"Precipitate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... such quick succession that they paused, when but a moment more would have placed them within the inclosure. But several of them being wounded, and Boone and Glenn still doing execution with their pistols, the discomfited enemy made a precipitate retreat. An occasional flight of arrows continued to assail the besieged, but they came from a great distance, for the Indians were not long in scampering beyond the ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... So precipitate had been the enemy's flight that they had left everything—food still cooking, all their household and personal utensils; and I saw in the road great piles of kettles, plates, knives, deerskins, beaver-pelts, bearhides, packs of furs, and bolts of ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... advanced. Evidently those who carried them were trying to see the party who had given this peremptory command. They could be heard talking together in low and husky tones, some urging a precipitate rush, others counciling caution and diplomacy, in order ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... victory of Magenta was the possession of Lombardy. Gyulai, unable to collect his scattered divisions, gave orders for a general retreat. Milan was evacuated with precipitate haste, and the garrisons were withdrawn from all the towns, leaving them to be occupied by the French and Italians. On the 8th of June Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel rode into Milan side by side, amid the loud acclamations of the people, who looked upon this victory as an ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... possible that at this time Spain would not have taken any action whatever, if William had pursued a different course; and seeing that the colonists had been abandoned and disowned by their own king, as if they had been vagabonds or outlaws, the Spaniards, in a manner, felt themselves invited to precipitate a ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... to look A little black upon this new flirtation; But such small licences must lovers brook, Mere freedoms of the female corporation. Woe to the man who ventures a rebuke! 'Twill but precipitate a situation Extremely disagreeable, but common To calculators when they count ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Spirits Turpentine, one ounce Red Precipitate in powder, one oz. Burgundy Pitch in powder, one lb. Hog's Lard. Melt all these ingredients over a slow fire until the ointment is formed. Stir until cold. Spread on a linen rag and apply ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... Fairthorn sunk upon the ground, and resigned himself for some minutes to unmanly lamentations. Suddenly he started up; a thought came into his brain—a hope into his breast. He made a caper—launched himself into a precipitate zig-zag—gained the hall-door-plunged into his own mysterious hiding-place—and in less than an hour re-emerged, a letter in his hand, with which he had just time to catch the postman, as that functionary was striding off from the back yard with ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the least of his objections to the "enfranchising measure" was that, in breaking down the hedge of the law, it invaded Delicacy; and whatever invaded delicacy helped to precipitate gross though perhaps unforeseen evils. Unfortunately there are great masses—whole classes—of people to whom delicacy, whether in speech or act, means nothing. To eat, drink, sleep, buy and sell, marry and be given in marriage, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... only—years ago: I must not say how many—but not many. It was a July midnight; and from out A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring, Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, There fell a silvery-silken veil of light, With quietude, and sultriness and slumber, Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand Roses that grew in an enchanted garden, Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe— ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... Ingratitude, we are told, is as the sin of witchcraft, and although the table of exports exhibits our fair island as hastening to a state of ruin, and the despatch tells us that "by the united influence of mock philanthropy, religious cant, and humbug," a reformed parliament was forced "to precipitate the slavery spoliation act under the specious pretext of promoting the industry and improving the condition of the manumitted slaves," still we maintain, and the reasonable will agree with us, that we are much better off now than we have ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... simultaneous outbreak on both sides of the Atlantic, so that one continent should not come to the help of the other. If, however, this could not be effected, he was to return home, and the Brotherhood would precipitate the revolution all over America at the same hour, and take the chances of holding their own against the banker-government ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... Flushing, Holland. Suddenly appeared the cornet at the fore—an unexpected signal, that compelled absent officers and men to repair on board. Steam was raised, and immediately after a departure made, when all hands being called, the nature of the precipitate movement became apparent. Captain Winslow, in a brief address, announced the welcome intelligence of the reception of a telegram from his Excellency, Mr. Dayton, Minister Resident at Paris, to the effect that the notorious ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne
... augmented means and wanton use of them, has little ground for exultation, unless he can feel it in the success of his recent enterprises against this metropolis and the neighboring town of Alexandria, from both of which his retreats were as precipitate as his attempts were bold and fortunate. In his other incursions on our Atlantic frontier his progress, often checked and chastised by the martial spirit of the neighboring citizens, has had more effect in distressing individuals and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... origin of these two species, which thus in their turns, at the end of every seventh year, pour out all of a sudden in amazing numbers, and having committed their ravages on all the fruits of the earth, precipitate themselves into the sea. Neither has any preventive remedy for this evil been yet discovered. It is well known how they perish, but, once more, how they are produced no one, that I could learn, has as yet been able to trace. The field-mice are undoubtedly something in the nature of those swarms ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... to fire on that craft before it makes a hostile demonstration, Dr. Bird," demurred Captain Evans. "We are at peace with Russia. My action in firing might precipitate a war, or in any ...
— The Solar Magnet • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... it might have been," he stammered, rather relieved upon the whole that it was not the goddess who had seen his precipitate bolt from the vehicle. Who the female in the corner really was, he never knew; though a man of science might account for the resemblance she bore to the statue by ascribing it to one of those preparatory impressions projected ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... of future prosperity depended on his success in the field—if such a woman should offer—every barrier is removed, and I should rejoice in an union which would promise so much felicity. But mark me, boy, if, on the contrary, you rush into a precipitate union with a girl of little or no fortune, take the poor creature from a comfortable home and kind friends, and plunge her into all the evils a narrow income and increasing family can inflict, I will leave you to enjoy the blessed ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... a unique experience, as so many poets have, and very recently as the author of this volume has, arrives through his personality rather than his work at a precipitate sort of fame that may serve his talents well or serve them ill. To know that a man was sent to jail as the consequence of a passionate desire to go to college, and that that desire involved the tramping of dusty and hungry miles, adds to the interest ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones
... heart now emanated from her and this was strengthened by precipitate and often unkindly judgment, supported in its turn by a desire to catch her own reflection in all things and to adopt witty points ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... was colonel, resisted. It was led against the other troops under the command of a captain and a major. The hostile bodies came face to face a few paces apart; the queen's party greatest in number, but in disorder, the czar's party drawn up with military skill. A moment, a word, might precipitate a bloody conflict. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... will precipitate a conflict before all the Electors are here, for it is certain that the first prince to arrive will have the place thoroughly searched for spies. So momentous a meeting will never be held until all ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... sets, it shall be as homogeneous as possible. In spite of such precautions, it is impossible to prevent the densest parts of the plaster from depositing first, through the action of gravity. These will naturally precipitate upon the table or upon the slanting sides of the core, and the mould will therefore present great inequalities as regards porosity. Since this defect exists in each of the pieces that have been prepared in succession, it will be seen that when they come to be superposed for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... "ten days after they had been buried, and, seeing some people at a distance, inquired what dogs they were. 'They are some dogs that are lost, Sir,' said they; 'they have been lost some time.' I concluded only some poachers had been there early in the morning, and by a precipitate flight had left their dogs behind them. In short, the howling and barking of these dogs was heard for near three weeks, when it ceased. Mr. Wade's dogs were missing, but he could not suspect those dogs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... Highness looked upon the scene of battle for a few minutes, and, much commoved at what he saw, was somewhat hasty in his directions to the Varangians to resume their arms, and precipitate their march towards Laodicea; whereupon one of those northern soldiers said boldly, though in opposition to the imperial command, 'If we attempt to go hastily down this hill, our rear-guard will be confused, not ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... walls. Meanwhile I shall seek the protection of my father's sister, and in her castle near the Forth abide in safety. But, noble stranger, one bond I must lay upon you; should you come up with my cousin, do not discover that you have met with me. He is precipitate in resentment; and his hatred is so hot against Soulis, my betrayer, that should he know the outrage I have sustained he would, I fear, run himself and the general cause into danger by ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... consequence of which they gradually approached, and two or three crept behind the trunk of a tree that had fallen. As I thought they were near enough, George M'Leay, by my desire, fired a charge of small shot at them. They instantly made a precipitate retreat; but, in order the more effectually to alarm them, Hopkinson fired a ball into the reeds, which we distinctly heard cutting its way through them. All was quiet until about three o'clock, when a poor wretch who, most probably, had thrown himself ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... in presuming publicly that the new law was intended against himself, and in taking upon himself the outward signs of a man under affliction. "The resolution," says Middleton, "of changing his gown was too hasty and inconsiderate, and helped to precipitate his ruin." He was sensible of his error when too late, and oft reproaches Atticus that, being a stander-by, and less heated with the game than himself, he would suffer him to make such blunders. And he quotes the words written to Atticus: "Here my judgment first failed me, or, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... just like the imperious nature of Lady Camper to summon him in the evening to terminate the conversation of the morning, from the visible pitfall of which he had beaten a rather precipitate retreat. But if his daughter cordially wished him success, and Lady Camper offered him the crown of it, why then he had only to pluck up spirit, like a good commander who has to pass a fordable river in the enemy's presence; a dash, a splash, a rattling volley ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... as coldly precise as a judge pronouncing sentence of death, "will precipitate the major engagement with Moyen's forces. The fools, to rush in like this, when they have been warned! But even ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... out of ignorance there is great room for pity, and when persons suddenly become guilty of evil through a precipitate yielding to the violence of their passions there is still room for extenuation. But when people sin, not only against knowledge but deliberately, and without the incitement of any violent passion such as anger or lust, even as nothing can be said in alleviation, so there is little ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... take her long to make up her mind though that he wouldn't do that. Jimmy was never precipitate. He'd give her a chance. To-morrow morning would do. She could call him ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... seeks to aid his own, Weighs loss and gain and wrong and right, And seeks success with earnest might. Unwisest he who spurns delays, Who counts no cost, no peril weighs, Speeds to his aim, defying fate, And risks his all, precipitate. Thus too in counsel sages find A best, a worst, a middle kind. When gathered counsellors explore The way by light of holy lore, And all from first to last agree, Is the best counsel of the three. Next, if debate first waxes high, And each his chosen plan would try ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... day by day and week by week, their early interest that had ripened into affection, their innate hatred of that underground life, which eventually flowered into open revolt and flight, their impetuous marriage, their precipitate journey from the shores ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... epithets and contemptuous words, she sought to make him see the folly of what he meditated. Was he indeed tired of ruling Babbiano? If that were so, she told him, he had but to wait for Caesar Borgia's coming. He need not precipitate matters by a deed that must lead to a revolt, a rising of the people ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... foiling the attack before Wellington could bring up his reserves. The conscripts, however, were not equally steady, and when Hill, advancing from the extreme right, pressed upon the French left, Soult's orderly retreat became a precipitate flight. The French loss greatly exceeded the British, and was soon afterwards swelled by wholesale desertions; the road to Bordeaux was thrown open, and the royalist reaction against Napoleon, stimulated by the depredation of the French troops, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... after a long separation, the first effusive greetings at an end, they remain silent as if they had nothing to tell each other, whereas it is the very abundance of things, their precipitate struggle for utterance that prevents their coming forth. The two former partners had reached that stage; but Jansoulet held the banker's arm very tight, fearing that he might escape him, might resist the kindly impulses that he had ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... He explained his reason for this departure from instructions to be that such a movement of troops as had been ordered by the War Office would, "in the present state of the country, create intense excitement in Ulster and possibly precipitate a crisis."[65] ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... between the rival powers in North America, and they grew more perilous every day. Yet the quarrel was not yet quite ripe; and though the French Governor, Vaudreuil, and perhaps also his successor, Beauharnois, seemed willing to precipitate it, the courts of London and Versailles still hesitated to appeal to the sword. Now, as before, it was a European, and not an American, quarrel that was to set the world on fire. The War of the Austrian ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... to-day who are in official positions of power and influence in our national, state and city administrations throughout the United States and who are more or less openly using the present crisis of unusual and war conditions in order to precipitate the country into a complete Socialistic organization. It may be that we shall come to Socialism as a final political and economic development. Personally, I for one do not believe that we will, or that even a small part of the real thinking American people, either native ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers
... themselves one of those terrible disappointments of which the consequences are sometimes felt during a score of years. Both, however, were too much in love to bear suspense very long without doing something to precipitate the course of events, and whenever they had the chance they talked the matter over and built wonderful castles ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... earth. Further analysis would insult your intelligence, and having very briefly laid before you the intended line of testimony, I believe I have assigned a motive for this monstrous crime, which must precipitate the vengeance of the law, in a degree commensurate with its enormity. Time, opportunity, motive, when in full accord, constitute a fatal triad, and the suspicious and unexplainable conduct of the prisoner in various respects, furnishes, in connection with ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... dexterous interposition, which saved the susceptibility of Europe, and especially of England, by yielding as a favour to the demand of Russia what no one was in a position to refuse; but he maintained, and Lord Stratford agreed with him, that Gortschakoff's precipitate act was governed by circumstances never revealed to mankind. He learned, too, that it caused the Chancellor to be deconsidere in high Russian circles; he was called "un Narcisse qui se mire dans son encrier." Kinglake used to say that in conceding ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... relationship. The traitor disfigured the portrait to injure Chaoukeun—then deserted his sovereign, and stole over to me, whom he prevailed on to demand the lady in marriage. How little did I think that she would thus precipitate herself into the stream, and perish!—In vain did my spirit melt at the sight of her! But if I detained this profligate and traitorous rebel, he would certainly prove to us a root of misfortune: it is better to deliver him for his reward to the Emperor ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... the gas getting there. Hence ingenious minds are considering how to project with a spray something upon the advancing fog which will bring it to earth in the form of an innocuous compound. Spray that something over the parapet, and if you can spray it far enough and wide enough you may precipitate the deadly green and brown mists into chlorides or bromides which will be as harmless as ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... whose mission in life it appears to be to go about the world creating crises in the lives of other people. When there is thunder in the air they precipitate ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... expiation of sin; and the soul was instantly restored to its original purity, and entitled to the promise of eternal salvation. Among the proselytes of Christianity, there are many who judged it imprudent to precipitate a salutary rite, which could not be repeated; to throw away an inestimable privilege, which could never be recovered. By the delay of their baptism, they could venture freely to indulge their passions in the enjoyments of this world, while they ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... length in a narrow and secluded cleuch, or deep ravine, which ran down into the valley, and contributed a scanty rivulet to the supply of the brook with which Glendearg is watered. Up this he sped with the same precipitate haste which had marked his departure from the tower, nor did he pause and look around until he had reached the fountain from which ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... of the beach where he intended to embark was an open place without the town, near the churches, his retreat was perceived by the Spaniards on the hill, on which they resolved to endeavour to precipitate his departure, in order to have a pretext for future boasting. For this purpose, a small squadron of their horse, consisting of about sixty, selected probably for this service, marched down the hill with much seeming resolution, as if they had proposed to have charged our men now on ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... Khan of the Crimea, advanced upon the Golden Horde, and pushed their victorious arms into the very den of the Tartars, at the time that the Tartar forces were drawn off in the invasion of Russia. Speedy intelligence of this disaster having reached the enemy, he made a precipitate retreat, in the hope of reaching his fastnesses on the frontier in time to avert the destruction that threatened him; but the Russians had been too rapid in their movements; and the work of devastation, begun by them, was completed by a band of marauding ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... the day O'er Trenton beam'd to light his rapid way, Pour'd the rude shock on Britain's vanguard train, And led whole squadrons in his captive chain; Where veteran troops to half their numbers yield, Tread back their steps, or press the sanguine field, To Princeton plains precipitate their flight, Thro new disasters and unfinish'd fight, Resign their conquests by one sad surprise, Sink in their pride and see their ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... with borax, or that on fusion with sodium carbonate and nitre, a yellow mass of an alkaline chromate is obtained, which, on solution in water and acidification with acetic acid, gives a bright yellow precipitate on the addition of soluble lead salts. Sodium and potassium hydroxide solutions precipitate green chromium hydroxide from solutions of chromic salts; the precipitate is soluble in excess of the cold alkali, but is completely thrown down on boiling the solution. Chromic ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... that a great change, involving a drastic social cleavage, not unlike a change in religion, should certainly occur not more than once in a lifetime. (3) He concluded that a great and cataclysmic change should never be sudden or precipitate. (4) He concluded that no change ought to be characterized by a contemptuous repudiation of old memories and old associations. (5) He concluded that no change ought to be regarded as final or worthy of implicit confidence ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... thunderstorm at the country-house - there was thunder in that story too - up to the last wild delirious interview; either Lotte was no good at all, or else Werther should have remained alive after that; either he knew his woman too well, or else he was precipitate. But an idiot like that is hopeless; and yet, he wasn't an idiot - I make reparation, and will offer eighteen pounds of best wax at his tomb. Poor devil! he was only the weakest - or, at least, a ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with such a formidable force only twelve miles away would certainly have out sentries and skirmishers, and his cautious movement was just in time, as less than three hundred yards further on they were fired upon from the bushes. They replied with a few shots, but it was not Boone's intention to precipitate a real skirmish. He merely wished to know if the Indians were on guard, and, in a few minutes, he drew off ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Bridge: 'A less waterway might have sufficed, but the VALLEYS MAY COME TO BE MELIORATED BY DRAINAGE.' One field drained after another through all that confluence of vales, and we come to a time when they shall precipitate by so much a more copious and transient flood, as the gush of the flowing drain-pipe is superior to the leakage ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rivulet of the Camus' became a mighty stream, yet one whose course was peaceful, and which loved to flow underground, as do certain rivers which seem to lose themselves in the earth, and only emerge to precipitate themselves into ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... little wretch was at last overcoming his abject cowardice. I could see him making up his miserable mind. And I still flatter myself that I took only safe (and really cunning) steps to precipitate the process. To offer him more money would have been madness; instead, I poured it all ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... he proposed, in his own precipitate way, to hasten the date of the marriage. The necessary legal delay would permit the ceremony to be performed on that day fortnight. Isabel might then accompany him on his journey, and spend a brilliant honeymoon at the foreign Court. She at once refused, not only to accept his ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... be easily corrected. Every experiment will teach caution, and miscarriages will hourly shew, that attempts are not always rewarded with success. The most precipitate ardour will, in time, be taught the necessity of methodical gradation, and preparatory measures; and the most daring confidence be convinced, that neither merit nor abilities ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... burning charcoal in the end of a bellows, he arranged a tube so that the gas coming from the charcoal would pass through the lime-water, and, as in the case of the bubbles from the brewer's vat, he found that the white precipitate was thrown down; in short, that carbonic acid was given off in combustion. Shortly after, Black discovered that by blowing through a glass tube inserted into lime-water, chalk was precipitated, thus proving that carbonic acid was being ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... being abridged of the power of hiring a farm for the longest time I can obtain it, which is one of the projects of some of the ultra reformers of free and equal New York. It is wonderful, Hugh, into what follies men precipitate themselves as soon as they begin to run into exaggerations, whether of politics, religion, or tastes. Here are half of the exquisite philanthropists who see a great evil affecting the rights of human nature ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... say, save to express my deep regret at losing the pleasure of their company. But another time, I trust. I—I feel presumptuous, but it is my earnest hope to be allowed to stand on the footing not only of a comrade in the cause, but of a neighbour; I live quite near. Forgive me if I seem a little precipitate. The ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... in his epigrams going up like rockets (in the midst of which were flaming portraits drawn in lines of fire) to notice the naive admiration of one little Eve concealed in a group of women. Marie's curiosity—like that which would undoubtedly precipitate all Paris into the Jardin des Plantes to see a unicorn, if such an animal could be found in those mountains of the moon, still virgin of the tread of Europeans—intoxicates a secondary mind as much as it saddens great ones; but Raoul ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... mistaken, and that the Bathybias, so far from being undifferentiated protoplasm, was not an organic product at all, but simply a mineral deposit in the sea water made by purely artificial means. Bathybias stands therefore as an instance of a too precipitate advance in speculation, which led even such a brilliant man as Prof. Huxley into an unfortunate error of observation; for, beyond question, he would never have made such a mistake had he not been dominated by his speculative theories ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... experience which doesn't come to every girl." She looked at her friend quizzically. "What are you going to do about Colin? I rather think you should have an answer ready; the circumstances are apt to make him rather precipitate." ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... anarchy, it is only the bayonet that prevents them. Such is the abyss that yawns beneath the feet of our country, and into which the advocates of education without religion—perhaps some of them unconsciously—seek to precipitate us, by continuing to force upon this Christian nation an anti-Christian, an anti-American system ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... sufficient evidence of it to justify his taking any action against the men that he suspected. He did not even dare to express his suspicions, for he knew that if he were to do so, or even to intimate that he felt suspicion, the only effect would be to precipitate the consummation of the treachery that he feared, and perhaps drive some to abandon him who had not yet fully resolved on doing so. He was obliged, therefore, though suffering the greatest anxiety and alarm, to suppress all indications ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... feel, but manifest the nicest shades of preference. If not fully satisfied as to her own heart, what could be more refined and graceful than the slight restraint she imposed upon him? and how fine the compliment she paid him in acting on the belief that he was too well bred and self-controlled to precipitate matters! ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... having met with any opposition worth mentioning, at Kandahar, and occupied the whole of Afghanistan. But, in spite of this, they finally suffered a disastrous defeat. Of their 15,000 men only 4,500 succeeded in returning in precipitate flight through the Khyber ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... Government had been anxious in 1870 that all the Powers should guarantee for all time the power of the Turk in its full extension, though Turkish methods were in 1870 and before it no other than they revealed themselves at Batak in 1876. Sir Charles thought that, as Liberals had been precipitate in their desire to guarantee Ottoman integrity in 1870, so now they were precipitate in their Pan-Slavism. Moreover, the vacillation of the Liberal leaders had put a weapon into the hands of the Government. 'Fancy what a temptation to the present Government to publish the despatches,' ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... the bed platform of an igloo, and precipitate its inhabitants into the icy water below, they would not readily drown, because of the buoyancy of the air inside their fur clothing. A man dropping into the water in this way might be able to scramble onto the ice and save himself; but with the thermometer ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... "Taakhr" lit. postponement and meaning acting with deliberation as opposed to "Ajal" (haste), precipitate action condemned ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... give up my daily bath!" In these pregnant and moving words rang the cri de coeur which was to precipitate the tragedy of Mary Sheppard. To you the attitude of mind which provoked this cry may seem as natural as it was sanitary. But you must understand that it ran directly counter to Ezra Sheppard's ideal of the simple God-fearing life. Godliness ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... prominent, clearly isolates, and then, stepping along briskly and confidently, rushes ahead on the high-road to consequences.[3302] He has forgotten that his summary notion merely corresponds to an extract, and a very brief one, of man in his completeness; his decisive, precipitate process hinders him from seeing the largest portion of the real individual; he has overlooked numerous traits, the most important and most efficacious, those which geography, history, habit, condition, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... separated them the judge grinned his triumph at his enemy. He had known when Fentress entered the room that a word or a sign from him would precipitate a riot, but he knew now that neither this word nor this sign would be given. Then quite suddenly he strode down the aisle, and foot by foot Fentress yielded ground before his advance. A murderous light flashed from the judge's bloodshot eyes and his right ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... three occasions finding a window open, made stealthy descents upon the premises without first having duly observed these quarantine regulations; whereupon he was attacked by Caddy, who, with the assistance of the minions under her command, so shook and pummelled him as to cause his precipitate retreat through the same opening by which he had entered, and that, too, in so short a space of time as to make the whole manoeuvre appear to him in the light of a well-executed but involuntary feat of ground and lofty tumbling. ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... of that evening set! I descended—absorbed in the recollection of the lovely objects which I had just contemplated—and regaled by the sounds of a thousand little gurgling streamlets, created by the passing tempest, and hastening to precipitate themselves into ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... disprove my words, we heard a sharp, quick blow, that sounded like an iron shovel struck upon stones. We uttered no word, or made the least noise, but we turned our looks upon the largest portion of the island with wonderful quickness, and, as though of one mind, we attempted to reach the bridge by a precipitate flight. Our intentions, however, were balked by our own eagerness, for just as I was about striking out my legs got mixed up with my companion's, and down we both went, full length, upon the ground. We scrambled to gain our feet, and I think that ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... HASTY. Precipitate, passionate. He is none of the Hastings sort; a saying of a slow, loitering fellow: an allusion to the Hastings pea, which ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... Any understanding of the fundamental structure of society should make equally obvious the imprudence of attempting hasty transformations, and the impossibility of effecting them. For the present, at least, the religious question in Japan is a question of social integrity; and any efforts to precipitate the natural course of change can result only in provoking reaction and disorder. I believe that the time is far away at which Japan can venture to abandon the policy of [473] caution that has served her so well. I believe that the day on which ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... upon self-respect; but when you discover that the children can scarcely be dragged from your fascinating presence, crying like Romeo for death rather than banishment, and that the next time you appear they make a wild dash from the upper regions, and precipitate themselves upon you with the full impact of their several weights "multiplied into their velocity," you cannot help hugging yourself to think the good God has endowed you sufficiently to win the love and admiration of such keen ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unfortunate Countess, that he ascribed to that hasty measure, adopted in the ardour of what he now called inconsiderate passion, at once the impossibility of placing his power on a solid basis, and the immediate prospect of its precipitate downfall. ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... without inquiry I have deprived a creature, so dear to me, of life." The attendant replied: "This Hawk protected thee from a great peril, and has established a claim to the gratitude of all the people of this country. It would have been better if the King had not been precipitate in slaying it, and had quenched the fire of wrath with the ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... this decisive step reached Napoleon soon after the battle of Wagram, and he was inclined to disapprove of the conduct of Miollis as too precipitate. It was now, however, impossible to recede; the Pope was ordered to be conveyed across the Alps to Grenoble. But his reception there was more reverential than Napoleon had anticipated, and he was ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... numbers are accounted for everything, the Government and ruling party have already encountered, and shall encounter more and more, a formidable opposition, which, if it does not drag the country into civil war, cannot fail to accelerate and precipitate the fate of the Republican Government. As the Duc d'Aumale seems resolved never to put himself forward, the conjectures hover between Galliffet [Footnote: General de Galliffet was more especially known for the stern justice he had meted out to the Communards of 1871.] and several others, all men ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... after these ungrateful wretches," cried she, "and bring them to a just punishment; I will sink their vessel, and precipitate them to the bottom ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... disappear, all crimes: and this poor mother rears her child; and behold a whole country rich and honest! Ah! I was a fool! I was absurd! what was that I was saying about denouncing myself? I really must pay attention and not be precipitate about anything. What! because it would have pleased me to play the grand and generous; this is melodrama, after all; because I should have thought of no one but myself, the idea! for the sake of saving from a punishment, a trifle exaggerated, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... as a log, and the attempt to rouse him would inevitably attract attention below and precipitate the attack, besides ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... thought, and I told him so, but at the same time bade him look in the glass and see how impossible it would be for him to venture below without creating an alarm which might precipitate the ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... invariably to increase the dangers of precipitate action. The most trivial incident, in such periods of tension, may plunge a community into irretrievable disaster. It is under conditions of crisis that dictatorships are at once possible and necessary, not merely to enable the community to act energetically, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... adrift from his ties and handsomely released himself from his obligations, he was not disposed to take much trouble in looking far afield for a wife when here was one ready-made to his hand. Still, he was not so rash as to commit himself too soon. Fine play is never precipitate; and even the most lordly lover, if an English gentleman, thinks it seemly to pretend to woo the woman whom he means to take, and who he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... composed and calm. They recommended a little delay, in order to see whether the news was really true. Phocion, in particular, who was one of the prominent statesmen of the city, endeavored to quiet the excitement of the people. "Do not let us be so precipitate," said he. "There is time enough. If Alexander is really dead to-day, he will be dead to-morrow, and the next day, so that there will be time enough for us to act with ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the sidewalk in 56th Street, and tried to