these days. Corruptio optimi pessima: such a man as Milton, if he once descends to the bandying of foul language, will beat the very bargemen themselves. But what astonished his contemporaries was not his violence but his courage. An unknown Englishman had dared to meet the giant of learning on his own ground and had at least held his own. It may ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... examined who had known or seen her at any period of her short life. The judgment passed on her before was contradicted, and she was declared a good and innocent woman. They would have given the whole world then to have had her back and to have made amends to her for their foul injustice. But the opinions of men no longer mattered to her. The twenty-five years since she had been burnt at Rouen had been the first twenty-five of her uncounted ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... the ship to the opening, across which she passed with frightful rapidity. The strength of the current prevented the Endeavour from touching either shore of the channel, which, however, was but a mile in width, and extremely unequal in depth, giving now thirty fathoms, now only seven of foul bottom." ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... uttered a foul oath, and leaped at Jimmie; but Jimmie had expected that, he was looking out for himself. There was no railing to the little porch on which he stood, and he leaped off to the ground and away. Because he knew the lay of the land, ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... thee. O my Friends, when we view the fair clustering flowers that overwreathe, for example, the Marriage-bower, and encircle man's life with the fragrance and hues of Heaven, what hand will not smite the foul plunderer that grubs them up by the roots, and, with grinning, grunting satisfaction, shows us the dung they flourish in! Men speak much of the Printing Press with its Newspapers: du Himmel! what are these to ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... as the deed of the strikers. The strikers held a meeting and denounced the charge as a foul slander; but the Clarion continued to denounce them ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... answered Mary, with a loyal smile. 'I've proved my captain in fair weather and in foul, and if he is ever wrecked again, I'd rather be with him than ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... put him to death. He was first shot through the chest, and then stabbed with spears, cut to pieces with swords, and left on the ground. They were fired upon from the fort, while engaged in this foul murder, but all escaped unhurt. Maun Sing had sworn by the holy Ganges, and still more holy head of Mahadeo, that his friend should suffer no personal hurt in this interview; and the credulous and no less cruel ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... James V., had headed the party in Scotland most opposed to the English. He expelled the queen-mother, Margaret, sister of Henry; he seized the persons of the two young princes, whom he shut up in Stirling, where the younger brother died under suspicion of foul play (Despatches of Giustiniani, Vol. I. p. 157); and subsequently, in his genius for intrigue, he gained over the queen dowager herself in a manner which touched her honour.—Lord Thomas Dacre to Queen Margaret: Ellis, second series, Vol. I. ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... healthy dog can seldom, for many days, be kept with another that labours under distemper without becoming affected; and the disease is communicated by the slightest momentary contact. There is, however, a great deal of caprice about this. I have more than once kept a dog in the foul-yard of my hospital for several successive weeks, and he has not become diseased. Inoculation with the matter that flows from the nose, either limpid or purulent, and in an early or advanced stage of the distemper, will, with few exceptions, produce the disease; ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... nought to the tales of shame, The constant runnings of evil fame, Foul, and dirty, and black as ink, That her ancient cronies, with nod and wink, Poured in her horn like slops in a sink: While sitting in conclave, as gossips do, With their Hyson or Howqua, black or green, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... caused me to make profession of the order of chivalry to which I belong, and the vow I took therein to give aid to those in need and under the oppression of the strong. But as I know that it is a mark of prudence not to do by foul means what may be done by fair, I will ask these gentlemen, the guards and commissary, to be so good as to release you and let you go in peace, as there will be no lack of others to serve the king under ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... of our money and our resources! What will Clutterbuck and the fellows at the club say? How can I alter the ways of life that I have learned?" Then, suddenly clenching his hands, and turning upon his father he broke out, "We must have it back, father; we must, by fair means or foul. You must do it, for it was you who lost it. What can we do? How long have we to do it in? Is this known in the City? Oh, I shall be ashamed to show my face on 'Change." So he rambled on, half-maddened by the pictures of the future which rose up ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a supply. The principal charges against this trust, made by those who were conversant with its operations, have never been that it was particularly oppressive to consumers of oil; but that, in the attempt to crush out its competitors, it has not hesitated to use, in ways fair and foul, its enormous strength and influence to ruin those who dared to ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... his contrivances to slide Catholics into churches which were not theirs, and the like foul-play in that matter, had been sorrowful to see, for some time past. The Elector of Mainz, Chief-Priest of Germany, is busy in the same bad direction; he and others. Indeed, ever since the Peace of Ryswick, where Louis XIV. surreptitiously ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... SALISBURY. More gain than loss; for of your wives you shall Find one a slut whose fairest linen seems Foul as her dust-cloth, if she used it—one So charged with tongue, that every thread of thought Is broken ere it joins—a shrew to boot, Whose evil song far on into the night Thrills to the topmost tile—no hope but death; One slow, fat, white, ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... thoroughly, and to add salt with such discretion as not to ruin the fine, delicate flavor of the fresh cream,—all this is quite simple, so simple that one wonders at thousands and millions of pounds of butter yearly manufactured which are merely a hobgoblin-bewitchment of cream into foul and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... of her he would make atonement. He was but a young man; many years of life should lie before him; and of these years he would give, give all, and ask nothing. It was the sad wreck of a life that lay before him—a stinking, noisome wreck— yet there must be something in it that was neither foul nor unsightly. That thing he would find. He set his jaw. Leaden eyes became bright.... Then, he was near ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... hard; and like Loki of the Sagas when the snake dropped poison on his forehead, his writhings shook the world and caused earthquakes. Now its power is well-nigh dead. "Superstition! that horrible incubus which dwelt in darkness, shunning the light, with all its racks and poison-chalices, and foul sleeping-draughts, is passing away without return." [Footnote: Carlyle.] But society was once leavened with it. Alchemy, astrology, and magic were a fashionable cult, and so long as its professors pleased their ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... is too far away for you—come home with me then, come here to Chicago. Here in this city to-night ten thousand women are shut up in foul pens, and driven by hunger to sell their bodies to live. And we know it, we make it a jest! And these women are made in the image of your mothers, they may be your sisters, your daughters; the child whom you left at home tonight, whose laughing eyes will greet you in the morning—that ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... past, they were wont to defend themselves against evil Spirits, before the Cowl of St. Francis was found to be so formidable. All these Things were provided, lest if it should be an evil Spirit it should fall foul upon the Exorcist: nor did he for all this, dare to trust himself in the Circle alone, but he determined to take some other Priest along with him. Upon this Polus being afraid, that if he took some sharper Fellow than himself along with ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... study of monastic catalogues shows quite plainly that the number of duplicates in any considerable library was very large. On the other hand, it is clear that books often got out of the old libraries into the hands of quite unauthorised persons: so that there was probably both fair and foul play in this matter."[3] To Pembroke College came gifts from successive Masters and from friends between the date of foundation and the year 1484, when the College had received 158 volumes in this way.[4] One of the donors was Rotherham, ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... when placed in equally hazardous circumstances, and shew that firmness and presence of mind are equal to almost every emergency. The anchorage in Victor Harbour is under the lea of Granite Island, but I believe it is foul and rocky, and until both it and Rosetta Harbour shall be better known, the seaman will enter them with caution. Encounter Bay indeed, is not a place into which the stranger should venture, as he would find it extremely difficult to beat out to sea with a contrary wind. ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... to the brig, we passed over a clear sandy bottom that would have afforded better anchorage than where we had brought up; for the vessel was not only exposed to a considerable swell but the ground was so foul that in weighing the anchor the following morning one of the flukes hooked a rock and broke off, besides which the ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King |
