"Tonic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but in this 'brave new world,' where the odour of the woods is a tonic, and the air brings healing and balm, how can death exist? Ah, Tredway, this is ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... Napoleon. "In times of peace if a man needs a tonic you give him iron, and it builds him up; but in war if you give the troops iron it bowls 'em down. Look at those Austrians; they've got nervous prostration of the ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... from overwork; further, in cases of impeded circulation occasioned by cholera or severe diarrhea, particularly in the so-called hydrocephaloid (false hydrocephalus) of children. It is worthy of trial in tetanic and eclamptic seizures, and in tonic angiospasms such as occur during the chill of malarial fevers, although in the last-mentioned condition pilocarpine is perhaps more suitable, provided the energy ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... they're rather violent for th's, I am afraid. I have a tincture—" Said ye first, "Your tincture cannot touch A case as difficult as th's, my pills are better much." "Your pills, sir, are too violent." "Your tonic is too weak." "As I have said, sir, in th's case—" "Permit me, sir, to speak." And so they argued long and high, and on, and on, and on, Until they lost their tempers, and an hour or more had gone. But long ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... feeding as well as the body. The rest cure is a kind of passive, relaxing, sedative treatment. The field is allowed to lie fallow, and often to grow up with weeds, trusting to time to rest and enrich it. The 'exercise and occupation cure,' on the other hand, is an active, stimulating, and tonic prescription. You place yourself in the hands of a physician who must direct the treatment. He will lay out a scheme with a judicious admixture of exercise which will improve your general health, soothe your nervous system, induce good appetite and sleep, and of occupation which ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... not discuss with you some substances indigenous to the country which are already in use, whether in medicine, or in the arts—of eucalyptus gum, for example, which is at once astringent and tonic to a very high degree, and is likely soon to become one of our most energetic drugs. Nor will I say much about the resin furnished by the tree which the English mis-name gourmier,* (* Note 35: Peron's word.) ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... then turned to the nobleman with a smile. Lord Ronsdale found that her greeting left nothing to be desired; she who had been somewhat unmindful of him lately on a sudden seemed really glad to see him. His slightly tired, aristocratic face lightened; the sunshine of Jocelyn Wray's eyes, the tonic of youth radiating from her, were sufficient to alleviate, if ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... tendinous membrane assists the muscles in their action, by keeping up a tonic pressure on their surface. It aids materially in the circulation of the fluids, in opposition to the laws of gravity. In the palm of the hand and sole of the foot, it is a powerful protection to the structures that enter into the formation of these parts. In all parts of the system, the ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... was guilty of somewhat incoherent chatter, Damaris sprang up and swung away along the terrace, through the clear tonic radiance, buoyant as a caged ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... recover everything. This tonic English climate will wind you up in a month. And THEN see how you'll take yourself—and how ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... of Mrs. Booth already re-published under the title of "Aggressive Christianity," came to American Christians as a tonic to their weakness, and a stimulant ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... head with his fat old fingers. "And our dear young friend's room, now, was it a large room?—good! and what was the aspect now, south?—good again! nothing better, unless, perhaps, south-west; but, of course, everyone's rooms can't look south-west. A little tonic draught, and gentle daily exercise in that nice garden, will set our dear young friend right again. Our temperament is nervous we are a sensitive plant, and want care." And then the respectable septuagenarian took ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... spirit drawn from the leaves of an aromatic tree which grows in Kashmir, called Bed-Mushk; it is a tonic ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... and not a deadly poison. However," and the doctor's face twinkled with humorous sympathy; "it's just about as well to keep it in solution for the present. Therefore, both as your medical adviser and as your senior warden, I'm going to give you a tonic to that end. Moreover, I want you to eat lots of underdone beef, to drink lots of good beer, and spend a good half your time out-doors. Then, if the doubts hang on, come back to me and I'll take another whack at them. They're harmless enough now, like most germs in their early ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... said the other, with a grim smile flickering about his mouth. "Well, I know the very best tonic that could come to me, which would be the news that the letter he wrote had reached its destination abroad. Oh! if only I could learn that, I'd feel like flying, my heart would be so light. And play, why, Jack, if such glorious news came to me right ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... suggested at the inquest that the chemist who made up a certain heart tonic Colonel Crofton had been in the habit of taking for some time, had put in a far larger dose ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... the tonic of some Platonic love in order to bear the burden of a solitary life," said the Marquis; "but, all the same, I have no especial reason to think that M. ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... fragrance of the woods was less marked than that produced during warm rain, when so many balsamic buds and leaves are steeped like tea; but from the chafing of resiny branches against each other, and the incessant attrition of myriads of needles, the gale was spiced to a very tonic degree. And besides the fragrance from these local sources, there were traces of scents brought from afar. For this wind came first from the sea, rubbing against its fresh, briny waves, then distilled through the redwoods, threading rich ferny gulches, and spreading itself ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... the revolver-barrel square at the man's panting chest seemed to act like a tonic; he choked, recovered himself, and fell ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... a smart, spurious wisdom of the world which has the bitterness not of the salutary tonic but of mortal poison; and of this kind the master is Chamfort, who died during the French Revolution (and for that matter died of it), and whose little volume of thoughts is often extremely witty, always pointed, but not seldom cynical and false. "If you live among men," he said, "the ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... that the presence of Desmond Okewood would dispel the vague fears that had hung over her incessantly ever since her father's murder. She had only met him twice, she told herself when this thought occurred to her, but there was something bracing and dependable about him that was just the tonic she wanted. ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... Canada shared in the recovery and gave the credit to the well-advertised political patent medicine taken just before the turn for the better came. For years the National Policy or "N.P.," as its supporters termed it, had all the vogue of a popular tonic. ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... thee greater I'll dare. This very outburst proves in thee Passions unsanctified, and carnal leanings Upon the creatures thou would'st fain transcend. Thou badest me cure thy weakness. Lo, God brings thee The tonic cup I feared to mix:—be brave— Drink it to the lees, and thou shalt find within A ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... Bloomsbury in person to be even more wonderful than her photograph suggested. Obviously she had brains; it was apparent, too that she had breeding. Her cheerful view of the world was like a tonic for tired nerves; and withal, she had a gentle sort of courtesy in her manner that may have been old-fashioned, but it was almost too much for Phil. Before the dinner was over, he would have laid his heart at her feet. It gave him a thrill that went to his head, to have her by his side, slipping ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... religious poetry, but not one coming within our ken has been made up as this has been. We have sought far and wide, through many libraries, carefully conning hundreds of books and glancing through hundreds more, to find just those lines which would have the most tonic and stimulating effect in the direction of holier, nobler living. We have coveted verses whose influence would be directly on daily life and would help to form the very best habits of thought and conduct, which would have intrinsic spiritual value and elevating power; those ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... the peasants are further distinguished by their frequent modulation from the major to the minor key, as if not long could they be joyful, and also by the peculiar way in which they are rendered. The tonic and the dominant are the prevalent intervals, and the intermediate notes are slurred or slightly sounded. Rochlitz found it impossible to convey this peculiarity by notation, but gives the following melody as a favorite accompaniment to the serf-songs ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... on the plateau is as effective as a tonic. The altitude varies from seven to nine thousand feet; Rocky Mountain's valley bottoms are higher than the summits of many peaks of celebrity elsewhere. On every hand stretch miles of tumbled meadows and ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... ledge enabled them to reach the cascade, where they could drink the water as it fell. How cool and refreshing it tasted! They all felt wonderfully invigorated; and the doctor owned that, under their circumstances, no tonic medicine he could have given them would have a more beneficial effect. The rock extended some way down on the opposite side of the stream, and the path they had pursued appeared to be the only one by which ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... The tonic effect of the words was supreme; the sob was strangled in Max's throat; a swift, pained certainty came to him that Blake would not have spoken these words in the plantation that morning, would not have spoken them as they raced together up ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... reports of the case, been compelled some years earlier to request the Court to sever her marital relations with Vincent Jopp on the ground of calculated and inhuman brutality, in that he had callously refused, in spite of her pleadings, to take old Dr. Bennett's Tonic Swamp-Juice three times a day, her voice, as she spoke, was kind and even anxious. Badly as this man had treated her—and I remember hearing that several of the jury had been unable to restrain their tears when she was in the witness-box giving her evidence—there still seemed to linger ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... may tonic and cosmetic, We may take our beauty sleep; We may rub and punch and powder But the claws go deep and deep; And before we understand it All our beauty's on the bum For the years are turning yellow When the crow's ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... at a lower rate of interest and give to the present holders of our 6 per cent. bonds a great advantage; that, instead of aiding resumption, it would only inflate a currency already too long depreciated, and consign it to a still lower deep; that, instead of being a tonic to spur idle capital once more into activity, it would be its bane, destructive of all vitality; and that as a permanent silver standard it would not only be void of all stability, and the dearest and clumsiest in its introduction and maintenance, but that ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... held in the chapel morning and evening every Sunday, and the business of religious edification is very peacefully conducted. There is a moderate choir in the chapel, and a small harmonium: The singing is conducted on the tonic sol fa principle, and it seems to suit Mr. William Toulmin, brother of the owner of the chapel, preaches every Sunday, and has done so, more or less, from its opening. He gets nothing for the job, contributes his share towards the church ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... of ranch life. For the first few years it is all very well. He can find a certain excitement in learning the business. The 'round-ups' and branding and re-branding of cattle, these things are fascinating—for a time. Breaking the wild and woolly broncho is thrilling and he needs no other tonic; but when one has gone through all this and he finds that no Broncho—or, for that matter, any other horse—ever foaled cannot be ridden, it loses its charm and becomes boring. On the prairie there are only two things left for him to do—drink ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... bones also are said to have been gathered near the town of Guerrero, Chihuahua, quite recently. It seems to be a custom with the common people to make a concoction of these "giants' bones" as a strengthening medicine; we heard of a woman who, being weak after childbirth, used it as an invigorating tonic. ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... unfriendliness shown me by some, who have perhaps overstepped kindness and justice in their sorrowful wrath at my renunciation of Materialism and Atheism. So far as health was concerned, the lecturing acted as a tonic. My chest had always been a little delicate, and when I consulted a doctor on the possibility of my standing platform work, he answered, "It will either kill you or cure you." It entirely cured the lung weakness, and I ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... greeting died in his throat. He had found the Colonel, but he had found him delivered over to that treacherous sleep that seldom knows a waking. The Boy dropped down beside his friend, and wasn't far off crying. But it was a tonic to young nerves to see how, like one dead, the man lay there, for all the calling and tugging by the arm. The Boy rolled the body over, pulled open the things at the neck, and thrust his hand down, till he could feel the heart beating. He jumped up, got a handful ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... Dunore, having gained nothing by his London trip but a little of that bitter though salutary tonic called experience. His resolve did not waver—nay, it became his day-dream; but manifold obstacles occurred in the attempt to realize it. Family pride was one of the most stubborn; and not until all hope from home resources was at an end, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... over his head hung the bulb of an electric light, its green circular shade throwing the white rays directly down on his open notebook. The girl was once more in the working world, and its bracing air acted as a tonic to her overwrought nerves. All longings and regrets had been put off with the Paris-made gown which the maid at that moment was carefully packing away. The order of nature seemed reversed; the butterfly had abandoned its ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... feeling of loneliness in the hearts of those left behind as they turned back toward the camp under the straggly willows. But this was speedily dissipated by that sovereign tonic for such feelings-namely, work. Much was to be done on the remaining monoplane, and with the exception of brief intervals of "fooling" the young people spent the rest of the day on finishing its equipment. Sunset found the machine ready for flight ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... opposite, and lo! the mist is cleared away. The indulgent moon is out again, revoyaging the plumbless sky. Roof and parapet and spire are softly pearl enamelled. Twice, thrice the retrieved river flashes back, between the houses, the light of the firmament. A tonic day will ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... And what was the tonic which had given such a fillip to his system, and hurried on his recovery? The earl purposed to confer upon him the degree he pined for, as soon as he could bear ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... but tried to banish the thought by indulging more freely in what he considered pleasure. You see—poor, giddy flutterer—he did not like to hear the plain truth spoken; flattery would have pleased him better, yet truth, though sometimes bitter, is a wholesome tonic when taken properly. ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... treatment which is directly effective. The papaya, which is a very digestible fruit, can hardly be of assistance, but may be eaten from some magical idea of its resemblance to a foetus. The mixture drunk is perhaps designed to be a tonic to the stomach against the painful effects of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Prairie that spring. It was a "tent show, presenting snappy new dramas under canvas." The hard-working actors doubled in brass, and took tickets; and between acts sang about the moon in June, and sold Dr. Wintergreen's Surefire Tonic for Ills of the Heart, Lungs, Kidneys, and Bowels. They presented "Sunbonnet Nell: A Dramatic Comedy of the Ozarks," with J. Witherbee Boothby wringing the soul by his resonant "Yuh ain't done right by mah little gal, Mr. City Man, but yer a-goin' to find that back ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... One daily tonic there was, however, which never deserted her. Strictly as Girdlestone guarded her, and jealously as he fenced her off from the outer world, he was unable to prevent this one little ray of light penetrating her prison. With an eye to the future he had so placed her that it ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... temptation to escape this horrible place I leaped quickly through the opening into the starlight of a clear Arizona night. The crisp, fresh mountain air outside the cave acted as an immediate tonic and I felt new life and new courage coursing through me. Pausing upon the brink of the ledge I upbraided myself for what now seemed to me wholly unwarranted apprehension. I reasoned with myself that I had lain helpless for many hours within the cave, ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... is to administer a tonic to the Conference in Milan," he said airily. "Its deliberations upon international action for the suppression of political crime don't seem to get anywhere. England lags. This country is absurd with its sentimental regard for individual liberty. It's intolerable to ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... has exhibited some acuteness of observation, and has written with commendable originality. But his accuracy is certainly not greater than his confidence. On page 57th, he says, "The m, n, and ng, are purely nasal;" on page 401st, "Some of the tonic elements, and one of the subtonics, are made by the assistance of the lips; they are o-we, oo-ze, ou-r, and m." Of the intrinsic value of his work, I am not prepared or inclined to offer any ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... character of the subject-matter, the absence of all possibility of a revision in party interests, the probable straightforward honesty of the purpose, act like a tonic to the ordinary student of history. Nowhere can he find more reliable material for his purpose, if only he can understand it. The history he may reconstruct will be that of real men, whose character and circumstances have not yet been misrepresented. ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... in a dream or the face of a saint being comfortably martyred in a picture. Morris, I believe that you are not well. I will speak to the doctor. He must give you a tonic, or something for your liver. Really, to see you and that old mummy Mr. Fregelius staring at each other while he murmured away about the delights of the world to come, and how happy we ought to be at the thought of getting ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... exclaimed in quite a shocked voice; "you will be so tired." But Malcolm assured her with absolute truth that he had never been less tired in his life. The storm and stress and excitement of the day had acted on him like a tonic as well as an anodyne; in thinking and planning for others he had found relief from the intolerable ache of ever-present pain that had made his life so purgatorial of late, and the unhealed wound ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... virtue for the city-bred, I fancy, in the clean salt air and simple living of our coast—and, surely, for every one, everywhere, a tonic in the performance of good deeds. Hard practice in fair and foul weather worked a vast change in the doctor. Toil and fresh air are eminent physicians. The wonder of salty wind and the hand-to-hand conflict with a northern sea! They gave ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... turned into the chemist's, for a tonic—a foolish proceeding, for he had received bracing enough in the blow he had just dealt himself, but he had been cogitating on tonics recently, imagining certain valiant effects of them, with visions of a former careless ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is not harmful; it is tonic. Excellence is an inspiration, an intoxication. Let excellence, not Will-it-pass? be the standard of exchange. From the very endeavor after excellence comes a certain exaltation of spirit, which ennobles the least fragment of daily toil. When the producer brings forth somewhat ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... never been anything to each other, these two people had passed through many of the trials to which humanity is heir almost side by side. But neither had ever broken down. Each acted as a sort of mental tonic on the other. They had tacitly agreed, years before, to laugh at most things. She saw, more distinctly than any, the singular emptiness of his clothes, as if the man was shrinking, and she knew that the ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... on the veranda and Miss Eyester was of the opinion that she had gone to her room to take her tonic. ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... minute, Smith," urged Mr. Tescheron, whose ideas had been strengthened by the tonic of Smith's stimulating rejoinder, and I may add that the turn was about what Smith had planned to happen. "What are those papers you put back in your pocket?" The observing, gullible man ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... roar. "The snake's dead," he answered good-naturedly. "Didn't you have to dig an awful long grave for him?" asked the boy; but the man said he reckoned they curled him up some, and smiled as he turned to his lions, who looked as if they needed a tonic. Everybody lingered longest before the monkeys, who seemed to be the only lively creatures in the whole collection; and finally we made our way into the other tent, and perched ourselves on a high seat, from whence we ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... tonic in being absent from your home and country are administered by difference. In gulping that three thousand miles the taste is austere, but the stimulus is wholesome. We learn to appreciate, but also to correct, the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... morbidly blue because your solar plexus has gone to sleep; give it half an hour of internal vibration. Don't knock the weather, like it, get into it, let it put iron into your blood. Plunge into a storm, it will act as tonic on your spirit. A dip in the ocean will add magnetism to your body. Your body is a mighty fine engine of marvelous energy. Over-fed, under-fed, over-burdened, neglected, abused, weakened, shamefully talked about, yet ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... receives you in its warm embrace and a glow of contentment pervades your frame, which seems like a special preparation for the soothing touch of cool, clean linen, and white duck, or smooth khakee. And even before the voice of the butler is heard at the door, your olfactory nerves, quickened by the tonic of the tub, have told you what he ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... attitudes, all singing in chorus.) Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies! Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain! Our captain's commanded. — 1st Nantucket Sailor Oh, boys, don't be sentimental; it's bad for the digestion! Take a tonic, follow me! ( Sings, and all follow.) Our captain stood upon the deck, A spy-glass in his hand, A viewing of those gallant whales That blew at every strand. Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys, And by your braces stand, And we'll have one of those ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... in my eyes was the nature of his courage. There was never a braver man: he went out to welcome danger; an emergency (came it never so sudden) strung him like a tonic. And yet, upon the other hand, I have known none so nervous, so oppressed with possibilities, looking upon the world at large, and the life of a sailor in particular, with so constant and haggard a consideration of the ugly chances. All his courage ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... pleasure in the sight, it may be said. She exhibited to him a face mismodelled by sleep, and set like a clay face left on its cheek in a hot and dry studio. She was still only in part awake, however, and by the time she had extinguished the night-light and given her patient his tonic, she had recovered enough plasticity. "Well, isn't that grand! We've had another good night," she said as she departed to ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... crosses which stand for kisses. They are not dehumanised by war; the kindliness and tenderness of their natures are unspoiled by all their daily traffic in horror. But they have won their souls; and when the days of peace return these men will take with them to the civilian life a tonic strength and nobleness which will arrest and extirpate the decadence of society with the saving salt of valour ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... to be full of game, and the grass on the plains remained almost unwithered. There was only enough frost in the air to make breathing it a tonic, a tingling delight. Not even a crust formed over the placid bay; and the waters of the river went leaping and dancing through the sunshine in airy defiance ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... than that wild travelling. He might have been almost shaken to pieces,—but the very severity of the shaking served to divert his thoughts from the one dread topic which threatened to absorb them to the exclusion of all else beside. Then there was the tonic influence of the element of risk. The pick-me-up effect of a spice of peril. Actual danger there quite probably was none; but there very really seemed to be. And one thing was absolutely certain, that if we did come to smash while going at that speed ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... to the house of a friend of his, in order that we might taste real Manzanilla wine. This is a pale, straw-colored vintage, produced in the valley of the Guadalquivir. It is flavored with camomile blossoms, and is said to be a fine tonic for weak stomachs. The master then produced a dark-red wine, which he declared to be thirty years old. It was almost a syrup in consistence, and tasted more of sarsaparilla than grapes. None of us relished it, except Bailli, who was so inspired by the draught, that he sang us two Moorish songs ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... and tonic influence of a few hours of positive and unalloyed enjoyment in a busy or burdened life is properly estimated by a very few. Multitudes would preach better, live better, do more work and die much later, could they find some innocent recreation to which they ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... with them. The seeds, when macerated and fermented, yielded a paste, which was imported in rolls under the name of Orlean, and was used in dyeing. It was also put into chocolate to deepen its color and lend an astringency which was thought to be wholesome. Tonic pills were made of it. The fibres of the bark are stronger than those of hemp. The name Roucou is from the Carib Urucu. In commerce the dye is also ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... it should be bitter: bitterness is strength—it is a tonic. Sweet, mild force following acute suffering you find nowhere; to talk of it is delusion. There may be apathetic exhaustion after the rack. If energy remains, it will be rather a dangerous energy—deadly ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... them out of sundry lire, toiled up to the ledge where the playful Tiberius (see guide-books) tipped over his whilom favorites, bought a marine daub; and then back to Naples and the friendly smells. His constant enthusiasm and refreshing observations were a tonic ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... to tell you, boys," says he, "that Nicaragua slapped an import duty of 48 per cent. ad valorem on all bottled goods last month. The President took a bottle of Cincinnati hair tonic by mistake for tobasco sauce, and he's getting even. Barrelled goods ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... her regard. She felt as though Providence had suddenly endowed her with a whole family—"all complete and ready for use," as Tim cheerfully observed—and the reaction from the oppressive consciousness of being entirely alone in the world acted like a tonic. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... feel again the pang of that disappointment—as if through the want of what I needed most for going on; the English smell was exhaled by The Charm in a peculiar degree, and I see myself affected by the failure as by that of a vital tonic. It was not, at the same time, by a Charm the more or the less that my salvation was to be, as it were, worked out, or my imagination at any rate duly convinced; conviction was the result of the very air of home, so far as I most consciously inhaled it. This ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... Plagal-cadence: a closing progression of chords in which the sub-dominant or chord on the fourth degree of the scale precedes the tonic or chord on the first degree of the scale. The name arises from the modes used in early church music called Plagal Modes, which were a transposition of the authentic modes beginning on the fourth ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... a damper on me. In fact, you can't. Have you that last prescription of Dr. Foxton's handy? My liver wants a tonic." ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... rifle had finished asking a lot of playful questions so as to gain time, the first shots were fired. The marines armed with binoculars were not unduly elated by any one shot, but merely reported progress in a characteristic American fashion—that is, by a system of chaffing. This provided tonic, and presently the bullets crept in so close to the marks that all chaff was forgotten. Sometimes it took an hour, or even two, to bring down a single man; but no matter how long the time necessary might be, the Americans ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... cheered many hearts, and was echoed in faint smiles on the pale faces of the colonists. Governor Bradford himself smiled and, turning to the Captain, held out his hand. "Thou art ever a tonic, Thomas," he said, "and there is always a welcome for thee in Plymouth and for thy friends, too," he added, ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... been accommodated with a needle-case to keep him quiet during the unaccountable absence (with a relative in the Foot Guards) of Millers. And more needles were missing than it could be regarded as quite wholesome for a patient of such tender years either to apply externally or to take as a tonic. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... of space above him, the star-spangled sky overhead, the free sweet air around him, even the unfettered use of his weakened limbs, as he swam with his brother's strong supporting arm about him, acted upon him like a tonic. He hardly knew whether or not it was a dream; whether he were in the body or out of the body; whether he should awake to find himself in his gloomy cell, or under the cruel hands of his foes in that dread chamber he had visited ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the British soldier a tonic, and when Wellington drew up his lines in challenge of battle to his pursuer, on the great hill of Busaco, his red-coated soldiery were at least full of a grim satisfaction. One of the combatants has described the diverse aspects of the two ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... government as exemplified in England, and try Mechi's razor-strops." For France he prescribes a reduction of army and navy, and an increased demand for Manchester prints. America he warns against military despotism, advises a tonic of English iron, and a compress of British cotton, as sovereign against internal rupture. What a weight for the shoulders of our poor Johannes Factotum! He is the commissionnaire of mankind, their guide, philosopher, and friend, ready with a disinterested opinion in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... distressed as Morrison; for he understood the other's feelings perfectly. No decent feeling was ever scorned by Heyst. But he was incapable of outward cordiality of manner, and he felt acutely his defect. Consummate politeness is not the right tonic for an emotional collapse. They must have had, both of them, a fairly painful time of it in the cabin of the brig. In the end Morrison, casting desperately for an idea in the blackness of his despondency, hit ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... varying in age from fifteen to nineteen, some clothed in full football rig, some wearing the ordinary dress in which they had stepped from the school rooms an hour before, all laughing or talking with the high spirits produced upon healthy youth by the tonic breezes of late September, were standing about the gridiron. I have said that all were laughing or talking. This is not true; one among ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... terms. By such association, any bureaucratic tendency which may exist on the part of the British official is kept in check, whilst his individualism is subjected to a sustained and healthy course of tonic treatment. ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... tonic before he can eat a lunch had better take plenty of air and exercise than to take poisonous drugs into ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... two prisoners alive. During the day the sun was excessively hot, and the crowd of visitors round the cage impeded the circulation of the air and added to their sufferings. It was true that the cold at night frequently prevented them from sleeping, but it acted as a tonic and braced ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... their raging hunger into the house again until the large tea-bell rang in the porch, and the air was rife with the fragrance of Aunt Virginia's bounty: fried ham, fried eggs, fried chicken, strong coffee, and hot biscuits—of fresh Yankee flour from Suez. No wine, and no tonic before sitting down. In the pulpit and out of it Garnet had ever been an ardent advocate of total abstinence. He never, even in his own case, set aside its rigors except when chilled or fatigued, and always then took ample care ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... way of rain, that year was breaking the records of a century and a half. Thirty yards in front of each boat an unhappy skeleton of a horse floundered its best in the quagmire. The honest endeavour of one of the animals received a frequent tonic from a bare-legged girl of seven who heartily curled a whip about its crooked large-jointed legs. The ragged and filthy child danced in the rich mud round the horse's flanks with the simple joy of one who had been rewarded ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... reverie which was creeping over her. She was glad to see Ethel, unfeignedly glad. The bright, animated presence of her cousin, during the next few days, could not fail to be a tonic. And, as Ethel had said, she herself had been the one to suggest the first idea of the winter visit. Chance and Captain Frazer had decreed that it should take place now, when Alice's hands were immoderately full of work. But then, so much the better. Ethel could make herself invaluable ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... again. We were now upon the high land of the Ridge, the backbone of the State, and though, perhaps, hardly ninety feet above the sea, the air had all the exhilarating freshness of great altitudes. All through the week which followed we felt its tonic inspiration and seemed to drink in intoxicating draughts of health and spirits, and never more than during the fifteen-mile drive between Black Creek ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... it rather the agency of a power outside of man, a subtile protecting principle, which allows the operation of the evil element only that the latter may finally betray itself? Whatever explanation we may choose, the fact is there, like a tonic medicine distilled from poisonous plants, to brace our faith in the ascendancy of Good in ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... But before I had time to explain my business he had started on a series of explosive directions: "Eat proper food. Plenty of open air. Exercise morning, noon and night and in between. Use the Muldow system. You need a tonic." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... more notable from the fact that they made him thoroughly acquainted with General Butler. They were brought suddenly to an end by the reappearance of his old trouble, which in time made it necessary for him to take a sick-leave. The surgeon who had him in charge directed him to again seek the tonic climate of Brattleborough in his native State. According to promise, his good friend, the Governor, took the earliest opportunity to send him his commission as Colonel of the Third Regiment of Vermont Volunteer Infantry, to ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... when the primary current had been once established, was not in its natural condition, its return to that condition being declared by the current observed at breaking the circuit. He called this hypothetical state of the wire the electro-tonic state: he afterwards abandoned this hypothesis, but seemed to return to it in later life. The term electro-tonic is also preserved by Professor Du Bois Reymond to express a certain electric condition of ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... supernaturalism, tends to identify "Nature" with lower nature—in other words, with the material side of the Universe and the carnal side of Man's being,—we shall realise how easy it is for the secular life, once it has lost, through its divorce from religion, the tonic stimulus of a central aim, to sink, without directly intending to do so, into the mire of materialism,—a materialism of conduct as ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... He is kindly, charitable, sympathetic, and sincere. Exaggeration, insinuation, and caricature are altogether foreign to his spirit. In his society we feel inspired and ennobled. His very presence is a tonic, and his tongue distills only purity. His example is the lodestar of our aspirations, and we fain would be his disciples. We feel him to be something worshipful in that his life constantly beckons to our better selves. To be reverent is to be liberally ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... father had led me up a tall hill and pointed them out to me— black specks in the red ball of the sun. But to-day, as hour after hour went by with the pant of the engines, the lift and slide of the Atlantic swell, the tonic wind humming against the stays, my eyes grew heavy, and at length my head dropped against my father's shoulder. And then—to me it seemed the next instant—he woke me up and pointed towards the islands as they rose ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... her to fetch it and pour it out, but as she recognized a powerful tonic, she exclaimed, 'Is this what you are taking? May ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... will not take a tonic. It's only a good sleep I want; and I'll get that to-night. But I give my word, if I'm not all right to-morrow, if I don't sleep, I'll send to you and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ought to drink water, lightly tinged with a Burgundy wine agreeable to her taste, but destitute of any tonic properties; every other kind of wine would be bad for her. Never allow her to drink water alone; if you do, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... think of this for a misanthropical man, Mr. Olmney? there's a better tonic to be found in the woods than in any ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... a rather white and strained face toward him, but even now his bracing bigness and coolness were acting upon her as a tonic. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... a white hair from the lapel of his closely-buttoned-up frock coat, and passed his hand over his cheeks, moustache, and square chin. It felt very hollow there under the cheekbones. He had not been eating much lately—he had better get that little whippersnapper who attended Holly to give him a tonic. But she had come back and when they were in the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the skirt-board, Jane," cried Miranda, to whom opposition served as a tonic, "and move that flat-iron on to the front o' the stove. Rebecca, set down in that low chair beside the board, and, Jane, you spread out her hair on it and cover it up with brown paper. Don't cringe, Rebecca; the worst's ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... always be used at this age. But that, as the child grows older,—if of a healthy and vigorous constitution,—the cold bath is unquestionably most desirable; and, if used in a proper manner, will be found to act as a most powerful tonic to the system. The summer is of course the only period of the year when the cold plunging bath can be ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... unaccountability that was not only enigmatic to himself but to every one else with whom he came in contact. He kept Mary in a ferment of excitement trying to devise remedies for his successive ills. One day she would be sure he needed a tonic to dispel his listlessness and with infinite pains would brew the necessary ingredients together; but before the draught could be cooled and administered, Martin had rebounded to an unheard-of vitality. Ah, she would reason, it must ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... class-rooms, in some of which I lingered at leisure, were tonic, bracing, inspiring, and made me ashamed because I was not young. I saw geography being taught with the aid of a stereoscopic magic-lantern. After a view of the high street of a village in North Russia had been exposed and explained by a pupil, ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... in your natural desire to have your TSAR FERDINAND home again, and we share your sanguine belief that the tonic air of Sofia (never more bracing than at the present moment) ought speedily to cure him of his malignant catarrh. His Austrian physicians however advise him to remain away, and he himself holds the view, coloured a little by superstition, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... canvas with no back to it, because, as was luminously explained to me, you must have some way to get into it, and I had to sit sideways in it, with my portmanteau bucking like a three-year-old on the seat opposite to me. It fell out on the road twice going uphill. After the second fall my hair tonic slowly oozed forth from the seams, and added a fresh ingredient to the smells of the grimy cushions and the damp hay that furnished the machine. My hair tonic costs ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the name "Berceuse," Chopin's Op. 57 (published in June, 1845) is the finest, or at least one of the finest and happiest conceptions. It rests on the harmonic basis of tonic and dominant. The triad of the tonic and the chord of the dominant seventh divide every bar between them in a brotherly manner. Only in the twelfth and thirteenth bars from the end (the whole piece contains ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... for turner's work and common carpentry, as a source of charcoal for gunpowder, and as fuel. Newly cut it weighs 60 lb, and dry 35 lb. per cub. ft. approximately. The bark has been employed for dyeing yellow and for tanning, and was formerly in popular repute as a febrifuge and tonic. The powder of the dried nuts was at one time prescribed as a sternutatory (to encourage sneezing) in the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia. It is stated to form with alum-water a size or cement highly offensive to vermin, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... the aviators have followed the knightly code of old which respects a good opponent and honors him. Captain Boelcke's death, after his meteoric career, was mourned alike by friend and foe. Great as is the damage done by this war, horrible as is its devastation, it has acted as a tonic on aviation. Before the war, of course, there had been some achievements of note. Since the day when the Wright brothers announced their conquest of the air, man did not rest till the problem was completely solved. And this war, which continually has ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... jargoon. It's a stuff that's very easily faked. You work it with the flame of a blow-pipe. You don't want a full description, I suppose? Anyway, what happens is that the blow-pipe sets it up like a tonic. Gives it increased specific gravity and a healthy complexion and all sorts of great things of that kind. Two minutes in the flame of a blow-pipe is like a week at the seashore to a bit of white jargoon. Are ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... Salt perfume of ocean mingled with spicy fragrance from the sunburnt bayberry flung in thick ruglike masses upon bare gray rock, and azure veinings of the sea, stray among the marshes, made strong-growing water plants give out a tang that was tonic ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... invalid has to lie aside from life and its wholesome duties; again he has to be an idler among idlers; but this time at a great altitude, far among the mountains, with the snow piled before his door and the frost flowers every morning on his window. The mere fact is tonic to his nerves. His choice of a place of wintering has somehow to his own eyes the air of an act of bold contract; and, since he has wilfully sought low temperatures, he is not so apt to shudder at a touch of chill. He came for that, he looked ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... outside to Langley, whom he found sitting down near the fire, looking if possible, more ghastly than before. The presence of Whitson seemed, however, to act on him as a kind of tonic, and he soon pulled himself together sufficiently to assist in piling a quantity of fuel upon the already sinking fire, which soon blazed brightly, lighting up the mouth of the cavern and the space in front of it. One of the bodies of the men ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... cork in a bottle of hair tonic she was getting ready to pack. The cork refused to stay in the bottle. Mary gave it another jab—the bottle broke and the contents spilled over the dresser. She tried to rescue an ivory-handled brush and mirror, but it was ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... exercise separated the girls yet further. The skating was like a tonic to Hester. She could not be dull, depressed, or anxious after an hour on the ice. She missed Helen's companionship less than before. While Helen was brought to realize that it was not a passing fancy she had held toward Hester, but genuine affection and she missed ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... mechanics, following Larkin's orders, would have the two Camels waiting on the line. As the car rolled along the smooth highway leading to the flying field, McGee sank back in the none too comfortable cushions and drank deep of the tonic of early morning. ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... of twelve syllables, with cesura after the sixth accented syllable. In the decasyllabic line the cesura generally followed the fourth, but sometimes the sixth, tonic syllable.] ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... the singular customs of the natives of Jeddah, he says:—"It is the almost universal custom for everybody to swallow a cup full of ghee or melted butter in the morning. After this they take coffee, which they regard as a strong tonic; and they are so accustomed to this habit from their earliest years, that they feel greatly inconvenienced if they discontinue it. The higher classes are satisfied with drinking the cup of butter, but the lower classes add another ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the brain craves thought, as the stomach does food; and where it is not properly supplied it will feed on garbage. Where a Latin, geometry, or history lesson would be a healthy tonic, or nourishing food, the trashy, exciting story, the gossiping book of travels, the sentimental poem, or, still worse, the coarse humor or thin-veiled vice of the low romance, fills up the hour—and is at best but tea or slops, if not as dangerous as opium or whisky. ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... honor, kept him from offering his services to foreign powers. Trials undermined his courage. Long tramps afoot on insufficient nourishment, and above all, on hopes betrayed, injured his health and discouraged his mind. By degrees he became utterly destitute. If to some men misery is a tonic, on others it acts as a dissolvent; and the count was of ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... academical Causes for "thinning on top," Selling me gallons of chemical Tonic, a brush, ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... parted from her? She's her father's best tonic! She keeps him young and makes him laugh. She's getting her education and living her home life at the same time, and that seems to me ideal. We shall probably have to spare her later on to be married, so ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... family is not only one of the most natural and most uniform in structure, but there is also a great similarity existing in the properties of the plants of which it is composed. Generally speaking, all composite flowers are tonic or stimulant in ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... and to the door of the Rector's class-room. At this point the great man fell into low spirits, and bemoaned the failure of a strenuous life, in which he had vainly fought the immorality of Muirtown, and declared, unless he obtained an immediate tonic, he would succumb to a broken heart. He also charged Speug with treachery in having brought him to the County Gaol instead of to the Black Bull. It was painfully explained him that he was now in ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... again to-morrow,' said I. 'I've a small medicine chest up at the Cornice House, and you want a tonic badly.' ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "ill-starred abortion" WEG christened our party; At present, as JOE hints, that sounds quite ironic. True, lately our health did appear far from hearty, But Aston has acted As-tonic! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... my best love to Mamie, and hope she is better. I am, of course, tired (the pull of "Marigold" upon one's energy, in the Free Trade Hall, was great); but I stick to my tonic, and feel, all things considered, in very good tone. The room here (I mean the hall) being my special favourite and extraordinarily easy, is almost ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... and the morning was still frosty and cold. Yet the wilderness was more beautiful than ever. The frost had merely deepened its colors. While many dead leaves had fallen, myriads remained, and they had taken on more intense and glowing tints. The air had all the purity and tonic of an American autumn. The light winds were the breath of ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... nursery tastes, he drags me whither he lists. It is artless art and monstrous innovation to present so wilful a figure, but were I to create a striking fable for him, and set him off with scenic effects and contrasts, it would be only a momentary tonic to you, to him instant death. He could not live in such an atmosphere. The simple truth has to be told: how he loved his country, and for another and a broader love, growing out of his first passion, fought it; and being ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... about that I appointed the Rev. Basil Bastin to the living of Fulcombe, feeling sure that he would provide me with endless amusement and act as a moral tonic and discipline. Also I appreciated the man's blunt candour. In due course he arrived, and I confess that after a few Sundays of experience I began to have doubts as to the wisdom of my choice, glad as I was to see him personally. His sermons at once bored me, ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... an advertising concern, or any patent medicine ever made, will in any sense cure any of these ailments. Every cent invested in any of these nostrums is money wasted. Medicine by the mouth is never necessary to affect a cure of the actual ailment. A physician will doubtless prescribe a tonic for your general rundown condition. But even this would totally fail if the cause of the ill health was not removed, and this necessitates an examination and special local treatment. For any advertising concern to assert that it can tell what ails a patient by simply filling out ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague |
