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Brawl   Listen
verb
Brawl  v. i.  (past & past part. brawled; pres. part. brawling)  
1.
To quarrel noisily and outrageously. "Let a man that is a man consider that he is a fool that brawleth openly with his wife."
2.
To complain loudly; to scold.
3.
To make a loud confused noise, as the water of a rapid stream running over stones. "Where the brook brawls along the painful road."
Synonyms: To wrangle; squabble; contend.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Brawl" Quotes from Famous Books



... archangel's and the soul of a swindler. The result of the union was a stillborn child. Then Seraphine, who was extremely egotistical and avaricious, quarrelled with her husband and drove him away. He repaired to Berlin, and was killed there in a brawl at a gambling den. Delighted at being rid of him, Seraphine made every use of her liberty as a young widow. She figured at every fete, took part in every kind of amusement, and many scandalous stories were told ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... have attained your end, and have certainly chosen a particularly delicate moment for your intrusion. I would not brawl in the presence of death, but I can assure you that if I were a younger man your monstrous conduct would not ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... surprise that such things should be so beautiful, and yet when we come to live in them, to spend even a few hours in them, we seem stifled and oppressed. On the other hand there are people to whom the sea-shore is a companion, an exhilaration; and not so much for the brawl of the shore as for the limited vastness, the finite infinite of the ocean as they see it. Such people often come home braced and nerved, and if they spoke out the truth, would have only to say, 'We have seen the horizon ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... coffee-house near Charing Cross. The three men rudely pushed their way into a parlour where some other roisterers were drinking; the intrusion was naturally resented, and as each and every one of the party chanced to be better filled with wine than with politeness, a brawl was the consequence. Swords were drawn and Savage killed a Mr. Sinclair, after which drunken act he cut the head of a barmaid who tried to hold him. Then more swearing, shrieking and sword-thrusting, a cry for soldiers, a flight from the coffee-house, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... some work for a chap who came to the Agency from this little town. It was a case of record hunting. Well, the man went out last night all O. K.; he was a little on the sport when off duty, but a tip-top chap when at work. Well, he got into a gambling brawl, and this morning they brought him ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... of the streets, with the man himself standing beside it, ready to answer any legitimate call for his services. The police system of the capital is certainly excellent, and in the two weeks which we passed there no such affair as a street brawl of any sort was seen, though we visited all parts of the town, and at all hours of the day and night. There are few of our own cities where the public peace is so thoroughly preserved, or with so little demonstration, as is the case in ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... crowd, irritated by the non-appearance of Wilkes, still more irritated by the presence of the soldiery, threatened, or was thought to threaten, an attack upon the prison. Angry words were followed by blows; the brawl between the mob and the military became a serious conflict. A young man named Allan, who seems to have had nothing to do with the scuffle, was killed in a private house by some of the soldiers who had forced an entrance in pursuit of one of their ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... Cambridge, and took the degree of Master of Arts in 1587. After leaving the university, he came up to London and wrote for the stage. He seems to have led a wild and reckless life, and was stabbed in a tavern brawl on the 1st of June 1593. "As he may be said to have invented and made the verse of the drama, so he created the English drama." His chief plays are Dr Faustus and Edward the Second. His style is one of the greatest vigour and power: it is often coarse, but it is always strong. Ben Jonson spoke ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... may not stop to note them, unless it be that goodly one at the incoming of a flood. The school-house stands beside a stream, not very large, called Lowman, which flows into the broad river of Exe, about a mile below. This Lowman stream, although it be not fond of brawl and violence (in the manner of our Lynn), yet is wont to flood into a mighty head of waters when the storms of rain provoke it; and most of all when its little co-mate, called the Taunton Brook—where I have plucked the very best cresses that ever man put salt ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... That was just it. What was his life? Insignificant; no good to anyone; a mere festivity. It would end some fine day in his getting his skull split with a champagne bottle in a drunken brawl. At such times, too, when men were sacrificing themselves to ideas. But he could never get any ideas into his head. His head wasn't worth anything better than to be ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... indifferently. She had seen the young miner on several occasions; once she had been rendered an invaluable service when he rescued her from a brawl in which a dozen toughs had ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler

... magnificent bursts of poetry, such as the stage had never heard before. In five years, while Shakespeare was serving his apprenticeship, Marlowe produced all his great work. Then he was stabbed in a drunken brawl and died wretchedly, as he had lived. The Epilogue of Faustus might be written across ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... fellow!" exclaimed Vautrin. "How can people brawl when they have a certain income of thirty thousand livres? Young people have bad manners, and that ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... lost his engagement by reason of a drunken brawl, and he was now living with his sister, the wife of a small rancher near by. He was vain, lazy, and unspeakably corrupt, full of open boasting of his exploits in the drinking-dens of the East. No sooner did he fix eyes upon Virginia than ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... how to entertain. True, with them dancing was very apt to close with an orgy, and the orgy to end in a brawl; but fair women feared kisses as little as broken heads; for the pirates scattered gold with lavish hands in ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai

... the guard that night, with a charge from Othello to keep the soldiers from excess in drinking, that no brawl might arise, to fright the inhabitants, or disgust them with the new-landed forces. That night Iago began his deep-laid plans of mischief: under colour of loyalty and love to the general, he enticed Cassio to make rather too free with the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... just who was the aggressor could not be determined—but at any rate the Americans were outnumbered and one was killed. The administration pressed the case with vigor, declining to look upon the incident as a sailors' brawl and considering it a hostile attack upon the wearers of an American uniform. For a time the outbreak of war was considered likely, but eventually Chile yielded, apologized for its acts and made ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... kindly of them,' Danvers remarked, in reproof of her inhumanity; adding: 'They may overturn us!' at which Diana laughed. Her eyes were drawn to a brawl of women and men in the street. 'Ah! that miserable sight!' she cried. 'It is the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... forgotten the horror and humiliation of the occasion, which had happened in his fourteenth year, when a motherly woman at Paddington Station had called him "dearie" and publicly embraced him, on the erroneous supposition that he was her nephew, Philip. He must proceed cautiously. A brawl with an innocent waiter, coming on the heels of that infernal episode with the policeman, would give people the impression that assailing the lower orders had ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... he says—or rather said, for I've not seen him since my first visit there—that George Gordon did not sail in the Morning Star. He was killed in a drunken brawl the night before he ought to have sailed: this man was ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... moment's suspicion would have lit our way to the whole truth, but of the spring to all Rob's behavior in the past eight months we were ignorant, and so to Gavin the Bull had only been the scene of a drunken brawl, while I forgot to think in the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... prances in boldly, where feminine feet well may fear to tread, and consequently has a wider scope for his writing. It is not for a woman to mingle in a barroom brawl and write of the thing as she sees it. The prize-ring, the interior of a cattle-ship, Broadway at four in the morning—these and countless other places are forbidden by her innate refinement as well as by the Ladies' ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... down to the little river Brawl, and on the other side were the plantations and woods of Clavering Park. The park was let out in pasture when the Pendennises came first to live at Fair-Oaks. Shutters were up in the house; a splendid free stone palace, with great ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... strong on the family at home, especially on Alexander, the eleventh laird, who was executed as a spy at Brest in 1769. A peculiarly handsome youth, who succeeded to the estates in 1760, he started life as an ensign in the 49th Foot in 1766. He narrowly escaped being run through in a brawl at Edinburgh, and, taking a hair of the dog that had nearly bitten him, he fatally pinked a butcher in the city of Cork in 1767. He escaped to La Rochelle, and ultimately got into touch with Lord Harcourt, our Ambassador in Paris. Harcourt sent the reckless lad to have a look at the fortifications ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... the road most of the time. He made a lot of money, and was proud of it too. He often bought cattle and sold them again. He was dissipated, so it was said—played cards with fellows of his own kidney, and went to dances. Sometimes after a brawl, he would come home with a wounded head and a black eye. Apparently he spent a great deal of money; no-one could say how much he made. That was his business, but he behaved as if he alone kept things going, and was easily put out. Lars Peter never ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... bat* [U.S.], bum* [U.S.], bust*, clambake [U.S.], donation party [U.S.], fish fry [U.S.], jamboree*, kantikoy[obs3], nautch[obs3], randy, squantum [obs3][U.S.], tear *, Turnerfest[obs3], yule log; fete, festival, gala, ridotto[obs3]; revels, revelry, reveling; carnival, brawl, saturnalia, high jinks; feast, banquet &c. (food) 298; regale, symposium, wassail; carouse, carousal; jollification, junket, wake, Irish wake, picnic, fete champetre[Fr], regatta, field day; treat. round of pleasures, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... almost close, his red hair, the fiery filaments of which, when under the reflection of certain lights, might have given the impression as though his face had been rubbed with phosphorus. Two teeth lost in a night orgy and brawl, he did not exactly remember now, caused him to spit out indistinct words which one could not always understand. He was bald only on the top of his head, like a tonsured monk, with a crop of short, curly hair, golden and shiny, around ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... This young ruffian, less than twenty years of age, found a devoted friend in Monsignore Querro, a cousin of the family well placed at court, who assisted him in the burglary of the Cenci palace. Rocco was killed by Amilcare Orsini, a bastard of the Count of Pitigliano, in a brawl at night. The young men met, Cenci attended by three armed servants, Orsini by two. A single pass of rapiers, in which Rocco was pierced through the right ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... all enjoyment, save that of riot and brawling, killed in various ways. The very boxes themselves are no sanctuary from ruffianish incivility; while the ears are stunned, and the cheek of Decency crimsoned with the profaneness, obscenity, and senseless brawl of barbarians in the gallery, the sight is intercepted, and all comfort destroyed by the unmannerly and unjust conduct of intruders in the boxes and pit, who think they have a right to push in and even stand up ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... period of bad and untrustworthy leadership. A brilliant young fellow by the name of Alcibiades had gained the favor of the popular assembly. He suggested a raid upon the Spartan colony of Syracuse in Sicily. An expedition was equipped and everything was ready. But Alcibiades got mixed up in a street brawl and was forced to flee. The general who succeeded him was a bungler. First he lost his ships and then he lost his army, and the few surviving Athenians were thrown into the stone-quarries of Syracuse, where they died from ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... greatest attention to warlike detail, while the love story, though not allowed to languish, is kept distinctly subordinate to the narrative of chivalric adventure. Mrs. Haywood, however, was too warm-blooded a creature to put aside the interests of the heart for the sake of a barbarous Gothic brawl, and too experienced a writer not to know that her greatest forte lay in painting the tender rather ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... knighthood is dead. And as we have gone so far as to confer the honour upon dead men, why not upon figures of wood and stone, and why not upon an ox?' The stories which Sacchetti tells by way of illustration speak plainly enough. There we read how Bernabo Visconti knighted the victor in a drunken brawl, and then did the same derisively to the vanquished; how Ger- man knights with their decorated helmets and devices were ridiculed—and more of the same kind. At a later period Poggio makes merry over the many knights of his day without a horse and without ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... father! It cost her as little to dispose of him as of the mother. He was killed in some brawl with the Huguenots; so that the poor child is altogether an orphan, beholden to our care, for which she thanked me with tears in her eyes, that were more true than mayhap the poor woman ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... lost. Her husband left her, and has not since been heard of. As for Godfrey, Andy secured him a passage to California, where he led a disreputable life. There is a rumor that he was killed in a drunken brawl at Sacramento not long since, but I have not been able to learn whether this is true or not. His loss of fortune had something to do with his going to the bad, but I am afraid, with his character and tendencies, that neither in prosperity nor in adversity ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... of men, Are Tyrants when, Their thirsty Souls are fill'd: They scold sore hot Like Peep in th' Pot And never can be still'd. They talk and prate At such a rate, And think of nought but evil; They fight and brawl, And Wives do mawl, Though all run for the Divel. But at their draugh, They quaff and laugh Amongst their fellow creatures. They swear and tear And never fear Old Nick in his worst features. Who would but say Then, by the way That Woman is distressed, ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh

... said, "and how like unto a man he speaketh; if there were a brawl in the street, he would strike in and ask no word thereof, not even which were the better side: whereas here is my falcon-chick frighted at a little gold box and a pair of ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... characterizes him, relates how, at a tavern revel, Ralegh quieted a noisy fellow, named Charles Chester. He sealed up his mouth by knotting together the beard and moustache. It is on record that in the February of 1580 he was in trouble for a brawl with Sir Thomas Perrot, who afterwards married the sister of Lord Essex, Lady Dorothy Devereux. Ralegh and Perrot were committed by the Council to the Fleet for six days. The affray is not creditable; but it indicates that Ralegh associated ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... and cat, messmates for life, Were often falling into strife, Which came to scratching, growls, and snaps, And spitting in the face, perhaps. A neighbour dog once chanced to call Just at the outset of their brawl, And, thinking Tray was cross and cruel, To snarl so sharp at Mrs. Mew-well, Growl'd rather roughly in his ear. 'And who are you to interfere?' Exclaim'd the cat, while in his face she flew; And, as was wise, he ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... and brawl - Youth is the sign of them, one and all. A smouldering hearth and a silent stage - These are a type of ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley

... fatherly care during his first visit to the province. Penn finally sent the boy to Pennsbury, hoping that the quiet, the absence of temptation, and the wholesome joys of a country life, might amend him. But William went from bad to worse, was arrested in Philadelphia in a tavern brawl, was formally excommunicated by the Quakers, and came home to England to give his father ...
— William Penn • George Hodges

... or frayed, That Fields and Lewis used to throw? Where is the horn that Shepherd played? The slide trombone that Wood would blow? Amelia Glover's l. f. toe? The Rays and their domestic brawl? Bert Williams with "Oh, I Don't Know?" Into the night ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams

... wise, and there is no difference; it was the chance of the sea, and the ill reward of a humane action—a melancholy end for such a man—like the end of a warrior, not dying Epaminondas-like on the field of victory, but cut off in some poor brawl or ambuscade. But so it was with all these men. They were cut off in the flower of their days, and few of them laid their bones in the sepulchres of their fathers. They knew the service which they had chosen, and they did not ask the wages for which they had not laboured. Life with them was ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... wrangle amongst each other—a practice which of late years has become so much a legal fashion, that some of our Westminster Hall heroes, forgetting their clients' quarrels in their own, suddenly convert themselves into a new plaintiff and defendant, and brawl forth ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various

... surely some mistake. It cannot be said Charles Pimontel was murdered; does it follow because the unrecognized body of some hapless victim of a street brawl has been washed on the beach that it must necessarily be the body of the captain? Do you not think his murderers would pay dearly for this attack on him? Have any witnesses come forward to swear to his assassination? I will not believe in his death ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... of departure for still further explorations to the westward. Early in 1616 there seemed to be a favourable opportunity to push forward in the direction of Lake Superior. Then came this wretched brawl of Hurons and Algonquins, which threatened to beget bitter hatred and war among tribes which hitherto had both been friendly to the French. Accepting his duty, Champlain gave up his journey to the far west and threw himself into the task of restoring peace. But the measure of his disappointment ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby

... Alamut, and claiming (as they did) descent from the Imam Ismail and his great ancestor 'Ali Abu Talib, had considerable estates at Mehelati, between Kum and Hamadan, and at one time held the Government of Kerman. His son and successor, Shah Khalilullah, was killed in a brawl at Yezd in 1818. Fatteh 'Ali Shah, fearing Ismailite vengeance, caused the homicide to be severely punished, and conferred gifts and honours on the young Imam, Agha Khan, including the hand of one of his own daughters. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... wound, presumably with a knife, in the left side, and had lost a considerable amount of blood, but, although weak, was still living. His watch and purse had not been abstracted, a fact which points to the conclusion either that the wound was inflicted by a companion in a drunken brawl, or that the thief was disturbed in his operations before the completion of the work. The young man speaks a little English as well as Italian, but he has not yet been able to give a precise account of the assault committed upon ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... his work on "Russian Fable-lore," p. 109) says: "Yaga, instead of yagaya, means properly noisy, scolding, and must be connected with the root yagat' to brawl, to scold, still preserved in Siberia. The accuracy of this etymology is confirmed by the use, in the speech of the common people, of the designation Yaga Baba for a quarrelsome, ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... that, at any rate; seldom was Enterprise better ruined. Here, under Broglio, amid the titterings of mankind, has the tail of the Oriflamme gone the same bad road as its head did;—into zero and outer darkness; leaving the expenses to pay. Like a mad tavern-brawl of one's own raising, the biggest that ever was. Has cost already, I should guess, some 80,000 French drilled Men, paid down, on the nail, to the inexorable Fates: and of coined Millions,—how many? In subsidies, in equipments, in waste, in loss and wreck: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... extraordinary appearance of his hat, which, hollowed here, bulging there, and crushed out of all recognition generally, was as little like the hat of a decorous, hard-reading young gentleman—protege of the dignified Mr. Audley Egerton—as any hat picked out of a kennel after some drunken brawl possibly ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... hills of Habersham, And oft in the valleys of Hall, The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone Barred[6] me of passage with friendly brawl, And many a metal lay sad, alone, And the diamond, the garnet, the amethyst, And the crystal that prisons a purple mist, Showed lights like my own from each cordial stone[7] In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, In the beds of the ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter

... from the consequences; also there was a sense of relief, and perhaps a feeling as if the victim were scarcely a human creature like others. It never occurred to her till some time after to recollect it would have had an unpleasant sound that she had been the occasion of such an 'unseemly brawl' between two young men, one of them a married man. When the thought occurred to her it made the blood rash hotly ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... body to the master. "Maitre Baudin," Count Charles said, "I have to introduce to you a gentleman who is our mutual friend, and who last night saved my life in a street brawl. He is at present an esquire of Sir Eustace de Villeroy, and has travelled hither with the knight's dame, who has come at the invitation of the duke. His father is an English knight, and as the friend of us all we trust that you will put him upon ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... white paper the Bulletin left where King's editorials had usually been printed, but Thomas King's subsequent violence had repelled her. The Herald, after rashly treating the "affray" as a street brawl, lost hundreds of subscribers and most of its advertising. It shrunk to a sheet a quarter of its usual size. Naturally, its editor, John Nugent, was the more solidly and bitterly aligned with the Law and Order party. The ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... given her a pleasant thrill, but all the same she vaguely disapproved. He had not taken a dignified line and had really made things worse. It was humiliating to feel that she had been the subject of a vulgar poolroom brawl. ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... claim to a speedy despatch, such as will place them beyond the danger of backsliding. Already, he declares, Satan is whispering to him of the pleasures he is leaving behind; and the seductions of to-morrow's brawl and bear-baiting are threatening to turn the scale. Another moment, and instead of going up to heaven, like Faithful, in a chariot and pair, he will be the Lost Man in the ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... put the crier nearly at his wits' end to record the wagers that pelted him, and which testified how much confidence the numerous Athenians had in their unproved champion. The brawl of voices drew newcomers from far and near. The chariot race had just ended in the adjoining hippodrome; and the idle crowd, intent on a new excitement, came surging up like waves. In such a whirlpool of tossing arms and shoving elbows, he who was small of stature ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... with the start one has at a sudden call. But there had been no call. A profound silence spread itself through the sleeping house. Outdoors the wind had died down. Only the loud brawl of the river broke the stillness under the stars. But all through this silence and this vibrant song there rang a soundless menace which brought me out of bed and to my feet before I was awake. I heard Paul say, "What's the matter?" in a sleepy voice, and "Nothing," I ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... and son! He left my side; A summer bloom on his fair cheeks, a smile Parting his innocent lips. In one short hour The pretty, harmless boy was slain! I saw The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried For vengeance! Rouse ye, Romans! Rouse ye, slaves! Have ye brave sons?—Look in the next fierce brawl To see them die! Have ye fair daughters?—Look To see them live, torn from your arms, distained. Dishonored; and, if ye dare call for justice, Be answered by the lash! Yet this is Rome, That sat on her seven hills, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... then the Serjeant-at-Arms was bidden to remove him. Strange was the scene as little Captain Cosset walked up to the member of Herculean proportions, and men wondered how the order would be enforced; but Charles Bradlaugh was not the man to make a vulgar brawl, and the light touch on his shoulder was to him the touch of an authority he admitted and to which he bowed. So he gravely accompanied his small captor, and was lodged in the Clock Tower of the House as prisoner until the House should further consider what to do with him—the ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... He gladly would be quit of the emprize He undertook to venge his courser's fall; And, could he, without blame, a mean devise, Would fain withdraw from that disastrous brawl. So overcast already were the skies, Their cruel strokes well nigh fell harmless all. Both blindly strike; more blindly yet those lords Parry the stroke, who scarce discern ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... of men engage in a savage, drunken brawl. Bloody, cursing, dishevelled, with swollen and distorted features, and screaming their anathemas of drunken hate, they fight with the ferocity of ...
— The Spirit of Lafayette • James Mott Hallowell

... "Warwick. This brawl to-day, Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden, Shall send, between the red rose and the white, A thousand souls to death ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... he murmured something about my being "a stupid young idiot," but I decided not to hear it. What would be the use, I asked myself, of my hearing it? That we should brawl like a couple of manants over less than nothing? (I was very fond of the word manants, and often used it for meeting awkward junctures.) Perhaps I should have said something more had not, at that moment, a door slammed and the professor (dressed in a blue frockcoat, and shuffling his feet as ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... in the room adjoining the bar, and I didn't know but my assistance might be needed!" (At this juncture Bud uttered a sort of snort and, placing his hands over his heart, ducked down as if a sudden pain had seized him.) "But imagine my pain and astonishment when I was informed that the drunken brawl I was witnessing was but a nightly and common occurrence. I may say I remained for a few minutes, partly out of curiosity, as I wished to see all kinds of life in this new world for the sake of ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... was present. His mother dared not adventure, for fear of the missionaries; and his uncle Abdullah lay at that time ill in his house as the result of a wound received in a drunken brawl. ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... in time to cut off legs, as well as draw teeth? The particularity of this man put me into a deep thought, whence it should proceed, that of all the lower order barbers should go farther in hitting the ridiculous, than any other set of men. Watermen brawl, cobblers sing; but why must a barber be for ever a politician, a musician, an anatomist, a poet, and a physician? The learned Vossus says,[349] his barber used to comb his head in iambics. And indeed in all ages, one of this useful profession, this order of cosmetic philosophers, has been celebrated ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... a ceiling for Benson's den, and there was a fire which left little more than the adobe walls standing. The result was that while repairs were being made there was no gambling and drinking. Time hung very heavily on the hands of some two-score outlaws. Days passed by without a brawl, and Bland's valley saw more successive hours of peace than ever before. Duane, however, found the hours anything but empty. He spent more time at Mrs. Bland's; he walked miles on all the trails leading out of the ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... in letters of black paint upon the ground-glass as "Dispensary," opened, and a long, thin Dutchman, dressed in respectable black, looked out. He had been hoping that the drunken Englishman had been shot or stabbed in a saloon-brawl, or had fallen down in apoplexy in a liquor-bout, and had been brought home dead on a shutter at last. His long ginger-coloured face showed his cruel disappointment. But he said, as though ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... peasants from the plains of Hungary, unused till then to any sight more bloody than a brawl in the village inn, trembled before this onslaught. Their officers shouted encouragement and oaths, barely audible above the mad yells of the Serbians. Nevertheless, they gave way before the gleaming line of bayonet blades before them. Some few rose ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... he's going for. One last big alley fight. One last brawl. When they cut him down—do you suppose they'll stop with him? They'll kill us, and then they'll go in and stamp Earth flat! You know it ...
— The Stoker and the Stars • Algirdas Jonas Budrys (AKA John A. Sentry)

... the glen. The stream began to brawl; on either hand the hills closed in, towering high. Some of the trees were bare, but to most yet clung the red-brown or the gold-brown dress. The pines showed hard, green, and dead in the shadow; in the sunlight, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... The assembly begins solemnly, discussing social problems and bartering village gossip, for the Hindu is by nature staid. After a while, at the second bottle perhaps, cheerfulness will supervene, then mirth and garrulity, ending, as the night closes round, with wordy contention and a general brawl. But nothing serious will happen, for toddy, though decidedly heady, is at the worst a thin potation. A strong and very pure spirit is distilled from it, which has its devotees, but the rustic, as a rule, ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... former owner was killed in a drunken brawl at the kermess of Mechlin, and so sought not after him nor disturbed him in his ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various

... regiments, would show to the slums its blank surface, bleached bonewhite by the winds that raced above the city smoke. Now the Cowgate and the Canongate would be given over to the drama of the disorderly night, the slumdwellers would foregather about the rotting doors of dead men's mansions and brawl among the not less brawling ghosts of a past that here never speaks of peace, but only of blood and argument. And Holyrood, under a black bank surmounted by a low bitten cliff, would lie like the camp of an invading ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... and gambled. Sometimes there crossed the court some great noble followed by two or three of his servants on his way to a Council: or a bishop with his chaplain, to have speech with the King: or a group of townsmen after a brawl, who had been brought here with ropes about their necks, uncertain whether all would be pardoned or half a dozen hanged, the uncertainty lending a very repentant and anxious look to their faces. Or it would be the Queen's most Excellent Highness herself with her ladies ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... straight at him. He parried the thrust of the first, but the shock of collision hurled his horse against the side of the coach. "Sacred swine!" he cried bitterly. "To endanger a lady, to make this brawl in a lady's presence! Drive ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington

... know. . . . That's not all that troubles me. I feel bad when the boys drink and brawl. That attack on Mr. Beaudry at Battle Butte was disgraceful," she flamed. "I don't care if he did come up here spying. Why can't they let ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine

... protected by two companies of Japanese infantry, had taken refuge owing to the threatening state of affairs in the capital. Apparently there was no particular plan—it was the action of a mob of soldiery tumbling into a political brawl and assisted by their officers for reasons which appear to-day nonsensical. The sequel was, however, extraordinary. The Japanese held the Palace gates as long as possible, and then being desperate exploded a mine ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... Donald created a great excitement in the town. Besides that he was well known and much esteemed as a faithful, active soldier, the mystery that attended his fate aroused the most painful feelings. Was it due simply to a moonlight brawl, were any of the disaffected men of the garrison concerned in it, or had some of the American prisoners, in attempting to effect their escape, committed the deed? A thorough investigation took place, but no ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... going on below. Instead of the cursing and swearing, the scoffing, debauchery and drunkenness, instead of the pride and vanity, the torpitude of one quarter and the violence of another, yea, for all the bustle and the pomp, the hurly-burly and the brawl which there unceasingly bewildered men, and for the innumerable and unvarying sins, there was nothing to be seen here but sobriety, kindness and cheerfulness, peace and thankfulness, compassion, innocence and contentment stamped ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... Freeman, George Washington: A Biography: Young Washington, (New York: Scribner, 1948), II, 146, notes that Washington became involved in an election-day brawl at the election of members of the House of Burgesses in December 1755. The contest between John West, George William Fairfax, and William Ellzey was very close, and Washington (supporting Fairfax) met William Payne (who opposed Fairfax). Angry words led to blows, and Payne knocked ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton

... my dear Frank," said the young poet, feigning a confidence of hope which his heart belied. "Whitaker may still recover; he is too gallant a fellow to be lost to us in a drunken brawl; and even if the worst should happen, it must still keep you from despair to reflect that you were forced into this rencontre, and that it was an unhappy accident, resulting from his own violence and not your intention, which deprived him of his life." ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... was received with acclamations of transport by some of the rebels; others made objections. Quarrels arose: a ruffianly scene of violence and brawl ensued, in which several were killed and wounded on both sides; but the party for the expedition to San Domingo ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... nothing very serious, M. le Commissaire," said the treacherous gendarme. "A simple brawl—a blow struck, ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths

... such a wife to Algiers. It turned eyes upon him. Those who had been aware of him merely as a man of low tastes now began to notice his particular actions. He had a house in a certain impasse, and one night there was a brawl there—an affair of a man drunk and angry, of a knife drawn and some one stabbed. Before, it might have passed; our discipline was indulgent; but now it took on the shape of a scandal. It was brief and ugly, but it marked a stage passed in Bertin's career. And it was ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... an International Authority, even on the general aspiration of Europe towards some form of supernational judicature, war will cease to have any more attraction or justification than the street brawl. For war is actually in the community of nations what the street fight is between individual citizens. War is futile, because it can settle no questions of principle; it is immoral, because it is an offence against the membership of a moral community. There is abundant evidence in Blue Books and ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato

... Nottingham Town; but there be those here who love thee not so much. If thou wilt look down the cloth thou wilt see Will Stutely, in whose eyes thou hast no great favor; then two other stout fellows are there here that thou knowest not, that were wounded in a brawl nigh Nottingham Town, some time ago—thou wottest when; one of them was sore hurt in one arm, yet he hath got the use of it again. Good Sheriff, be advised by me; pay thy score without more ado, or maybe it may ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... replied Captain Dan, "and has given the preventive men more trouble than all the others put together. In fact, he is a man who deserves to be hanged, and will probably come to his proper end ere long, if not shot in a brawl beforehand." ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... favorite, and Bering, the supreme commander, was loved for his {22} kindness; but Bering's commands were subject to veto by the Russian underlings; and the Russian underling officers kept up a constant brawl of duels and gaming and drink. No wonder the bluff Dane sailed out from the snow-rimmed peaks of Avacha Bay with dark forebodings. He had carried a load of petty instructions issued by ignoramus savants for eight years. ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... in a brawl between Whigs and Tories which soon developed into a small riot over the erection of a liberty pole. Loud and bitter words were being hurled between the two factions. The liberty lovers, being in much larger force, had erected the pole ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... maddening brawl! And shame and terror over all! Deeds to be hid which were not hid, Which, all confused, I could not know Whether I suffer'd or I did, For all seem'd guilt, remorse, or woe; My own, or others, still the same ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... he encounters. He lives and loves with an instinctive freedom and yet he holds himself equally secure from devastating extravagances and devastating repressions. Mr. Dell writes as if he had steadier nerves than most of the naturalists; as if he regarded their war upon the village as an ancient brawl which may now be assumed to have been as much settled as it ever will be. At least, it seems scarcely worth wrangling over. The spirit seeking to release itself from trivial conditions behaves most intelligently when it discreetly takes ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... He deemed that he had plumbed its hollowness and learnt the full measure of its vanity. Already he shunned the company and diversions of his fellow pages, though he was ever ready to serve them. A prentice lad's homely brawl set him shivering; a woman's jest painted his cheeks 'til they rivalled a young maid's at her first wooing. He plucked aside his skirts and walked in judgment; only wherever mountebank or juggler held the crowd enthralled, there ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... I was away there was a tragedy in our town. A stranger, stopping over on his way East from California; was stabbed to death in an unseemly brawl. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... quite sure that no one would question his right to command. Then, turning to De Retz he added in the same cool tones, "Monsieur l'Abbe, I am surprised you have not sufficient influence to prevent a breach of the peace! It ill becomes a dignitary of the Church to be taking part in a street brawl." ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... swash-bucklers of the Wild Goose, were hanged in chains on Gibbet-Island, in full sight of their favorite resort. As to Vanderscamp himself, he and his man Pluto again disappeared, and it was hoped by the people of Communipaw that he had fallen in some foreign brawl, or been ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... bravo, to seize the pope's treasures before the demise was publicly announced. When the body was exhibited to the people the next day it was in a shocking state of decomposition, which of course strengthened the suspicion of poison. At the funeral a brawl occurred between the soldiers and the priests, and the coffin having been made too short the body without the mitre was driven into it by main force and covered with an oil-cloth. Alexander's successor on the chair of St Peter ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... you see the wretched strangers, Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage, Plodding tooth ports and costs for transportation, And that you sit as kings in your desires, Authority quite silent by your brawl, And you in ruff of your opinions clothed; What had you got? I'll tell you: you had taught How insolence and strong hand should prevail, How order should be quelled; and by this pattern Not one of you should live an aged man, For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought, ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... all her dealings with the tribes was she molested in any way. Once only, in a compound brawl, in which she intervened, was she struck, but the native who wielded the stick had touched her accidentally. The cry immediately went up that "Ma" was hurt, and both sides fell on the wretched man, and would have killed him had she not gone ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... to increase, for he was so mean that he spent only a small fraction of his interest money. He was hard and unfeeling, and not only refused to help his son's fatherless family, but had been heard to say that Joel by his drunken brawl, had disgraced his name and his relations. Ethan, the keeper of the Island Hotel, seemed to be his favorite; and people who knew him declared that he was as mean as his father. Somebody pretended to know that the old man had made a will, giving nearly all his property to Ethan. ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic

... affray, brawl, contest, dissension, hostility, animosity, broil, controversy, enmity, quarrel, bitterness, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... with a haughtier smile 'And as to precontracts, we move, my friend, At no man's beck, but know ourself and thee, O Vashti, noble Vashti! Summoned out She kept her state, and left the drunken king To brawl ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... women of our world. Where are the mothers who will acknowledge that they made the characters of these people? Where are the mothers who teach their boys to chew, and smoke, and swear? to drink, and brawl, and fight? to do those deeds of darkness which the sun refuses to shine upon? Somebody has taught them these things. If their mothers did not, who did? If their mothers had been wise and forcible, as they should have been, would the children have been so easily led astray? If women ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... with his notion that fighting is quite right if only the cause is a worthy one. He is quick to see the distinction and so makes the substitution with alacrity and with no loss of self-respect. Ever after he disdains the vulgar brawl and does not lose the fighting instinct. Thus the vitalized teacher by knowing how to make substitutions wins for society a valiant champion. If we multiply this example, we shall readily see how such a ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... sheathing his sword, though still with a bright eye on Alan, "if this brawl is over I will but get ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... tavern fellow, I allow, Mary—of course, of course. I know all you would say—his nose afire and his ruffian black poll ever being broken in some brawl, but he's a good enough fellow behind it, and useful to me. You needs must keep on terms with high and low, Mary, to hold the good will of all. That's why I am anxious to arrange this matter with Burbage to have the players here, if ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin

... had been pronounced incurable. They sent him several cases of elephantiasis, and he cured them: testimonials to that effect may still be found in the archives of Nuremberg. He died as the result of a tavern brawl and was buried at Salzburg. Tradition says that, his astral body having already during physical existence become self-conscious, he is now a living adept, residing with others of his sort in a certain place in Asia. From there he still influences the minds of his followers ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham

... was as complacent to her husband's vices as the queen of Louis. These royal ladies were merely first sultanas, and had no right, it was thought, to feel jealousy, or to resent neglect. Each returning sabbath saw Whitehall lighted up, and heard the tabors sound for a branle, (Anglicised 'brawl'). This was a dance which mixed up everybody, and called a brawl, from the foot being shaken to a quick time. Gaily did his Majesty perform it, leading to the hot exercise Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, stout and homely, and leaving Lady Castlemaine ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... conquering hero on his arrival at the Northern Railway Station in Paris. And the other side would unfailingly send out its recruiting agents to assemble a contingent of loafers at two francs per demonstration, who would be duly instructed to yell 'Conspuez,' and 'A bas les juifs.' Then a brawl would inevitably follow. ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... officer,' he said. 'A case of that unbridled brawling which is, alas, but too common in our London streets. These two, possibly till now the closest friends, fall out over some point, probably of the most trivial nature, and what happens? They brawl. They—' ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... upon us so lightly. There are also points of the story which seem to mock the good sense of the reader. Has the author considered the state of mind of a young widow who has heard that her husband has been murdered in a street-brawl in Texas, who has mourned him for years, and then, after yielding to the solicitations of a new suitor and promising to marry him, learns from his own lips that it was his hand (although the act was one of self-defence) which sent her husband to his tragic death? Mr. Thompson seems to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... fie! Is this a time for quarrels? Thieves and rogues Fall out and brawl: should men of your high calling, Men separated by the choice of Providence From the gross heap of mankind, and set here In this assembly as in one great jewel, T' adorn the bravest purpose it e'er smil'd on; Should you, like ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway

... and a profligate ruffian: we read, that he was banished from Rome, for a murder committed in a drunken brawl; and that he died at last of debauchery and want. Caravaggio was perfect in his gamblers, robbers, and martyrdoms, and should never have meddled with Saints and Madonnas. In his famous Pieta in the Vatican, the ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... bear a date, and when I last saw Paragot he had not the patience to arrange these far off memories. Verona! To me the word recalls immemorable associations—vistas of narrow old streets redolent of the Renaissance, echoing still with brawl and clash of arms, and haunted by the general stock in trade of the artist's historical fancy. But did Verona appeal to Paragot's romantic sense? ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... and berth were taken. Many of the staterooms below were filled from floor to ceiling with flour in sacks for Nome, as well as every foot of space in passage-ways or pantries. Many men were so disorderly from drink that they kept constantly swearing and quarreling, and one man, in a brawl, was almost toppled into the sea. To make things worse, the stench from the pens of the animals on deck became almost unbearable, and the wind came up, making ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... mountains of Tennessee was seated in the doorway of the cabin, busily eating some pig's feet. A neighbor hurried up to tell of how her husband had become engaged in a saloon brawl and had been shot to death. The widow continued munching on a pig's foot in silence while she listened to the harrowing news. As the narrator paused, she spoke thickly from ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... rate, for the immediate future—is entirely in Pritchard's own hands. There is no one who has received so many warnings as he. Bramley was cautioned twice; Mallison was warned three times and burned to death; Forsith had word from us only once, and he was shot in a drunken brawl. This man Pritchard has been warned a dozen times, he has escaped death twice. The time has come to show him that we are in earnest. Threats are useless; the time has come for deeds. I say that if ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... married one year after the death of Mrs. Price. Hugh Price never molested Robert, but gave himself up to dissipation and was killed in a drunken brawl two years after his wife's death. Giles Peram continued to make himself a nuisance about the home of Robert Stevens and to annoy his sister, until the indignant brother horsewhipped him and drove him from ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... voice and the strength of a giant. The glaciers totter and groan, as if in anger at their own weakness, and send huge avalanches of stones and ice down into the valleys. The rivers swell and rush with vociferous brawl out over the mountainsides, and a thousand tiny brooks join in the general clamor, and dance with noisy chatter over the moss-grown birch-roots. But later, when the struggle is at an end, and June has victoriously seated herself upon her throne, her voice becomes ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... a brawl with a steamer with a yellow funnel, blue top and black band, lying at a pier among dhows. The shore took a hand in the game with small guns and rifles, and, as E14 manoeuvred about the roadstead "as requisite" there was a sudden unaccountable explosion which strained her very ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling

... the women and children like it better than the men. It is no doubt very thrilling and picturesque and wildly beautiful: the children crow and laugh, the women shout forth their delight, as the boat enters the seething current; great foaming waves strike her bows, and brawl away to the stern, while she dips, and rolls, and shoots onward, light as a bird blown by the wind; the wild shores and islands whirl out of sight; you feel in every fibre the career of the vessel. But the captain sits in front of the pilothouse smoking ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... years, has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast that the broad empire of Rome could furnish, and yet never has lowered his arm. And if there be one among you who can say that, ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him step forth and say it. If there, be three in all your throng dare face me on the bloody ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... may be said to have originated with him. He possibly looked on them as classic ground; for in these gardens, the proud Somerset vowed to dye their white rose to a bloody red, and Warwick prophesied that their brawl ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... and reluctantly away from the station, and walked across to Waterloo Bridge, brooding over all that had occurred, and cursing himself for his stupidity in allowing himself to be drawn into a vulgar brawl, when he might have attained his end so much better by quiet observation. It was some consolation, however, that he had had one fair crack at Ezra Girdlestone. He glanced down at his knuckles, which were raw and bleeding, with a mixture of satisfaction ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Catholics; his second is to make a dignified appearance, to receive company, to wear a crown, and to take care it does not fall off his head. But it is a matter of perfect indifference to him that his subjects brawl, rob, or murder one another, so long as they don't attack either his Church ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... in a shrill, clear, and emphatic voice, that rose above the clamour of the brawl; "Uzcoques! what means this savage uproar? Are you not yet sated with rapine and slaughter, that you thus fall upon and tear each other? Are ye men, or wolves and tigers? Is this the way to obtain your leader's deliverance; and will the news of this day's havoc, think you, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... the disgusting scene, Fit for Fools only, and their silly Queen, I sought in haste to leave the inglorious Throng: But as the pressing Crowd my steps prolong, The deafening Cymbals, and the noisy brawl Of pealing Laughter, ecchoed round the Hall. And strait a troop of dancing Youths appear'd, Of rosy hue, by friendly BACCHUS chear'd. The tinkling bells upon their feet they wore; Each, in his hand, a rural Tabor bore, Whose sides they frequent ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe

... the occasion of his marriage with the sister of Alfonso of Ferrara. This Vincenzo Gonzaga is shown by the light of history in two opposite characters: as the generous friend and patron of Tasso, and as the pupil of the Admirable Crichton, who in a midnight brawl slew his tutor in circumstances of the utmost baseness and treachery. For a while Tasso was treated with great kindness at Mantua, but, the father dying, the son no sooner ascended the ducal throne than, ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... long years after the war. If anybody git after him, he told them I stay 'cause I wants to stay, but told me if I left he'd kill him 'nother nigger. I stayed till he gits in a drunk brawl one night with men and women and they gits to shootin' and some kilt. Master got kilt. Then I'm left to live or die, so I wanders from place to place. I nearly starved to death befo' I'd leave New Orleans, 'cause I couldn't think master am dead and I'm ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... destiny, thy all Which thou dost best and dearest call; Then let the darts of envy fall, Let ruffian malice ban and brawl. ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley

... reason Lord Gernando's pride He hath abated, if he have offended Gainst your commands, who are his lord and guide, Oh pardon him, that fault shall be amended." "If he be gone," quoth Godfrey, "let him ride And brawl elsewhere, here let all strife be ended: And you, Lord Guelpho, for your nephew's sake, Breed us no new, nor ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... been a pretty anecdote for the history of the Emperor Joseph, had he been discovered in a street brawl with a carman," said he to himself. "A little more, and my imperial face would have been pounded into jelly by that Hercules of a fellow! It is not such an easy matter as I had supposed, to mix on equal terms with ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... proficients, and with skill elate, Their aimless mischief turns to deadly hate. Perverted spirits; reckless, and unblest; Ye slaves to lust; ye duellists profess'd; Vainer than woman; more unclean than hogs; Your life the felon's; and your death the dog's! Fight on! while honour disavow your brawl, And outraged courage disapprove the call— Till, steep'd in guilt, the devil sees his time, And sudden death shall close a ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... events! As is narrated in the contemporary account given below, a simple tavern brawl led to the granting of these extensive privileges. This is one among many examples of the way in which the universities turned similar events to their own advantage. The passage also exhibits a typical conflict between town ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton



Words linked to "Brawl" :   fighting, dispute, scrap, altercate, argufy, combat, free-for-all



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