"Valve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that everything was new in this balloon, from the varnish to the valve, those two essential parts of a balloon. Both must render the cloth gas-proof, as the sides of a ship are waterproof. The old varnishes, made with a base of linseed oil, sometimes fermented and thus burned the cloth, which in a short time would tear ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... in fresh-water, to see if the valve will open, and whether it is still alive, for this seems to me a very interesting point. As the wretched beetle was still feebly alive, I have put it in a bottle with chopped laurel leaves, that it may die an easy and quicker death. I hope that I shall meet ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... that he is taking on a certain amount of true culture. He is broadening. Jimmie is beginning to let his emotions out; however, very gradually, with a firm, nervous hand on the throttle-valve, with the sensitive American's fear ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... have seen me when I got aboard the train! I was at high pressure, and there was absolute danger of an explosion. I just had to open the safety valve and blow off. And I find you as calm as a clock! Oh, Frank, it is too much—too much!" and Harry ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... other, defeat and death. The "Screecher" was a little ahead; gradually the "Burster" closes. The silence of a death-struggle prevails. The Screechers put on more wood, and place more weight on the safety-valve; she bounds ahead. Slowly, but surely, the "Burster" draws nearer. The captain of the "Screecher" looks wistfully at the fires, for the boilers are well-nigh worn out. The "Burster" is almost abreast. The enraged Kentuckians gather round the captain, and, in fury, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... built, the flood gate in place, the pipe valve set for further extension of the line down the little valley; and as the pipe had all come cut and threaded, Bill and George were working with wrenches and white lead to get the sections tightly jointed ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... serving the cause of peace has been shown anew in its role in the West New Guinea settlement, in its use as a forum for the Cuban crisis, and in its task of unification in the Congo. Today the United Nations is primarily the protector of the small and the weak, and a safety valve for the strong. Tomorrow it can form the framework for a world of law—a world in which no nation dictates the destiny of another, and in which the vast resources now devoted to destructive means will serve ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John F. Kennedy • John F. Kennedy
... evening, a noise is heard, dis- tinct even above the raging of the hurricane. The panels of the deck are upheaved, and volumes of black smoke issue up- ward as if from a safety-valve. A universal consternation seizes one and all; we must leave the volcano which is about to burst beneath our feet. The crew run to Curtis for or- ders. He hesitates; looks first at the huge and threatening waves; looks then at the boats. The long-boat ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... whatever it may be. Messrs. Miall and Greenwood are also against the former supposition, viz. that the fluid is regurgitated into the nasal passages. They say: "We are disposed to question the normal passage of water along this highly-sensitive tract. Examination of the parts discovers no valve or other provision for preventing water, flowing from behind forward, from gaining free entrance into the olfactory recesses." Mr. Sanderson, in discussing the habits of elephants with me, informed me that, from his observations, he was sure that ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... resisted successfully any little inclination he might have had to take advantage of the situation. He conceived his inner life for the last nine months as consisting of a series of resistances. He conceived the episode of Elise as a safety valve, natural but unpleasant, for the emotions caused by Barbara: the substitution of a permissible for an impermissible lapse. It had been incredible to him that he should ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... privates of the royals, having three Americans, prisoners of war, four deserters from the 100th regiment, and one deserter from the American army, in charge, on board, and had been twenty-two hours and a half in running down. She had a good engine with a safety valve for blowing off surplus steam. The ladies' cabin had eight reposing berths. The gentlemen's cabin was thirty feet in length by twenty-three in breadth, and contained ten berths on each side, and two "forming an angle with the larboard side." The cabin was capable of lodging forty-four persons, and ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... States, our cheap and fertile lands have acted as an important safety-valve for the enterprise and discontent of our non-capitalist population. Every hired workman knows that if he chooses to use economy and industry in his calling, he may without great or insurmountable difficulty establish himself in independence on the public lands; and, in fact, a large ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... VALVE.—This is a thin membrane of half moon shape stretched across the opening of the vagina. It usually contains before marriage one or more small openings for the passage of the menses. This membrane has been known to cause much distress ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... child of genius with the fool, or to suppose that the one needs not a mental aliment of which the other is incapable. Feed well the hungry mind, lest it perish of inanition. It is a sponge in infancy that imbibes ideas without an effort; it is a safety-valve through which fancy and poetry conduct away foul vapors; it is an alembic, retaining only the pure and valuable of all that is poured into it, to be stored for future use. It is a lightning-rod that conducts away from the body all superfluous ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... swung shut with a bang as Paddy and Capps, followed by Kennedy and myself, crept into the air-lock. Paddy turned on a valve, and compressed air from the tunnel began to rush in with a hiss as of escaping steam. Pound after pound to the square inch the pressure slowly rose until I felt sure the drums of my ears would burst. Then the hissing noise began to dwindle ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... indications of paralysis. It is a deep-rooted error sense of fatigue is the safety value of the human organism. Whoever dulls this sense in order to work harder or longer may be likened to an engineer who sits down on his safety valve in order to make better speed with his engine." Dr. F. H. Hammond of the U. S. army said: "Alcohol strengthens no one. It only deadens the feeling of fatigue." Dr. Sims Woodhead, professor in Cambridge University, England, had given the following list of conditions in which alcohol ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... An air-tight manhole is all that is needed. That, of course, will have to be a little complicated; there will have to be a valve, so that things may be thrown out, if necessary, ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... Routh do but come knocking at the door! Of course we had to put it in the closet, and there were all our muslin dresses,—that weren't hanging on the hooks in Maud's room! I assure you I felt like the man sitting on the safety-valve, standing with my back against the door, and my clothes spread out for fear she would see the flash under the crack. For we'd nothing else but moonlight in the room.—But now tell me, please, what ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... legs. A sigh moves nothing forward, yet it is as essential as life itself. It is the safety-valve to every emotion; it is the last thing in laughter, the last thing in tears. One sighs in entering the world and in leaving it, perhaps in protest. A child sighs for the moon because it knows no better. Carmichael sighed for the Princess Hildegarde, understanding. It was sigh ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... interesting feature of the mechanism was that the Ring appeared to have automatic stability, for the angle of the direction in which the tractor was pointed was controlled not only by a pair of gyroscopes which kept the Ring on an even keel, but also by a manometric valve causing it to fly at a fixed height above the earth's surface. Should it start to rise, the diminished pressure of the atmosphere operating on the valve swung the tractor more to one side, and ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... Flip Villa, and they jumped on the high-speed track that would whisk them to Valve Two on the other side of the platform. Their gear was already loaded. They had only to take seats on the rocket, and their six years on the space platform would ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... talk. Talk is cheap; otherwise we wouldn't have free speech." He grinned cynically as he asked, "Haven't you any faith in the Constitution of the fathers? They were smart enough to know that free speech was a safety valve; let 'em blow off. Then go down and organize and vote 'em afterwards according to the dictates of your own conscience. Politics is the antidote for free speech!" The Doctor glared at the Courts, smiled amiably at Business and winked conspicuously ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... the longer the range the slower the pace and the less the chance of hitting. The engine is driven by air, which is compressed so hard into the middle of the torpedo that it actually bulges out the steel a tiny fraction of an inch. You may set the air-valve fast or slow, and the torpedo will go accordingly. But if you want to make pretty sure you must get within less than a mile, with the ship's broadside toward you, set the torpedo for the right depth, the right pace to keep it going ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... stabbed the firing button and deep within the Atlas a relay clicked, activating a solenoid that pushed open a valve. A thin stream of Sally's milk shot in from one side of the firing chamber to blend with a fine spray of egg, batter coming from a jet in ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... good thing that the cab passenger was aboard and knew something about the cab equipment. Young Clark reached the side of the engineer's seat in a nimble spring. His hand located the sand valve without hesitancy. ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... stick slightly to the inside of the recurved valves, some hairs to one valve, and often others to the adjacent valve, thus spreading them apart with the seed suspended between. Four rows of the seeds are thus held out at one time. Often not over half, or even a tenth part, ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... suddenly murmured Tom, as he tried once more in vain to open a clogged valve. "I'm afraid we can't do it. Koku, lend a hand here!" he exclaimed as the giant entered. "See if you can twist this wrench around, but don't break off the handle, whatever ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... unacademic author of ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Lear.’ Among this band of great contemporary poets what is the special position held by him who, having set his triumphant hand to everything from the sampler up to the epic, has now, by way of recreation, or rather by way of opening a necessary safety-valve to ease his restless energies, invented a system of poetic socialism and expounded it in a brand-new kind of ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... space intended by Mr. Carrick for 'medicated substances,' and which may be filled with cotton-wool. The mouth is placed against the aperture o, which fits closely round the lips, and the filtered air enters the mouth through a light valve v, which is lifted by ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... large cage and just outside the wire netting was a faucet to which a hose was usually attached. The valve could be opened by turning a wheel-shaped hand piece. Both Skirrl and Julius learned to turn this wheel in order to get water to play with, but usually the former's strength was not sufficient to turn on the water. The latter could do it readily. The indications are that both animals ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... force which enables it, even suddenly, to meet demands double the usual, and like all other muscles of the body it becomes larger and stronger by increased work. The condition here is much simpler than when the same valve is incapable of perfect closure, or when both obstruction and imperfect closure, are combined as they not infrequently are. In such cases the ventricle must do more than in the first case. It must force through the orifice, which may be narrowed, the amount of blood ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... slaveholding States, and as it will certainly continue more rapidly to recede by the reannexation of Texas, into Mexico and Central and Southern America. Providence * * * thus will open Texas as a safety-valve, into and through which slavery will slowly and gradually recede, and finally disappear into the boundless regions of Mexico, and Central and Southern America. Beyond the Del Norte slavery will not pass; not only because it is forbidden by law, but because the colored races there ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... my clothes. This I gratefully did, feeling all the better on getting into a dry suit, over which I took the precaution before coming out of the deck-house again of rigging my waterproof and a tarpaulin hat; for the rain was still coming down in a regular deluge, "as if the sluice-valve of the water tank above had somehow or other jammed foul, so that the water couldn't be turned off for a while"—this being Tom Jerrold's explanation ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of a reservoir made of sheet iron, into which the air is forced, and, by an ingeniously contrived pump, is secured like a knapsack to a man's back, and the air is conveyed by means of a tube to the mouth of a nose, and thus into the lungs at the ordinary pressure, while a small external valve allows of the escape of the air after it has ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... because she spurns the footsteps of a slave, and then to choke the utterance of your voice lest the sound of liberty should be reechoed from the palmetto-groves, mingled with the discordant notes of disunion? No! no! Freedom of speech is the only safety-valve which, under the high pressure of slavery, can preserve your political boiler from a fearful and fatal explosion. Let it be admitted that slavery is an institution of internal police, exclusively subject to the separate jurisdiction of ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... there still exists one valve of a large iron gate, traditionally said to be the relic of a pair brought as a trophy from Derbend by David, King of Georgia, called the Restorer (1089-1130). M. Brosset, however, has shown it to be the gate of Ganja, carried off ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... stopple; plug, cork, bung, spike, spill, stopcock, tap; rammer^; ram, ramrod; piston; stop-gap; wadding, stuffing, padding, stopping, dossil^, pledget^, tompion^, tourniquet. cover &c 223; valve, vent peg, spigot, slide valve. janitor, doorkeeper, porter, warder, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... which reflected her own image, so sad, so pale, so desolate. She put the pity for herself into a long, long, fervent kiss, which seemed to say: "Yes, I am all alone—alone forever." Then, in a spirit of revenge, she opened what seemed a safety-valve, preventing her from giving way to any ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... hip-joints, I suppose) of these pistons, the faster they move the wheels; and when it is desirable to diminish the speed, the steam, which unless suffered to escape would burst the boiler, evaporates through a safety-valve into the air. The reins, bit, and bridle of this wonderful beast is a small steel handle, which applies or withdraws the steam from its legs or pistons, so that a child might manage it. The coals, which are its oats, were under ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... repressive action—then, the mystery of Miss Minerva's inner nature might possibly have been revealed. As it was, nothing more remarkable exposed itself to view than an irritable temper; serving perhaps as safety-valve to an underlying explosive force, which (with strong enough temptation and sufficient opportunity) might yet ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... will endow my robot with intelligence. I add a mechanical memory by means of the old Cushman delayed valve; I add a mathematical sense with any of the calculating machines; I give it a voice and a vocabulary with the magnetic-impulse wire phonograph. Now the point I make is this: Granted an intelligent machine, does it not follow that every other machine constructed like it must have the identical ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... William A. Fuller; the engineer, I. Cain, both of this city; and the passengers were at the table, when some eight men, having uncoupled the engine and three empty box-cars next to it, from the passenger and baggage-cars, mounted the engine, pulled open the valve, put on all steam, and left conductor, engineer, passengers, spectators, and the soldiers in the camp hard by, all lost in amazement, and dumbfounded at the strange, startling, ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... breathe the atmospheric air, they must come to the surface frequently for a fresh supply. They have then to throw out the water which has got into their mouths when feeding. This they do by closing a valve leading to the nasal passages, and forcing it by means of air through the blow-hole placed in the upper part of the head. It is this necessity of whales for breathing at the surface which enables man to make them his prey, in spite of their immense strength, while their spouts point out to him ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... she'll make her pay for it in some other way. I could see it in her eye. She was as cool as a cucumber outside, but I'm sure that was only the crust over the crater, and that there was the usual volcano inside. It's bound to find a safety-valve, so Flossie had better look ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... the canons of Government House etiquette, which he had requested should not be repeated. Rosamond Tallant had been tiresome also and had made her feel that even here she was no more than a dependent who must conform to the wills of her official superiors. Joan Gildea might have served as a safety-valve, but Joan was away in or near the Jenolan Caves, and could not be got at unless Bridget chose to throw up other things and go to her, which Bridget was not ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... the design of accomplishing a desired end. The matter that was thus accumulated at the equator, was necessarily abstracted from other parts; and in this manner the crust of the globe became thinnest at the poles. When a sufficiency of steam had been generated in the centre of the ball, a safety-valve was evidently necessary to prevent a total disruption. As there was no other machinist than nature, she worked with her own tools, and agreeably to her own established laws. The thinnest portions of the crust opportunely ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... bounded forward, the shadowy form of Nahra seemed to rise from the ground and mock me. With a supreme effort I jerked my finger back and fired. Bang! The sound of the explosion acted like a safety-valve to the pent-up feelings of all, and there was a chorus of shrieks. I rushed forward—the ayah lay on the ground, face downward and motionless. My wife had hold of Eric, who was shaking all over. Of the tiger there were no signs. ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... to the same family as the clams, the largest of living molluscs, its specific title being an allusion to the tattered raiment of the beggar of the most edifying of parables. Occasionally the china-white upper valve is decorated with a broad streak of buff. Some of the genera are attached to coral or rock indifferently by either valve, and it is exceptional to find on the beach a perfect specimen—that is, the valves united. Since on the reef the shells are frequently ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... pipe was forced by the weight of the column above it into the bottom of a perpendicular cylinder, in which it raised a water-tight piston. When forced up to a given point a self-acting stop-cock shut off the pressure of the descending column, while a self-acting valve enabled the water contained in the cylinder to be discharged, on which the piston again descended, and the process was repeated like the successive strokes of a steam-engine. Pump-rods were attached to this hydraulic apparatus, which were carried to the bottom of the shaft, and each worked ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... salutary and to denote a statesmanlike grasp of a subject of paramount importance to England. The reason why the Englishman in India is likely to be entirely wrong in his views of Indian government is because he sits on the safety valve of the terrible boiler. He hears every now and then the sharp rush of the confined steam, which startles the ear as it passes. When it is proposed to relieve the pressure and allow more steam to escape he ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... old men, when not from fever, is caused by the veins which go from the spleen to the valve of the liver, and which thicken so much in the walls that they become closed up and leave no passage for the blood that ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... humming birds which would not fertilise it, and to facilitate the access of the little proboscis of the humble bee, which would do so; whilst, on the other hand, the long pendent tube and flexible valve-like corona which retains the nectar of Tacsonia would shut out the bee, which would not, and admit the humming bird which would, fertilise that flower. The suggestion is very possibly worthless, and could only be verified or refuted by examination of ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... constructed that the oil, which is also stored in a tank at the side, flows into what is called a burner bowl and burns from this bowl up through a perforated chimney, the quantity of oil used being regulated by a valve attached ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... of Mornington, Mus. D., was appointed first professor of music in Dublin University. A few years later Charles Clagget invented the valve-horn. Michael Kelly of Dublin was specially selected by Mozart to create the parts of Basilio and Don Curzio at the first performance of the opera of Figaro, on May 1st, 1786. Kane O'Hara, Samuel Lee, Owenson, Neale, Baron Dillon, Dr. Doyle, T.A. Geary, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... section of Lower Canada, and {28} from the British inhabitants of Montreal, representatives were chosen. They met at Kingston for the purpose of considering the great danger to which the constitution of Canada was exposed. A safety-valve was found. Our first resolution was that we were resolved to maintain inviolate the connection with the mother country. The second proposition was that the true solution of the difficulty lay in the confederation of all the provinces. The third resolution was that we should ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... of his engineering genius, stripped to the waist and started working on the ship's massive atomic engines. A heavy rocketman's belt of tools slung around his waist, he crawled through the heart of the ship, adjusting a valve here, turning a screw there, seeing that the reactant feeders were clean and clear to the rocket firing chambers. And last of all he made sure the great rocket firing chambers were secure and the heavy sheets of lead baffling in place to ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... large and light, and one such as the illustration, with a valve in the top to let the wind and hot air through, will be found cooler and less easily blown over. You should have some strong rings sewed on to it, so that you can fasten it from four sides by strings, to keep it steady if the wind blows hard. The umbrella should be of light-colored ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... his throttle-valve with a jerk. Then, holding hard by it, he sharply turned a brass handle. There was a fearful jolt—a grating—and the train's way was checked. The lieutenant, standing sidewise, had drawn his sword. He waved it, and almost before he ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... Cannie. "Please excuse me, Cousin Kate. I have such a bad habit of doing that. Aunt Myra says it's my safety-valve." ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... a cupboard and brought forth a singular appliance, of his own manufacture, somewhat like a miniature vacuum cleaner. It had been made from a bicycle foot-pump, by reversing the piston-valve, and was fitted with a glass nozzle and a small detachable glass receiver for collecting the dust, at the end of ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... the team-work, the speed, the incessant, gruelling drill, the utter, unquestioning loyalty, the persistent searching of eager young minds for new combinations, new tricks; and above all the complete indifference to the possibility of a broken collar-bone or a damaged heart-valve, provided only that the game ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... over the world, from the Arctic regions to the equator, inhabiting various zones of depths, from the upper tidal limits to fifty fathoms; from the perfect manner in which specimens are preserved in the oldest tertiary beds; from the ease with which even a fragment of a valve can be recognised; from all these circumstances, I inferred that, had sessile cirripedes existed during the secondary periods, they would certainly have been preserved and discovered; and as not one species had then been discovered ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... the glasses, while Frank drove the machine, and studied every little part, touching a straining wire guy here, and tightening a valve there, as he noted minute chances ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... together with complete physical idleness, is nothing but systematic excitement of the imagination. The men of our society are fed and kept like reproductive stallions. It is sufficient to close the valve,—that is, for a young man to live a quiet life for some time,—to produce as an immediate result a restlessness, which, becoming exaggerated by reflection through the prism of our unnatural life, provokes the ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... balloon of hydrogen gas—the Charliere, as it has been called—had had its first innings. Before the close of the year MM. Roberts and Charles constructed and inflated a hydrogen balloon, this time fitted with a practicable valve, and in partnership accomplished an ascent beating all previous records. The day, December 17, was one of winter temperature; yet the aeronauts quickly reached 6,000 feet, and when, after remaining aloft ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... course, a very big one. He hugged it secretly at first alone. On the journey back from the City to the suburb where he lived, Minks made a sonnet on it. For his emotions invariably sought the safety valve of verse. It was a wiser safety valve for high spirits than horse-racing or betting on the football results, because he always stood to win, and never to lose. Occasionally he sold these bits of joy for half a guinea, his wife ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... beautiful Franceska, who had insensibly improved greatly in grace and readiness on her travels, and quite dazzled the Hungarians; while Anna was immensely exultant, and used to come to her aunt's room every night to talk of her lovely Francie as a safety-valve from discussing the matter with Francie herself, who remained perfectly simple and unconscious of her own charms. Geraldine could not think them quite equal to the more exquisite and delicately-finished, as well as more matured, beauty of little Stella, but ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for the dinner of some gourmand curious in horse-flesh! There he is, screwing his sharp knees into the saddle, sitting well up from his loins, stretching his neck, curving his back, stiffening the wire-like muscles of his small arms, and holding in the noble brute he strides, as a saftey-valve controls the foaming steam; only loosing him at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... him to his feet and through the entrance manhole. His mind awhirl with emotion, Blaine saw that Ulana was inside and then followed as in a dream. He bolted the outer cover and turned the valve that would admit air to the lock. Soon they would be inside. With their protecting coverings discarded there would be the fresh air of the interior; light; warmth. Safety for Ulana. Away from the copper-clad world, they'd ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... pressure and nervous excitement throughout the whole life, for the "invoice of energy" is not exhausted. Athletics afford physical relief, and slang, which is at its height from about thirteen to fifteen, offers somewhat of an emotional safety-valve. Experiences are never commonplace during this period, nor any individual ordinary. The strongest superlatives and most extravagant metaphors will scarcely do a situation adequate justice, but nurture can afford to be patient, for ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... built the concrete enclosure around the spring. An inch pipe connection for a future water trough was put in each field crossed by the trench, and a valve placed on the line well under ground ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... to double them," said he; and his air was that of the racing Mississippi captains of old days who in response to the expostulation of their engineers sent a little nigger boy to sit on the safety-valve. ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... to happen to him for a few days, I can tell you. I want you to keep him and let Elizabeth go in to town with me and sign the mortgage on this eighty, Monday," John replied, examining the valve with great attention. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... bushel basket. She swept up chips, scraped up ashes, scoured the preserve shelves, washed the windows, cleaned the vegetable bins, and got gritty, and scarlet-cheeked and streaked with soot. It was a wonderful safety valve, that cellar. A pity it was that the house ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... accidents which befell Santos-Dumont and most of the threatened accidents which he narrowly escaped were fundamentally caused by the lack of rigidity in his balloon. The immediate cause may have been a leaky valve permitting the gas to escape, or a faulty air-pump which made prompt filling of the ballonet impossible. But the effect of these flaws was to deprive the balloon of its rigidity, cause it to buckle, throwing the cordage out of gear, shifting stresses and strains, ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... Lowell has said: "The right to vote makes a safety valve of every voter, and the best way to teach a man to vote is to give him a chance to practice. It is cheaper, too, in the long run to lift men up than to hold them down. The ballot in their hands is less dangerous than a sense of wrong in ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... the kind most commonly used, consists of a tube or bag of goatskin, about twelve inches in length and about ten inches in diameter, tied at one end to its nozzle and nailed at the other to a circular disk of wood, in which is the valve. This disk has two arms: one above for a handle and the other below for a support. Two or more rings or hoops of wood are placed in the skin-tube to keep it distended, while the tube is constricted between the hoops with buckskin thongs, ...
— Navajo Silversmiths • Washington Matthews