pacify certain outraged blood-vessels in the nasal region. Of course, the curtain had been up some time, but, so far as he was concerned, the incidents which followed his precipitate descent from the automobile were merely catastrophic. He had seen a vivid, violet-colored star close to his eyes, had felt a crushing blow, had heard his own voice vaguely; and then he awoke to a singular sense of ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... and ill-considered conclusions; but this in itself does not seem to be sufficiently strong reason why he should not change his views. Many young men pass through an aggressively irreligious phase without suffering much harm. Harriet Martineau was rather too precipitate in assuming that what a man believes, or disbelieves, at twenty, he holds to at thirty; such a view negatives the reformer. Perhaps the chief cause of the change in Borrow's views was that he had touched the depths of failure. Here was an opening that promised much. ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... of the urine, after shaking, should be placed in a tall conical glass vessel, to allow easy collection of the precipitate for subsequent, microscopical examination. If an abundant amorphous deposit of a fawn or pink—from uroerythrin—color slowly settles and is readily diffused, urates in excess can be anticipated. Their presence ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... wrong from the beginning. Ewald, who, as we said above, himself refuses to allow the truth of Job's last and highest position, supposes that he is here receding from it, and confessing what an over precipitate passion had betrayed him into denying. For many reasons, principally because we are satisfied that Job said then no more than the real fact, we cannot think Ewald right; and the concessions are too large and too inconsistent to ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... troubled me a little. Had Lucy's impulse to precipitate frankness already started any machinery of opposition into action? Had she told her husband? Knowing her so intimately, I could not make up my mind, but would have been inclined to take ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... two dyes—blue and yellow; but the refuse leaves, when boiled for an hour and a half, will render the water yellow, tinged with green. This water, kept boiling for two hours, (supplying the loss by evaporation), will, when filtered, afford a precipitate, which, when dried, will in colour be a dun-slate, and in quantity perhaps about equal to the blue extract such leaves have produced. This observation, as it can lead to no practical advantage, is made for the man of science, rather than the man of business.—Mr. C. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... aside from that, why should Philip Crawford kill Joseph just at the moment he is about to make a new will in Philip's favor? Either the destruction of the old will or the drawing of the new would result in Philip's falling heir to the fortune. So he would hardly precipitate matters by a criminal act. And, too, if he had been keen about the money, he could have urged his brother to disinherit Florence Lloyd, and Joseph would have willingly done so. He was on the very point of doing ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... King Physician. It may well be so, when the disposition of the drama is in the hands of the Duke of Newcastle—those hands that are always groping and sprawling, and fluttering, and hurrying on the rest of his precipitate person. But there is no describing him but as M. Courcelle, a French prisoner, did t'other day: "Je ne scais pas," dit il, "je ne scaurois m'exprimer, mais il a un certain tatillonage." If one could conceive a dead body hung in chains, always wanting to be hung somewhere else, one ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... howling wilderness in all time to come, roamed over by hostile savages, cutting off all safe communication between our Atlantic and Pacific possessions? I tell you that the time for action has come, and cannot be postponed. It is a case in which the "let-alone" policy would precipitate a crisis which must inevitably result in violence, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... negation of unrestrained democracy. The framers believed that a people was best governed that was least governed. Therefore, their purpose was not so much to promote efficiency in legislation as to put a brake upon precipitate action. ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... if he would follow. He ducked rapidly, almost touching the muddy water with his face. A bank of yellow fog instantly enveloped him, and he pulled up short, for, instinctively, he knew that another step might precipitate him ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... little upland village of Clamanges was a field hospital which had been established by the Germans when they first occupied the place on the night of September 7th. They had held it until their retreat on the 10th, when their retirement was so precipitate that they had been unable to take with them ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... settled into easier postures of waiting. The Red Bones, though so compactly ranged as to cut off any chance of escape, held their distance, obviously neither inclined to fraternize nor ready to precipitate conflict by crowding. Thus, while keeping their ears open for any sound of a concerted movement from behind, the visitors could use their eyes to inspect the ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... new social unrest, the transformation of society which it portends and the social catastrophe which it might precipitate. ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock |
