"Brittle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a zinc coating applied by the hot process was found to be very brittle, breaking when attempts were made to bend it; the average thickness of the coating was .015 inch. An analysis gave the following result: tin, 2.20; iron, 3.78; arsenic, a trace; zinc (by difference), 94.02. A small quantity of iron is dissolved from all the articles placed ...
— Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition - For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and - Galvanizing • William N. Brown
... window itself, with the exception of a few panes of glass in the centre, here and there patched with brown paper, it was almost wholly made up with squares of wood—giving ocular proof that glass was of a very brittle nature in St. Giles's. ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... is my doome, and this shall come to passe, For what are pleasures but still vading joyes? Fading as flowers, brittle as a glasse, Or potters clay, crost with the least annoyes? All things in this life are but trifling toyes, But Fame and Vertue never shall decay, For Fame is toomblesse, Vertue lives ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... butter into a thick sauce-pan or kettle and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Boil until the mixture becomes brittle when tried in cold water. Stir constantly at the last to prevent burning. Add vinegar and soda just before removing from the fire. Pour into a well-greased pan and let it stand until cool enough to ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... or plates—what cannot be mended had best be hidden away. Hearts and plates are brittle things, but the last can be bought in iron, as I wish the first could be also. Yes, husband, we will trek if you ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... radiant afternoon in mid-June, Skippy, having finished the last bar of peanut brittle and made sure that no vestige remained of the box of assorted chocolates which had preceded it down the Great Hungry Way, assembled three comic weeklies and four magazines, gave the porter a quarter for his ostentatious devotions and descended ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... pipes are simmering, Dip this fairy rod within; If like glass the surface glimmering, Then the casting may begin. Brisk, brisk to the rest— Quick!—the fusion to test; And welcome, my merry men, welcome the sign, If the ductile and brittle united combine. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... Night Song for Two Children Dicky The Three Drinkers The Boy out of Church After the Play One Hard Look True Johnny The Voice of Beauty Drowned The God Called Poetry Rocky Acres Advice to Lovers Nebuchadnezzar's Fall Give us Rain Allie Loving Henry Brittle Bones Apples and Water Manticor in Arabia Outlaws Baloo Loo for Jenny Hawk and Buckle The "Alice Jean" The Cupboard The Beacon Pot and Kettle Ghost Raddled Neglectful Edward The Well-dressed Children Thunder at Night To E.M.—A Ballad ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... of brittle glass that bound the captive beside her grew stronger. A wife who could bewitch the hours away with such music as this would be no undesirable possession for a blase man. He stooped over her as she arose from the piano ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... configuration, or by any minor tweak to the software itself. Also, any system that responds inappropriately and disastrously to abnormal but expected external stimuli; e.g., a file system that is usually totally scrambled by a power failure is said to be brittle. This term is often used to describe the results of a research effort that were never intended to be robust, but it can be applied to commercially developed software, which displays the quality far more often than it ought ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... these supernatural beings had no existence, there were other monsters, only too real, in these woods which it would be dreadful to encounter alone and unarmed, since against such adversaries a revolver would be as ineffectual as a popgun. Some huge camoodi, able to crush my bones like brittle twigs in its constricting coils, might lurk in these shadows, and approach me stealthily, unseen in its dark colour on the dark ground. Or some jaguar or black tiger might steal towards me, masked by a bush or tree-trunk, to spring upon me unawares. Or, worse still, ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... which we have spoken as being close to the sycamore walk, at the foot of a wall against which it flowed, forming a rather deep excavation, the current had found a vein of soft, brittle stone which, by its incessant force, it had ended in wearing away. It was a natural grotto formed by water, but which earth, in its turn, had undertaken to embellish. An enormous willow had taken root in a few inches of soil in a fissure of the rock, and its drooping ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... as you dug them in a dark corner in your cellar or in a barrel in your cellar, exclude all light, keep the soil moderately wet and after Christmas and until spring you will have an abundance of brittle, fine flavored stalks that are fully equal to and perhaps more tender than the outdoor grown. Years ago in Chicago I grew rhubarb in a dark house 36x80 ft., built for that purpose, and the stalks generally commanded a price of 12 to 15c a pound ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... for worldly pleasure, they do unto the soul inestimable harm. For they set men's hearts upon high devices and desires of such things as are immoderate and outrageous. And by help of false flatterers, they puff up a man in pride and make a brittle man—lately made of earth, that shall again shortly be laid full low in earth and there lie and rot and turn again into earth—take himself in the meantime for a god here upon earth and think to win ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... it doesn't jar your ideal to see them worn against such a stormy day dress. To me they are the perfection of summer. No color could be more intense than this spotless whiteness. There!' Fastening them, the brittle stems snapped, and the flowers fell at her feet. 'No flowers for me to-day, of your choosing at least. Practically, lilies have such an uncomfortable way of breaking ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sulphur and lava, and also a quantity of what the natives call the hair of Pele. Every bush around was covered with it. It is produced from the lava when first thrown up, and borne along by the air till it is spun into fine filaments several inches in length. It was of a dark olive colour, brittle, and semi-transparent. In our descent of the mountain we entered long galleries, the walls and roof hung with stalactites of lava of various colours, the appearance being very beautiful. They are formed by the lava hardening ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... any thing of that kind that have yet been seen. Instead of steeping the designs in the transparent liquor at the time of printing them, which was previously done in order to show their transparency to the purchaser, but which was practically objectionable, as the paper in that state was brittle, and devoid of pliancy, necessitating also the use of a peculiarly difficult vehicle to manage (varnish) in applying it to the glass, the manufacturer now prepares his paper differently, in order to allow the use of parchment size in sticking them on the ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... made up into hands for the purpose of fermentation before the midrib was thoroughly dry, the result was invariably mould and discoloration. On the other hand, when dried sufficiently to insure freedom from mould, the lamina of the leaf became so brittle that it was crushed to powder at the slightest touch, and so wrinkled and dry that the heaps did not ferment at all. Of the varieties supplied, the Shiraz, Havana, and Maryland attracted most attention and promised the best results. ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... him as the divining-rod of Aaron, blooming ever afresh with magic flowers. Now that the flame of pain and passion burned it up, and left a bare sear brittle bough, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... with outdoors, the corners of her eyes relaxed. But she was so stiff that they had hobbled a mile, and Father had shucked several tons of corn in return for breakfast, before she ceased feeling as though her legs were made of extraordinarily brittle glass. ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... when we left, 38 deg. F., hard frost. All the world seemed buttoned up and great-coated; the trees seemed wiry and cheerless; the legs of the pack-horses seemed brittle, and I felt so. Breath issued visibly from the mouth as I trudged along. My boy and I nearly came to blows in the early morning. I wanted to lie on; he did not. If he could not entertain himself for half an hour with his own thoughts, I, who could, thought ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... were the only of his characteristics that his hour could understand. All others it ignored. And so Berlioz remained for half a century simply the composer of the extravagant "Symphonic Fantastique" and the brilliant "Harold in Italy," and, for the rest, a composer of brittle and arid works, barren of authentic ideas, "a better litterateur than musician." However, with the departure of the world from out the romantic house, Berlioz has rapidly recovered. Music of his that before seemed ugly has gradually come to have force and significance. ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... impatiently.] I can stand no more. You've danced upon my heart till 'tis fairly brittle, and ready to be broke by ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... the forefront of the battle. As regarded the present accident, she said her father had repeatedly told the authorities these particular shells were not safe to handle. Apparently the safety-bolt was missing from all of them, making them when loaded as brittle as an eggshell. This young lady and her mother were certainly very anti-Boer in their sympathies, though terribly afraid of allowing their feelings to be known. All that day and the next they spent in the laager, looking after the ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... rosy apple, pebbles white, And dicky-birds were his delight, A childish bow with coloured cord, A little brittle wooden sword. From bagpipes or the bogy-man Into his mother's arms he ran, There coaxed from her a ball to throw With his daddy to ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... this weird hush was uncomfortably impressive, and gave a sense of fantastic unreality to the scene. The sleepy, mesmeric radiance of the full moon, shining on the delicate traceries of the quaintly sculptured houses on either hand, made them look brittle and evanescent; the great heavy, hanging orange- boughs and the feathery frondage of the tall palms seemed outlined in mere mist against the sky; and the glimpses caught from time to time of the broad and quietly flowing river were like so many flashes of light ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... to prepare tea. The drawn-thread cloth was laid diagonally on the table (because Alice had seen cloths so laid on model tea-tables in model rooms at Waring's), the strawberry jam occupied the northern point of the compass, and the marmalade was antarctic, while brittle cakes and spongy cakes represented the occident and the orient respectively. Bread-and-butter stood, rightly, for the centre of the universe. Silver ornamented the spread, and Alice's two tea-pots (for she ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... speaking. She was startled by his tone and also by what he had said. She glanced at him, then looked away and across the dark river. Dead leaves brushed against her feet with a dry, brittle noise. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Masabih (Lane 2, 54) Mohammed said, 'The best horses are black (dark brown?) with white blazes (Arab. "Ghurrah") and upper lips; next, black with blaze and three white legs (bad, because white- hoofs are brittle):next, bay with white blaze and white fore and hind legs." He also said, "Prosperity is with sorrel horses;" and praised a sorrel with white forehead and legs; but he dispraised the "Shikal," which has white stockings (Arab. "Muhajjil") on alternate hoofs (e.g. right hind and left fore). ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... feet were protected by strong takka (sandals woven of coco-nut fibre), stepped lightly and swiftly on before me; I with my heavy boots crushing into the brittle, delicate, and sponge-like coral, startling from their sunbaths hundreds of black and orange-banded sea-snakes—reptiles whose bite is as deadly as that of a rattlesnake, but which hastened out of our way almost as soon as they heard our footsteps. Here and there ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... to my brother's daughter, Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass:— Murder her brothers, and then marry her! Uncertain way of gain! But I am in So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin: Tear-falling pity ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... keeping on our Florentine apartment, so as to run no more risk than is necessary in making the Paris experiment. We shall let the old dear rooms, and make money by them, and keep them to fall back upon, in case we fail at Paris. 'But we'll not fail.' Well, I hope not, though I am very brittle still and susceptible to climate. Dearest Sarianna, it will do you infinite good to come over to us every now and then—you want change, absolute change of scene and air and climate, I am confident; and you never will be right ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... this had ever before visited our country. Houses that stood unmoved through many fierce convulsions went down like brittle reeds, and old Corporations which were thought to be as immovable as the hills tottered and fell, crushing ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... or very warm weather. In the latter the combs are so nearly melted, that the weight of the honey will bend them, bursting the cells, spilling the honey, and besmearing the bees. In very cold weather, the combs are brittle, and easily detached from the sides of the hive. When necessitated to move them in very cold weather, they should be put up an hour or so before starting. The agitation of the bees after being disturbed will create considerable heat; a portion of this ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... that worthy, pulling away at the oars, and on we shoot, steadily nearing the rustic stone city that looks so attractive, so different from our hasty, brittle, shingly American half-minute houses,—massive, permanent, full of character and solid worth. And now our tiny craft butts against the pier, and we ascend from the Jesuit river and stand on British soil. No stars and stripes here, but Saint George and his dragon fight out their never-ending brawl. ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... his steed, and rode slowly towards the interior of the city, he muttered to himself, with a melancholy smile upon his lips, "Now might the grown infant make to himself a new toy; but an innocent heart is a brittle thing, and one false vow can break it. Pretty maiden! I like thee well eno' not to love thee. So, as my young Scotch minstrel ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ground—when the time came? It did not occur to them that it was possible to cut the bine and pull up the pole. They soon became very quick and expert at the tying, and their well-worn wedding-rings, telling of a busy life, would flash brightly in the sunshine as they tenderly coaxed the brittle bines round the base of the poles, securing them with the rush tied in a special slip-knot, so that it easily expanded ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... worth more study than the Apollo or the Antinous, because they are life, not marble. How noble were Horatio Greenough's meditations, in presence of the despised circus-rider! "I worship, when I see this brittle form borne at full speed on the back of a fiery horse, yet dancing as on the quiet ground, and smiling ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... including also the sea-urchins and sea-cucumbers, the curious brittle-stars and feather-stars—parental care is the exception, and not the rule. Having cast their eggs adrift upon the sea, the mothers of the families leave the rest to nature. Let us follow the history of one of these eggs. No sooner is it adrift than it begins a very ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... the cruisers above, and flashes of red on the ice behind with fountains of shattered ice and rock; detonite works its most terrible destruction on a surface that is brittle and hard. But of what avail are detonite shells against a craft whose speed builds up to something greater than the muzzle velocity of a shell?—a silvery craft that sweeps out and out toward a black mountain range; then swings slowly up in a curve of sheer beauty that bends ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... of the mate, and was grinding the wheel down with all his might, when the Willi-Waw struck. At the same instant her mainmast crashed over the bow. Five wild minutes followed. All hands held on while the hull upheaved and smashed down on the brittle coral and the warm seas swept over them. Grinding and crunching, the Willi-Waw worked itself clear over the shoal patch and came solidly to rest in the comparatively smooth ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... with utmost care, as it was so dry and brittle, and to the speechless astonishment of them all, it showed that the mourning bands were used for the death of George Washington. The entire front page was devoted to the news of his demise which had occurred the day before going to press. His fame, and value to the United States, ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... double purpose of balancing it in its seat, and of sustaining the dome of the sky. Our devout admiration of the power and wisdom of God should be excited by the spectacle of this vast crystalline brittle expanse, which has been safely set in its position without so much as a crack or any other injury. Above the sky, and resting on it, is heaven, built in seven stories, the uppermost being the habitation of God, who, under the form of a gigantic man, sits ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... Horticulture, Improved Black Wax, Burlingame's Medium, Early Mohawk, Davis Wax, Pencil Pod Black Wax, Golden-Eyed Wax, Golden Refugee, Maule's Butter Wax, Keeney's Rustless Golden Wax, White Wax, Longfellow Bush, Round Pod Kidney Wax, Round Pod Refugee, Brittle Wax, Yosemite Mammoth Wax, Extra Early Refugee, Challenger Black Wax, Flageolet Wax, Keeney's Stringless Refugee Wax Peas.—Abundance, Admiral, Advancer, Alaska, Ameer, American Champion, American Wonder, British Wonder, Champion of England, ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... pleasures annexed to the states of husband and father, for, God knows, they have many peculiar cares. I cannot describe to you the anxious, sleepless hours these ties frequently give me. I see a train of helpless little folks; me and my exertions all their stay; and on what a brittle thread does the life of man hang! If I am nipt off at the command of Fate, even in all the vigour of manhood, as I am—such things happen every day—Gracious God! what would become of my little flock? 'Tis here that ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... on the carved lion on the other side of the panel. He glanced into the little opening and, to his delight, saw the end of a bit of paper tucked away there. He dug it out with the blade of his pocket knife and unfolded it. It was yellow and brittle with age, covered with writing in a fine clear hand. But he was annoyed to discover, as he bent closely over to read it, that it was written in French, still worse, part of the paper was missing, for one side of it was ragged as if it had ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... stated as follows:—"Several attempts have been made to run iron-ore with pit-coal: he (Mr. Mason) thinks it has not succeeded anywhere, as we have had no account of its being practised; but Mr. Ford, of Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, from iron-ore and coal, both got in the same dale, makes iron brittle or tough as he pleases, there being cannon thus cast so soft as to bear turning like wrought-iron." Most probably, however, it was not until the time of Richard Reynolds, who succeeded Abraham Darby the second in the management of the works in 1757, that pit-coal came into large and regular ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... a short, brittle laugh. "I'll tell yuh. He says the sheriff's a crook! What do you know about that? I heard him tellin' it to Miss Mary the other day when he come in from Paloma about dinner-time. She was askin' him the same question, an' he up an' tells her it wouldn't be worth while; tells her the man is ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... shore he found an out-cropping of brittle, igneous rock. By dint of much labour he managed to chip off a narrow sliver some twelve inches long by a quarter of an inch thick. One edge was quite thin for a few inches near the tip. It was the rudiment ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... that while I was writing those words I had a thought that they were not quite yours as you said them. Still it comes to something in their likeness, but we will not talk of it and break off the chrystals—they are so brittle, then? do you know that by an 'instinct.' But I agree that it is best not to talk—I 'gave it up' as a riddle long ago. Let there be 'analysis' even, and it will not be solution. I have my own thoughts of course, and you have yours, and the worst is that a third person looking down on us from ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... plucky lot of boys," said Mr. Anderson. "You will have to remember not to go too near to the edge of these cliffs up here, for the frost has made the face of some of them very brittle." ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... form excellent road-mending stones and are much quarried for this purpose, being tough, durable and resistant to wear, so long as they are not extremely decomposed. Many of them are to be preferred to the fresher dolerites as being less brittle. The quality of the Cornish greenstones appears to have been distinctly improved by a smaller amount of recrystallization where they have been heated by contact with intrusive masses of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... dead, I cut out the two barbed bones and no longer wondered why these fish are so dreaded by those who know them. Joao told me that they attack anyone who ventures into the water, and with their sharp, barbed bones inflict a wound that in most cases proves fatal, for the bones are brittle and break off in the flesh. Superstition and carelessness are the main factors that make the wound dangerous; the people believe too much in an ever-present evil spirit which abides in all the vicious and fiendish animals ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... incident serves to remind us that both commanders believed their nations to be at war at this time. As a matter of fact, just a fortnight before the meeting in Encounter Bay, diplomacy had patched up the brittle truce ironically known as the Peace of Amiens (March 25). But neither Flinders nor Baudin could have known that there was even a prospect of the cessation of hostilities. Europe, when they last had touch of its affairs, was still clanging with battle and warlike preparations, ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... nor beauty but in the mind's idea. Love sows the wind and reaps the whirlwind.[9] Confusion, thrice confounded, is the portion of him who rests even for an instant on that most brittle of reeds—the affection of a human being. The sum of our social destiny is ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... dark waters that were bubbling around us, but he held me back as if I were a child; and in impotent rage I wept at my weakness. Slowly our perilous situation again forced itself upon my mind. I became conscious that a platform, brittle as the thread of life, was all that separated me from a watery grave; and I fancied the wind was murmuring our requiem as it passed. Hope died within me; ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... implements and weapons of this very peculiar material. Any one who does not know obsidian may imagine great masses of bottle-glass, such as our orthodox ugly wine-bottles are made of, very hard, very brittle, and—if one breaks it with any ordinary implement—going, as glass does, in every direction but the right one. We saw its resemblance to this portwine-bottle-glass in an odd way at the Ojo de Agua, where the wall of the hacienda was armed at the top, ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... fingers Weaving the warp and the woof, Little, brittle, network, fretwork, Under the ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... New Year (January 1, 1915) was cloudy, with a gentle northerly breeze and occasional snow-squalls. The condition of the pack improved in the evening, and after 8 p.m. we forged ahead rapidly through brittle young ice, easily broken by the ship. A few hours later a moderate gale came up from the east, with continuous snow. After 4 a.m. on the 2nd we got into thick old pack-ice, showing signs of heavy pressure. It was much hummocked, but large areas of open water and long leads to the ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury cakes for a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down into the Liffey. See that? The gulls swooped silently, two, then all from their heights, pouncing on prey. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... said, His sire's forgotten, as he climbed the car, And well enough that weapon served his stead, To smite the stragglers, while the Trojans fled; But when it met, and countered in the fray The arms of Vulcan, then the mortal blade, Found faithless, like the brittle ice, gave way, And in the yellow sand the sparkling ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... place. The mixture begins to glow at some point, the glow rapidly extending throughout the whole mass. If the test tube is now broken and the product examined, it will be found to be a hard, black, brittle substance, in no way recalling the iron or the sulphur. The magnet no longer attracts it; carbon disulphide will not dissolve sulphur from it. It is a new substance with new properties, resulting from the chemical union of iron and sulphur, and is called iron sulphide. Such substances ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... few miles from the town over the grass brittle and hot, from which the clapping grasshoppers rose in swarms, and dropping down on the point of a mesa I relived again in drowse the joys of other days. It was plain to me that goldseeking in the Rocky Mountains was marvellously ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... a finger on me, I will brittle you like any deer." And therewith pulled out a saying-knife, about half as long again as the said priest's hand, being very sharp, so he deposed, down the whole length of one edge, and likewise down his little ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Fahrenheit, and far below that temperature, oxygen and hydrogen are elastic gaseous bodies, whose particles tend to rush away from one another with great force. Water, at the same temperature, is a strong though brittle solid whose particles tend to cohere into definite geometrical shapes, and sometimes build up frosty imitations of the most complex ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... conical tree sixty to eighty feet high, two to three feet in diameter. In Otago it produces a dark-red, freeworking timber, rather brittle . . . frequently ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... queenly female withal, for she wears a crown at least a foot high, and brandishes a forbidding sceptre. All this is seen from the front, but the rear view discloses the fact that the lady terminates in the tail of a fish which wriggles artistically in mid-air and is of a brittle sort, as it has evidently been thrice ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... world. The list could be multiplied. But to sum it up, here was epitomized, beautifully, concretely, the main and minor vices of a generation for which Adrian found little pity in his heart; a generation brittle as ice; a generation of secret diplomacy; a generation that in its youth had covered a lack of bathing by a vast amount of perfume. That was it—! That expressed it perfectly! The just summation! Camellias, and double intentions in speech, and unnecessary ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... 1786-1787, great masses of this substance were found where the coffins containing the dead bodies had been placed very closely together. The whole body had been converted into this fatty matter, except the bones, which remained, but were extremely brittle. Chemically, adipocere consists principally of a mixture of fatty acids, glycerine being absent. Saponification with potash liberates a little ammonia (about 1%), and gives a mixture of the potassium salts of palmitic, margaric and oxymargaric acids. The insoluble residue consists of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... she used to be. She was aware of the creeping fret, the poisons and obstructions of decay. It was as if she had parted with her own light, elastic body, and succeeded to somebody else's that was all bone, heavy, stiff, irresponsive to her will. Her brain felt swollen and brittle, she had a feeling of tiredness in her face, of infirmity about her mouth. Her looking-glass showed her the fallen yellow skin, the furrowed ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... her as soon as she should be a little more careful. Fanny was at length pacified, but she watched the first opportunity to get possession of the doll. She soon succeeded, and for some time played with it very carefully, but having acquired a negligent habit of using her toys, she soon forgot its brittle texture, and when tired of nursing it, threw it down on the ground. The face was immediately broken to pieces, and while she was picking up the scattered remains of the once beautiful features, Julia entered the room. On seeing her favourite thus destroyed, she ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... opposite attack warily with his shield. That of Sir Tarquin was framed of a bull's hide, stoutly held together with thongs, and, in truth, seemed well-nigh impenetrable; whilst the shield of his opponent, being of more brittle stuff, did seem as though it would have cloven asunder with the desperate strokes of Sir Tarquin's sword. Nothing daunted, Sir Lancelot brake ofttimes through his adversary's guard, and smote him once until the blood trickled down amain. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... animals which can be resuscitated: nothing is more certain or better proven. Herr Meiser, like the Abbe Spallanzani and many others, collected from the gutter of his roof some little dried worms which were brittle as glass, and restored life to them by soaking them in water. The capacity of thus returning to life, is not the privilege of a single species: its existence has been satisfactorily established in numerous and various animals. The genus Volvox—the ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... papers between, and a box full of stones for a presser. We used a common soap-box, and put in stones to the weight of about thirty-five pounds. The handles were made of rope. I have found this a splendid way to press flowers, as it absorbs the moisture from the flower and does not leave it at all brittle. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... there was so perfect a stillness that it was almost painful, the chirp of an insect sounding as loud as though it were a bird. At length there was a distant sound like wind, or the rush of a stream over a rocky bed. This might have been a sudden gust, but the sharp crackling of brittle dhurra stems distinctly warned us that elephants had invaded the field, and that they were already at ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... the deer or hart was slain they had to "brittle," or break him up, with all precision, and during the banquet they had frequently to carve the haunch or chine, and to do ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... brittle wing," Is all I ever sing, Tho' I've almost always said, When I've struck my little head, That I'm angry, with a buzz, ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... the best of them, with all the more difficult kinds of work required in the erection, and was at one time engaged for six weeks together in fashioning long, slim, deeply-moulded mullions, not one of which broke in my hands, though the stone on which I wrought was brittle and gritty, and but indifferently suited for the nicer purposes of the architect. I soon found, however, that most of my brother workmen regarded me with undisguised hostility and dislike, and would have been better pleased had I, as they seemed to expect, from the northern locality ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... cross-beams. High up on the walls are several small square lattices of wood. The floor is of discolored stone. Everywhere one sees wood wrought into lattices, crumbling carpets that look almost as frail and brittle and fatigued as wrappings of mummies, and worn-out matting that would surely become as the dust if one set his feet hard upon it. The structure of the building is basilican, and it contains some strange ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... bravely said, but I knew from the careful repression of his tone that his hardness was a brittle veneer. He was young to carry so bold a front when his heart must be hammering, and I would willingly have talked any doggerel to have afforded ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... dazzle the eyes of children. Then the shop-windows are decorated. Behind the panes of clear glass the gilt of presentation-books rises like a glittering wave under the gaslight, the stuffs of various and tempting colours display their brittle and heavy folds, while the young ladies behind the counter, with their hair dressed tapering to a point and with a ribbon beneath their collar, tie up the article, little finger in the air, or fill bags of moire into which the sweets fall like a ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... be the cry of the lost soul—'The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved' (Jer 8:20).—Ed. Upon the brittle thread of life hang ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... many varieties, both striped, and of different colours in the leaf. Birdlime is made from the inner bark of this tree, by beating it in a running stream and leaving it to ferment in a close vessel. If iron be heated with charcoal made of holly with the bark on, the iron will be rendered brittle; but if the bark be taken off, this effect will not be produced. Ray's Works and Travels ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... formed in the wet clay and dried is taken before it has been in the kiln, and with knives or other tools the design is cut or chiseled so as to leave the background as thin and transparent as possible when finished. As the dry Belleek, besides being thin, is extremely brittle, and crumbles easily, the carving is an exceedingly difficult operation. It is necessarily a very slow process, since at any moment the knife is liable to cut through the wall and ruin ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... honour, though it rings, Is but a brittle glass; Experience of changing things Might teach a very ass! Right often Many turns to None, And honour has ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... accident occurred which decided the question for them. It frequently happens that some of the huge, heavy branches of the oaks in America become so thoroughly dried and brittle by the intense heat of summer, that they snap off without a moment's warning, often when there is not a breath of air sufficient to stir a leaf. This propensity is so well-known to Californian travellers that they are somewhat ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... trusting you with a funeral or a christening," Filmer felt his way gingerly, "I wouldn't care a durn. You can't hurt the dead and the kid might outgrow it; but when it comes to tying folks together tight, it's a blamed lot like trusting something brittle in a baby's hand. It mustn't be broke, you see, or there'll be h—I mean trouble, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... speed with the flinging of each yard behind her, her polished skis singing as they leaped downward, hardly seeming to touch the brittle crust of snow underfoot, standing erect that she might see far ahead and turn in time for a mound that spoke of a boulder, Wanda was rushing on toward the river. Its shouting voices, like the voices of many giant things In brutal laughter, swelled and thundered ever more distinct, ever ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... as should it become in the slightest degree bent, it would be, he explained, completely spoiled. He then commenced manufacturing arrows. They were made out of the leaf of a species of palm-tree, hard, brittle, and pointed as sharp as needles. Having burned the butt end, he fastened round it some wild cotton of just sufficient thickness to fit the hole of the tube. As soon as he had formed an arrow he put it into the blowpipe, and ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... flow, my brittle life Drops down, uncared for, to that sea, Where, 'midst the dark waves' stormy strife, It soon shall sink, and cease ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... like misfortunes; and so we all became, for the rest of the evening, nothing but blundering footmen, and careless servants, or were turned into broken jars, plates, glasses, tea-cups, and such like brittle substances. And it affected me so much, that, when I came home, I went to bed, and dreamt, that Robin, with the handle of his whip, broke the fore glass of my chariot; and I was so solicitous, methought, to keep the good lady in countenance for her ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... runs nimbly across a vast arch of Parian marble, and that makes up for the falls and the terraces. Where the ground is marshy, I come upon a pretty and vivid illustration of what I have read and been told of the Florida formation. This white and brittle limestone is undermined by water. Here are the dimples and depressions, the sinks and the wells, the springs and the lakes. Some places a mouse might break through the surface and reveal the water far beneath, or the snow gives way of its own weight, and you have a minute ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... animal unfledged, A monkey with his tail abridged; A thing that walks on spindle legs, With bones as brittle, sir, as eggs; His body, flexible and limber, And headed with a knob of timber; A being frantic and unquiet, And very fond of beef and riot; Rapacious, lustful, rough, and martial, To lies and lying scoundrels partial! By nature form'd with splendid parts To rise in science—shine ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... residences composed of a brittle, transparent, silicious material, should refrain from forcibly ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... of sorcery. If you had read your Vergil, you would certainly have known that very different things are sought for this purpose. He, as far as I recollect, mentions 'soft garlands' and 'rich herbs and 'male incense' and 'threads of diverse hues', and, in addition to these, 'brittle laurel,' 'clay to be hardened,' and 'wax to be melted in the fire'. There are also the objects mentioned by him in a ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... always matter so much whether you use a square, pointed, or a round-nosed bit, provided it is properly ground and set in the tool holder. As a rule, the more brittle the metal the less the top rake ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... They were planted by Mrs. North, wife of Bishop North, who held the See from 1781 to 1820, and in an engraving of the castle published in 1792 there is not a sign of them. The cedar is a very fast-growing tree—one of the reasons why it is so brittle. The Farnham cedars are as brittle as any others. I was told that when the present Bishop went abroad early in the year 1908, he was hesitating over cutting off some of the larger branches which shaded the castle wall and would not let it dry. The April snow settled the question ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... the monotonous rocking of Madame Filomel's chair broke the silence. Solon stooped down and put his eye to the keyhole, through which a red bar of light streamed into the entry. As he did so, his foot crushed some brittle substance that lay just outside the door; at the same moment a howl of agony was heard to issue from the room within. Solon started; nor did he know that at that instant he had crushed into dust Monsieur Kerplonne's supernumerary eye, and the owner, though wrapt in a drunken ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... egg-shell has become very brittle, and all the glutinous, adhesive matter has dried away from the lime; the other reason is, that the pressure of the bird's beak alone is sufficient to do it, because the pressure comes from within. There is a wonderful strength in an egg, Nat, if the pressure ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... a match made of agaric dipped in solution of nitre; the match is then ignited, and the wire with the cork put immediately into a bottle full of vital air, the match first burns vividly, and the iron soon takes fire and consumes with brilliant sparks till it is reduced to small brittle globules, gaining an addition of about one third of its weight by its union, with vital air. Annales de Chymie. Traite de Chimie, per ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... delicate tracery in the beech branches without, her hands mechanically turning over the leaves of the Bible. Suddenly her fingers touched something between the pages, something that crumbled away beneath her touch, a withered flower, the faded, brittle ghost of some vanished summer day. She drew away her hand quickly as though the flower stung her. It had conjured up the long-past loss and sorrow of a day when she had given birth to a child and Death came ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... of as to fire twelve times in a minute. The first time I reviewed my regiment they accompanied me to my house, and would salute me with some rounds fired before my door, which shook down and broke several glasses of my electrical apparatus. And my new honour proved not much less brittle; for all our commissions were soon after broken by a repeal of the law ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... such a speech as that." Mighty as Webster was in intellectual power he had some lamentable weaknesses. He was indeed a wonderful mixture of clay and iron. The iron was extraordinarily massive, but the clay was loose and brittle. He had the temptations of very strong animal passions, and sometimes to his intimate friends he attempted to excuse some of his excesses of that kind. There has been much controversy about Mr. Webster's habits ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... concerning the dark—in reality it was scarcely dusk—and her doubts concerning her ability to carry the "heavy" swordfish without help. At all events she insisted upon carrying it alone, telling her companion that she thought perhaps he had better not touch it as it was so very, very brittle and might get broken, and consoling him by offering to permit him to carry Petunia, which fragrant appellation, it appeared, was the name ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... when he ejaculated, "Mrs. Simmons," just as she was carrying her beloved glass preserve-dish to its place in the parlor-closet, she was so excited that she dropped the brittle treasure, and uttered not a moan over ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... and staggering knees, And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, 35 As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. So we were left galloping, Joris and I, Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; 40 Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, And "Gallop," gasped Joris, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... of the bridge, brittle with age and weather, already straining hard against the furious water, needed only the battering of the first heavy logs from the boom, ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... rude inhabitants of our country eighteen hundred years ago, of chipping arrow-heads with an astonishing degree of neatness out of the same stubborn material. They found, however, that though flint made a serviceable arrow-head, it was by much too brittle for an adze or battle-axe; and sought elsewhere than among the Banffshire gravels for the rock out of which these were to be wrought. Where they found it in our northern provinces I have not yet ascertained. It is but a short time since I came to know that ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... stalks were old and brittle, and that the boys preserved the hull. After watching them for some minutes, I began to make inquiries as to what the stalks ...
— Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... most common defects in improperly dried lumber. It is clearly shown by the cupping of the two halves when a case-hardened board is resawed. Chemical changes also occur in the wood in drying, especially so at higher temperatures, rendering it less hygroscopic, but more brittle. If dried too much or at too high a temperature, the strength ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... sees all things in a mirror; they may all live in glass houses if they will not throw stones. For this thin glitter of glass everywhere is the expression of the fact that the happiness is bright but brittle, like the substance most easily smashed by a housemaid or a cat. And this fairy-tale sentiment also sank into me and became my sentiment towards the whole world. I felt and feel that life itself is as bright as the diamond, but as brittle ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... the shack was foggy when he finished. Then he pushed the cannister-top down. He breathed a sigh of relief when it was in place. He'd arranged for it to break a frozen-brittle switch as it descended. When it came off, the switch would light the lamp with its bare filament. There was powdered magnesium in contact with it ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... merchant, take this and look what is its kind and value." And he gave him a jewel the bigness of a hazel-nut, which he had bought for a thousand sequins and not having its fellow, prized it highly. Ma'aruf took it and pressing it between his thumb and forefinger brake it, for it was brittle and would not brook the squeeze. Quoth the King, "Why hast thou broken the jewel?"; and Ma'aruf laughed and said, "O King of the age, this is no jewel. This is but a bittock of mineral worth a thousand dinars; why dost thou style it a jewel? A jewel I call such as is worth threescore and ten ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... bacilli in an agate mortar and treated them with distilled water until practically no deposit remained. Rowland and Macfadyen for the same purpose introduced the method of grinding the bacilli in liquid air. At this temperature the bacterial bodies are extremely brittle, and are thus readily broken up. The study of the nature of toxins requires, of course, the various methods of organic chemistry. Attempts to obtain them in an absolutely pure condition have, however, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... gentle spirit seeks the tomb, His brow yet fresh with childhood's bloom: Another treads the paths of fame, And barters peace to win a name. Another still, tempts fortune's wave, And seeking wealth, secures a grave. The last, grasps yet the brittle thread: Though friends are gone and joy is dead— Still dares the dark and fretful tide, And clutches at its power and pride— Till suddenly the waters sever, And like the leaf, he ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... image of the Enemy of Man—made of some sort of brittle paste—which had been placed at the foot of one of the masts. This they broke in pieces and scattered, and the oldest men among the spectators, rising from their places, picked up the fragments which they handed to the skeletons—an action supposed to signify that ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... not say to thee, Look not to earth for what it can't bestow; 'Tis at the best a frail and brittle reed, Which trusting for support, ...
— The Kings and Queens of England with Other Poems • Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow
... brittle sticks of thorn or brier Make me a fire Close by whose living coal I sit, And glow like it. Lord, I confess too, when I dine, The pulse is thine, And all those other bits that be There placed ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... are of larger size than the earlier; they are commonly about 13 inches square, with a thickness of three inches. The best quality of baked brick is of a yellowish-white tint, and very much resembles our Stourbridge or fire brick; another kind, extremely hard, but brittle, is of a blackish blue; a third, the coarsest of all, is slack-dried, and of a pale red. The earliest baked bricks are of this last color. The sun-dried bricks have even more variety of size than the baked ones. They are sometimes as large as 16 inches square and seven inches ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... weather'—it is always 'pretty' with them, instead of fine. Pretty weather for the hopping; and so that leads on to climbing up into the loft and handling the golden scales. The man with the hoe dips his brown fist in the heap and gathers up a handful, noting as he does so how the crisp, brittle, leaf-life substance of the hops crackles, and yet does not exactly break in his palm. They must be dry, yet not too dry to go to powder. They cling a little to the fingers, adhering to the skin, sticky. He looks for rust and ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... together meat that is chopt in pieces, seething in a pot, and make it into one lump: the same bruysed, and lay'd in the manner of a plaister, doth heale all fresh and green wounds." These roots are very brittle, and the least bit of them will ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... of breaking off their rays, and, like the crab and lobster, can grow new ones to take their place. They have many beautiful relations in the star-fish family, one of the loveliest being the Brittle-star, so called because it will break in pieces when touched. Another relative is the Sun-star, which has twelve or fifteen rays, and often grows to a very large size. Its color is sometimes purple, sometimes red, with white rays tipped with red; truly a gorgeous creature, ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater |
