Filigree

“ The handful of filibusters, without gold lace or epaulettes, who were spoken of with such solemn contempt, had routed several thousand of the Bourbon's best troops, artillery and all, commanded by one of those generals who, like Lucullus, are ready to spend the revenue of a province on one night's supper. One corps of citizens—not to say filibusters—animated by love of their country, can therefore gain a victory unaided by all this needless splendor. ”

“ As he said this the Inca plucked a thread of crimson intertwisted with gold from the borla that he still wore in his fallen state, and gave it to Filipillo. The interpreter received it with great show of reverence and with a thrill of delight in his heart, for he knew that the bearer of such a token was the very mouthpiece of the Son of the Sun, and could give orders as sacred as the command of his own lips. He pressed it to his forehead and bowed almost to the ground, saying—
“The word of my Lord is the law of his slave. ”

“ She was for many years a most conspicuous figure in Roman society, and at the time of her death, in 1689, Filicaïa, a poet of some local reputation, declared that her kingdom comprised "all those who thought, all those who acted, and all those who were endowed with intelligence." ”

“ This, after she had wrapped it in fine cambric, she sent to her Filippo by a certain young man of Florence, who knew how things stood with her, and who was going to France after his own affairs, charging him that he should himself deliver it to Filippo with no farther words than these: "She who loves you and you only sends you this, and implores you to let her have a fitting answer thereto."
In due time the envoy with his offering and his messages arrived at Filippo's house and was joyfully received ”

“ Filicaja’s rural seclusion was owing even more to his straitened means than to his rural tastes. If he ceased at length to pine in obscurity, the change was owing not merely to the fact that his poetical genius, fired by the deliverance of Vienna from the Turks in 1683, poured forth the right strains at the right time, but also to the influence of Redi, who not only laid Filicaja’s verses before his own sovereign, but had them transmitted with the least possible delay to the foreign princes whose noble deeds they sung. ”

“ From this time forward until the date of his death, Filelfo’s history consists of a record of the various towns in which he lectured, the masters whom he served, the books he wrote, the authors he illustrated, the friendships he contracted, and the wars he waged with rival scholars. He was a man of vast physical energy, of inexhaustible mental activity, of quick passions and violent appetites; vain, restless, greedy of gold and pleasure and fame ”

“ Michel thinks the word comes from the Spanish faraute, head man.
Philantrope, m. (pedlars’) , thief, “prig.” For synonyms see Grinche.
Philibert, m. (thieves’) , thief, “prig;” swindler or sharper, “shark.” See Grinche.
Philippe, m. (popular) , silver or gold coin. An allusion to the effigy of Louis Philippe.
On dit que tu as poissé nos philippes (filouté nos pièces d’or) .—Balzac.
Philippine, f. (familiar and popular) . When a person cracks an almond for another, should there be a double kernel, he who cries out first, “Bonjour, Philippine!” can exact a present from the other. ”

“ FILICAJA, VINCENZO DA (1642–1707) , Italian poet, sprung from an ancient and noble family of Florence, was born in that city on the 30th of December 1642. From an incidental notice in one of his letters, stating the amount of house rent paid during his childhood, his parents must have been in easy circumstances, and the supposition is confirmed by the fact that he enjoyed all the advantages of a liberal education, first under the Jesuits of Florence, and then in the university of Pisa. ”

“ Filelfo deserves commemoration among the greatest humanists of the Italian Renaissance, not for the beauty of his style, not for the elevation of his genius, not for the accuracy of his learning, but for his energy, and for his complete adaptation to the times in which he lived. ”

“ Filippo’s return to Venice happened precisely at the period at which a young beauty, hitherto educated in a distant convent, made her first appearance in the great world: she on a sudden exhibited herself as an angel whom a cloud had till then concealed, and excited universal admiration. Filippo’s parents had heard frequent mention of Clara, and of the projected alliance between her and their son; but they thought that this alliance was like many others, contracted one day without the parties knowing why, and broken off the next with equal want of thought ”

“ Men had to receive the very rudiments of culture before they could appreciate its niceties. And in this work of collection and instruction Filelfo excelled, passing rapidly from place to place, stirring up the zeal for learning by the passion of his own enthusiastic temperament, and acting as a pioneer for men like Poliziano and Erasmus. ”

“ Poets are often found to be gregarious. Redi had two chief friends at the Tuscan court—Menzini, of whom we shall have to speak, and Filicaja, who in an unpoetical age raised the Italian lyric to as great a height as it had fever attained in the Cinque Cento. Vincenzo Filicaja (1642–1707) is one of the highest examples the world has seen of the academical poet, the man who is rarely hurried away by the god, but who seriously and perseveringly follows poetry as an art, in whose breast the sacred fire is always burning, but always needing to be stirred up. ”

“ It happened that in their daily rides through Florence, Filippo fell deepty in love with a graceful and very lovely young lady of noble parentage, and wife to a citizen of repute; and while he strove incessantly to win her, it chanced that Ciarlo, as he ranged another part of the city, became enamoured of a sister of Filippo's lady-love, who abode unmarried in her father's house. ”

“ A poplar or two hung above the river for foreground; there was hardly a ripple there to shake the pictured rushes; it was as lovely an impression of antique peace as I have ever encountered. Fifine, after we had passed it all, made a little gesture to me, and I came and sat by her side, when she stole her hand into mine. I thought I knew what was in her heart—something emotional, a little piteous, the sense of a loveliness spent and of doubts to come. I pressed the soft palm in reassurance.
And so at last—Paris. The benediction of the season remained with us to the end. ”

“ My acquaintance with kings, chiefs, priests, poets, ambassadors, soldiers, artisans, turtle-fishermen, and other classes of Fijians, made me familiar with many legends in prose and verse, containing ideas and pictures which must vanish for ever if not now preserved, for they belong to times which have long since faded into the thick darkness of the past. ”

“ Such was the Comtesse de Lanty.
Filippo, Marianina’s brother, inherited, as did his sister, the Countess’ marvelous beauty. To tell the whole story in a word, that young man was a living image of Antinous, with somewhat slighter proportions. But how well such a slender and delicate figure accords with youth, when an olive complexion, heavy eyebrows, and the gleam of a velvety eye promise virile passions, noble ideas for the future! If Filippo remained in the hearts of young women as a type of manly beauty, he likewise remained in the memory of all mothers as the best match in France. ”

“ This province of Philipinas of the order of our father St. Augustine has enjoyed, from the time of its foundation at the conquest of these islands, the utmost peace in its ordinary government; and it is by virtue of this that it has accomplished so great results in the service of the two majesties [i.e., God and the king of Spain] —being always occupied in the conversion of these peoples, and in the direction of those who are converted; and devoting so much care to the fulfilment of its obligations, even when the results of their labors made their devotion so manifest. ”

“ Then say that we come in peace on an embassy to the Inca, and ask for guides and safe conduct to the town.”
“I obey, Lord!” Filipillo replied, laying his hand lightly on Pizarro’s foot. Then he looked up, and with a half-boyish, half-cunning smile said, in a soft, almost girlish voice, “and may I not say too, Lord, that the sons of Viracocha are coming to do the bidding of their father?”
“Do thou my bidding, boy, and leave these unholy fancies to the heathen. Have we made thee so bad a Christian that thou should still prate of thy false gods and seek to make us their servants? ”

“ Filipi was called to his eternal reward on October 21, ’52 at an Omaha hospital, where he was confined for several weeks. He died as he had lived—quietly, at peace with all the world leaving behind him that light that comes from an upright, earnest life as the sun at setting leaves a trail of consoling light behind it on the horizon’s rim. ”

“ Most of Filelfo's speeches are an atrocious patchwork of classical and biblical quotations, tacked on to a string of commonplaces, among which the great people he wishes to flatter are arranged under the head of the cardinal virtues, or some such category, and it is only with the greatest trouble, in his case and in that of many others, that we can extricate the few historical notices of any value which they really contain. ”

“ Could orthodoxy have shewn a better case for love? But let the matter rest there. If stones are to be cast, here am I, blithe to be made their target. I am jealous for her good fame; not a copper farthing for my own.
But, while I insist on that specific truth, I make generally no pretence of drawing the portrait of any Fifine but the one commonly known to me. ”

“ He was named governor of Volterra in 1696, where he strenuously exerted himself to raise the tone of public morality. Both there and at Pisa, where he was subsequently governor in 1700, his popularity was so great that on his removal the inhabitants of both cities petitioned for his recall. He passed the close of his life at Florence; the grand-duke raised him to the rank of senator, and he died in that city on the 24th of September 1707. He was buried in the family vault in the church of St Peter, and a monument was erected to his memory by his sole surviving son Scipione Filicaja. ”

“ Considering what must appear to the Fijian as the fabulous wealth of the white man, unprotected save by a wooden wall and a crazy door, and so temptingly placed at the mercy of the village as is the native store, it is surprising that house-breaking is not more frequent. ”

“ He turned to the youth, and said more gently and with a faint note of pleading in his voice—
“Boy, can I trust thee to get me a message swiftly and faithfully conveyed to Challcuchima in the hills yonder above the hot springs? If I can, then thou mayst ask me for any reward that I can give thee.”
Filipillo’s small dark eyes twinkled as the Inca said this, and he looked up and answered meekly—
“Yes, Lord. So slight a service for thee is its own reward. There are several of thy runners in the city. ”

“ The combinations of this race with the Negroes and Chinese, appeared to him most interesting.
Many travellers have described the natives of the Philippines. They are well-made men, of elegant, easy figure, and medium stature. Their feet and hands are small, exhibiting extreme delicacy at the point where they join the limbs. They have oval faces, with small but regular noses, well-coloured lips, and teeth that are long and white until they become spoiled by chewing the betel-leaf. ”

“ Filicaia unfortunately devotes almost as much eulogy to the ungrateful Leopold as to the heroic Sobiesky, and the grovelling adulation with which he addresses Royal and Imperial personages, detracts from the loftiness of the whole.
Filicaia was remarkable for tenderness. One of the finest of his sonnets is on Divine Providence:
"Qual madre i figli con pietoso affetto,"
in which thought and pathos are blended with admirable art. ”

“ However, when she saw the ugly wife become so handsome, she said to herself, ‘If good Philip would only make me a little handsomer than I am, it would be a good thing for me;’ and she went to Padre Filippo and asked him to make her handsomer. ”

“ Countess. Well, Figaro, you have heard of my Lord the Count’s designs on your young Bride.
[27]
Figaro. Oh yes, my Lady. There was nothing very surprising in the news. My Lord sees a sweet, young, lovely—Angel! (Susan curtsies) and wishes to have her for himself. Can any thing be more natural? I wish the very same—
Countess. I don’t find it so very pleasant, Figaro.
Figaro. He endeavours to overturn the schemes of those who oppose his wishes; and in this he only follows the example of the rest of the world. I endeavour to do the very same.
Susan. But with less probability of success, Figaro. ”

“ Gregory in the Philippine Islands of the Western Indias—are zealously gathering by their own toil, as so many workmen in the field of the Lord, busy for the glory of God and the spiritual health of peoples dwelling in those very remote regions so far away from us, we think it right—nay, even their due—that we should graciously impart the favor of our apostolic love for their comfort and increase.
In truth, our very dear son in Christ, Philip, Catholic king of the Spains—in his own name, as well as in that of our beloved sons the guardian and the other brethren of the custodia of St. ”