"Fribble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forward Ida had an image of Brian Walford in her mind. It was the picture of a vapid youth, fair-haired, with thin moustache elaborately trained, and thinner whiskers—a fribble that gave half its little mind to its collar, and the other half to its boots. Such images are photographed in a flash of lightning on the sensitive brain of youth, and are naturally more often false ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... the class-morality may, I think, be gathered from Chesterfield's Letters. Though written at a later period, they sum up the lesson he has imbibed from his experience at this time. Chesterfield was no mere fribble or rake. He was a singularly shrewd, impartial observer of life, who had studied men at first hand as well as from books. His letters deal with the problem: What are the conditions of success in public life? He treats it in the method of Machiavelli; ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... stood before her like an ancient seafarer. His grey tweed suit buttoned tightly about him set off every line of his spare figure. His light brown hair was tossed all over his head, and she could not reconcile this rough traveller with the elegant fribble whom she had hitherto known as Sir Owen. But she liked him in this grey suit, dusty after long travel. He was picturesque and remote as a legend. A smile was on his lips; it showed through the frizzled moustache, and his eyes sparkled with ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... senseless than the roguery Of old aruspicy and aug'ry. 30 That out of garbages of cattle Presag'd th' events of truce or battle; From flight of birds, or chickens pecking, Success of great'st attempts would reckon: Though cheats, yet more intelligible 35 Than those that with the stars do fribble. This HUDIBRAS by proof found true, As in due time and place we'll shew: For he, with beard and face made clean, B'ing mounted on his steed agen, 40 (And RALPHO got a cock-horse too Upon his beast, with much ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... similar things in Scott. The book was not an historical romance, and the manners, sentiments, language, all were modern. Walpole knew little about the Middle Ages and was not in touch with their spirit. At bottom he was a trifler, a fribble; and his incurable superficiality, dilettantism, and want of seriousness, made all his real cleverness of no avail when applied to such a subject as "The ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... who knew the true from the false, the dross from pure gold: "Which was the most splendid spectacle ever witnessed, the opening feast of Prince George in London or the resignation of Washington? Which is the noble character for ages to admire—yon fribble dancing in lace and spangles, or yonder hero who sheathes his sword after a life of spotless honor, a purity unreproached, a courage indomitable, and a consummate victory? Which of these is the true gentleman? What is it to be a gentleman? Is ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... a glance that the count-duke is the better man physically, mentally, morally. But he never dreamed it. He thought in his inmost heart that the best thing about him was the favor of the worthless fribble whom he governed. ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... and where the intelligence wilts and bleaches!" he shrieked. "What an awful end! don't you understand? Devils! devils!" and he slipped from his chair suddenly on to the hearthrug, and lay there tearing at it with his fingers. The elegant fribble of St. James' Street had passed back to the primeval ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... stile of Juvenal, his third of this book being an imitation of that satirist's eighth, on Family-madness and Pride of Descent; the beginning of which is not translated amiss by our author. The principal object of his fourth satire, Gallio, would correspond with a modern Fribble, but that he supposes him capable of hunting and hawking, which are exercises rather too coarse and indelicate for ours: this may intimate perhaps, that the reign of the great Elizabeth had no character quite so unmanly as our age. In advising him ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber |
