Foul

“ It is not the gambling, not the drinking—no! The thing that I cannot forget, that grows more horrible the more keenly awake clean living makes me to the past, is that I am inwardly foul—as foul as a priest who has broken his vows. ”

“ Through the deed they became bodies of death, receptacles of all foulness. But they are not evil in our sense because in the spheres through which they move there is no thought, no morals, no right or wrong as we understand it. There is merely the pure and the foul. The foul expresses itself through angles; the pure through curves. Man, the pure part of him, is descended from a curve. Do not laugh. I mean that literally."
I rose and searched for my hat. "I'm dreadfully sorry for you, Chalmers," I said, as I walked toward the door. ”

“ That a blow struck when a man is thrown or down, shall be deemed foul. That a man with one knee and one hand on the ground, or with both knees on the ground, shall be deemed down; and a blow given in either of those positions shall be considered foul, providing always that, when in such position, the man so down shall not himself strike or attempt to strike.
16. That a blow struck below the waistband shall be deemed foul, and that in a close seizing an antagonist below the waist, by the thigh, or otherwise, shall be deemed foul. ”

“ Murder most foul, as in the best it is, [434]
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. ”

“ by foul means, for, with the exception of wars of liberation, everything that armies do is by foul means. ”

“ However, the Country is well stockt with other sort of Foul, as foul Plates, foul Dishes, foul Trenchers, foul Knives, foul Forks, foul Napkins, and by Heavens foul ever thing else, even to their very Women, who you’ll see standing on a Saturday by a lolling Wash-block, which is a Wooden kind of Anvil, where the She-Vulcans are hammering out with Battledore, or else with their Feet in a washing Tub, the Filth of Linnen, whose unctious Distillations are the Nile that water’d the little Egypt of their adjacent Gardens. ”

“ Those who at first scoffed at the idea of foul play, choosing to believe that he was merely keeping himself in seclusion in order that he might escape for the while from the notably fatiguing attentions of certain persistent admirers, came at last to regard the situation in the nature of a calamity. ”

“ FIRST GOTH. Brave slip, sprung from the great Andronicus,
Whose name was once our terror, now our comfort,
Whose high exploits and honourable deeds
Ingrateful Rome requites with foul contempt,
Be bold in us: we'll follow where thou lead'st,
Like stinging bees in hottest summer's day,
Led by their master to the flow'red fields,
And be aveng'd on cursed Tamora.
ALL THE GOTHS. And as he saith, so say we all with him. ”

“ Fair is foul, and foul is fair. ”

“ O, how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow!
Her eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye;
Both crystals, where they view'd each other's sorrow,
Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry;
But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,
Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.
Variable passions throng her constant woe,
As striving who should best become her grief;
All entertain'd, each passion labours so,
That every present sorrow seemeth chief,
But none is best: then join they all together,
Like many clouds consulting for foul weather. ”

“ That came of her not applying to one of us knowing ones. You were wiser. Go, my dear, and let him have a pinch in his pudding or his posset. No one will ever discover that he came by his death by foul means. ”

“ Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed. ”

“ It's a shame that we have to play such an unscrupulous crowd; but I don't see any decent way out of it. The only thing we can do is to keep our eyes wide open, and avoid giving them the chances they want for foul play. Besides, we must insist on having fair and efficient referee, assistant referee, umpires and time-keepers appointed. Any violation of the rules will cause the man to be thrown out."
"I prophesy that this game is going to end in a blooming old row," remarked Lanky, gloomily. ”

“ Here they made the blood into albumen, and made other foul-smelling things into things still more foul-smelling. ”

“ He strikes and misses. The umpire calls “one strike.” You relax. Again the pitcher delivers the ball. Again the muscles become tense. The umpire says “one ball” and again you sink back in your seat in perfect repose. By this time the pitcher is again ready. The third time the ball is sent toward the batter like a white streak. Somehow you feel he is going to hit it this time. As before, your muscles become tense. You hear a crack of wood against leather. You raise yourself up in your seat. It’s a foul fly back of the plate. You see the catcher throw off his mask and run up for the ball. ”

“ Asking to be forgiven after slamming a door is like touching off a Rodman gun, and then calling out to the fort in front to 'look out' 'take care!' 'do get out of the way.' A first class slam is cumulative long after the noise has ceased—the nerves go on slamming—the valves of the heart flap to and from—the tympanum roils a revelrie to all the shattered senses, the offender slammed at, at once subsides from rage to fear ”

“ We are insulted—some one slaps our face—the fierce emotion of anger arises and through us surge waves of feeling manifested on the motor side by tensed muscles, rapid heart, harsh breathing, perhaps a general reddening of face and eyes. Instinctively our fists are clenched, a part of the reaction of fight, and it needs but the slightest increase of anger to send us leaping on the aggressor, to fight him perhaps to the death. ”

“ In anger the eyes are fiery and the pupils contracted; in modesty the cheeks are suffused with blushes; in fear, and under a sense of infamy and of shame, the face is pale, but the ears burn as if for the evil they heard or were to hear; in lust how quickly is the member distended with blood and erected! But, above all, and this is of the highest interest to the medical practitioner,—how speedily is pain relieved or removed by the detraction of blood, the application of cupping-glasses, or the compression of the artery which leads to a part? ”

“ But as a furious child fights for a moment successfully with its enraged elder, he tore and beat at his opponent, striking blindly at the face he loathed, writhing in the grip that bent his body and sent the air in sobbing gasps from his lungs. ”

“ A weary and harassing thing it is even where the body is the aggressor—when the fevered blood, darting like liquid fire through the veins, mounts to the throbbing brow, and, pressing like molten lead upon the brain, crushes out thought and feeling, leaving but a dull consciousness of the racking agony which renders each limb a separate instrument of torture. ”

“ The low shot's the death-shot. Why man, if you did catch a ball in the head, you'd get over it—if it was in the mouth, or cheek, or neck, or anywhere but the temple; but your body's all over tender bits. ”

“ With every drop of your blood.
Fear not. When back you steal,
Broken and weary, to me,
With oil and wine I will surely heal
Each bruise and hurt that your senses feel,
As I take you on my knee. ”

“ As regards myself, I never take up a foil for a serious assault, especially to meet a stranger, without a real emotion, a sensation that makes the heart beat quicker and the brain " look alive." And I do not doubt that all men of the same temperament as myself feel something of the kind [1] . It is no disadvantage, although perhaps for the first minute the foil may not be quite so steady as usual. ”

“ But, were it worth while to dwell on a subject so ridiculous, we might recollect that in so terrible an agony of shame as is likely to convulse a human being under such a trial, and such personal insults, the blood is apt to return to the heart, and a slight wound, as with a pin, may be inflicted without being followed by blood. ”

“ The wounds which seem like real wounds, the color of the skin, the contraction of the face, the attitude, the expression,—each thing is terribly real. If you touched the body, you would expect to feel the tremor of the limbs and the warmth of the blood. ”

“ The heart goaded by the pricks of anger is convulsed, the body trembles, the tongue entangles itself, the face is inflamed, the eyes are enraged and fail utterly to recognize those whom we know: the tongue makes sounds indeed, but there is no sense in its utterance. ”

“ Not one of the current descriptions of heaven approached the actual grandeur and beauty of the blue sky, flecked with ruby and gold, and its liquid mirror that lay below, calm, dimpled and glorified by that translucent, rosy tint.
While the eye was yet charmed with this enchanting bridal of the sea and sky, and the ear amused with the merry fiddle and the nimble feet that tapped the sounding deck so deftly at every note, Cooper, who had been sounding the well, ran forward all of a sudden and flung a thunderbolt in the midst. ”

“ Lear, on his knees, bareheaded, with heavenward eye, quivering lip, and hands clasped together in agony, pronounced the terrible curse, and in his death realised all that can be imagined of human woe. ”

“ For Folly has over-whelmed them, and, what they have sought after, has covered their Hearts like Raft; God has sealed up their Hearts and their Ears, and their Eyes are dim, and they shall have sore Punishment. ”

“ I will feel the blood in my body like fire, and the strength of a hundred will rush into my limbs, and I will grasp my weapon and slay—slay—till my heart is sick and my head faint; and still there will be the same awful, insatiable thirst that nothing can slake. ”

“ Another peculiar fact is, that the moment the face glass is removed and he breathes the ordinary air—even though he may have come up boiling with rage against some special individual—the bad temper evaporates like magic and he wonders what on earth caused his anger. ”

“ And as the whole body conspires in producing the slightest motion of any limb—a foot, an arm, a hand or a finger—so all hell conspires in the perpetration of every wicked deed—in every evil purpose, word, or work. ”

“ XXXIII. A man in Lincolnshire, for every trifle used to swear by God's precious blood, and would not take warning from his friends, till at length falling into a grievous sickness, he was again much persuaded by his friends to repent, whose counsel he still rejected; and hearing the bell toll, in the very pains of death he started up, swearing, God's wounds! The bell tolls for me, but he shall not be me yet; whereupon the blood issued out in a most fearful manner from all the joints and parts of his body, his ears, mouth, nose, wrists, knees, heels, toes, and every where else ”

“ And because the movement of anger is not one of recoil, which corresponds to the action of cold, but one of prosecution, which corresponds to the action of heat, the result is that the movement of anger produces fervor of the blood and vital spirits around the heart, which is the instrument of the soul's passions. ”

“ No longer great nor terrible, he flies, or rather totters, from before his serene opponent—he shudders—he stutters and hiccups in his howlings—his limbs are tremulous—his hands shake as if with palsy—his eye is lustreless and bloodshot, and his ghastly countenance the exponent of death. ”

“ Some man, all in blood, whose face in the pale light of the moon’s crescent seemed black from the blood, was running around in the street, cursing, and, without paying the least attention to his wounds, was searching for his cap which had been lost in the brawl. ”

“ He found himself fighting desperately in the grip of an immense savage, fighting at a hopeless disadvantage, with the man's knees crushing the breath out of his body, and the man's hands locked upon his throat. ”

“ All the same it is a blow, for a blow is none the less a blow because one sees it coming. Indeed, recollections of my sparring days seem to tell me that the blow you see coming, and from which you can escape neither by guard nor duck, is just about the nastiest of all. ”

“ The hand lies in the lap apparently inert, but the otherwise well concealed anger slowly makes a fist of it, or the fingers bend characteristically forward as if they wished to scratch somebody’s eyes out. ”

“ I still felt under the influence of the sorcery that had been practiced upon me. Nevertheless, my blood, so long frozen in my veins, began to circulate more and more freely. A slight tremor occasionally went through my limbs. ”

“ The Fastnachtspiele are probably to be traced, not so much to the Feast of Fools proper, as to the spring sword-dances in which, as we have seen, a Narr or ‘fool’ is de rigueur. They share, however, with the sotties their fundamental idea of the universal domination of folly. ”

“ The neigh of anger, during which the horse kicks violently with [165] his foot, is short and sharp; that of fear, during which he kicks also, is scarcely longer than that of anger, the voice is hoarse and grave, and seems as if it came from the nostrils only. ”

“ On this account, then, they led the channels of the windpipe into the lungs, which they placed like a soft cushion round the heart, in order that when anger rises in it to an extreme height it might fall on some yielding substance, and, so getting cool, yield cheerfully and with less trouble to the authority of reason. ”

“ It is the supreme example of the childish folly that, for the next two years, we were to see always hand in hand with diabolical wickedness and cunning. And always the folly has robbed the cunning of its prey. ”