... Hazeldean. Still, as rage, like steam, must escape somewhere, Mr. Stirn, on feeling—as he afterwards expressed it to his wife—that his "buzzom was a burstin'," turned with the natural instinct of self-preservation to the safety-valve provided for the explosion; and the vapours within him rushed into vent upon Lenny Fairfield. He clapped his hat on his head fiercely, and thus relieved ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of relief thrilled softly through him. What blessed safety-valve was this through which his jangled nerves might find some outlet. The provocation was so gross, the insult so unprovoked, that he could have none of those qualms which take the edge off a man's mettle. He finished sealing the bottle upon which he was occupied, and ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as he placed his foot on the gravel walk of the close, and raising his hat with one hand, passed the other somewhat violently over his now grizzled locks; smoke issued forth from the uplifted beaver as it were a cloud of wrath, and the safety valve of his anger opened, and emitted a visible steam, preventing positive explosion and probable apoplexy. "Good heavens!"—and the archdeacon looked up to the gray pinnacles of the cathedral tower, making a mute appeal to that still ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... having been carefully fitted, acted well. An india-rubber tube leading down to the keel was in such a position that I could immediately screw on a copper barrel and work the piston with one hand, so as to clear the stern compartment. By turning a screw valve I could let the water come from the centre compartment, if any was there, and then I went to the fore-compartment, about seven feet long, which held the spare stores, and a curiosity in the shape of a regulation chimney-pot hat to be worn on state occasions, but which was brought out once a week ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... influence with the legislative bodies, inasmuch as they have no seats therein. The political complexion of Congress does not affect their tenure of office, since they depend only on the favour and approval of the executive; dissolution, which is the safety valve of the English or Canadian system—"in its essence an appeal from the legal to the political sovereign"—is not practicable under the United States constitution. In a political crisis the constitution provides no adequate solution of the difficulty during the presidential term. ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... afore now, I've heerd tell, one thousand dollars, and that I DO CALL a fee." Well, the judge he larfed ready to split his sides (thinks I, old chap, you'll bust like a steam b'iler, if you hain't got a safety valve somewhere or another), and says he, "I vow that's superfine; I'll indorse your certificate for you, young man; there's no fear of you, you'll pass ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... learnt the construction of the steam-engine: the older forms from the Dictionary of Arts and Sciences; newer forms from modern books. The newest form however (with the sliding steam valve) I learnt from a 6-horse engine at Bawtrey's brewery (in which Mr Keeling the father of my schoolfellow had acquired a partnership). I frequently went to look at this engine, and on one occasion had the extreme ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... rain increased, and the darkness became intense. The house-servants, timid and superstitious, had all congregated in Aunt Amy's cabin. Amidst their grief, sincere and profound, was yet a subject of indignation, which acted as a sort of safety-valve to ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... back to the car, grumbling incoherent phrases. He affected to busy himself with the mechanism that had just been readjusted, looking at it wisely, thumbing a valve, though with a care to leave things precisely ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... it onto the floor and hollered out, "You didn't tell me nothin' about it! you never said the word dressin' gown! and I'd like to know what you're sorry about, it is nothin', only a valve ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... our third general, and this meeting was quite by chance. Coming back from a spin down the lines we stopped in a small village called Amifontaine, to let our chauffeur, known affectionately as The Human Rabbit, tinker with a leaky tire valve or something. A young officer came up through the dusk to find out who we were, and, having found out, he invited us into the chief house of the place, and there in a stuffy little French parlor we were introduced in due form to General d'Elsa, the head of the Twelfth ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... inconsequential, as boisterous, as lighthearted, as delightfully irresponsible as your ordinary concealed boyishness pleased. Customary repressions had nothing to do here. This was a celebration! And in the aforementioned our very wise woman would have seen—a safety valve. ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... and, though a detachment of them had ventured to church in waterproofs, they had not been able to take their usual safety valve of a walk across the moors. Seven people in a small house seem to get in one another's way on Sunday afternoons. Father was dozing in the dining-room, Mother, Athelstane and Hereward were in the drawing-room, interrupting each other's ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Stringocephalus Burtini, Def. a. Valves united. b. Interior of ventral or large valve, showing thick partition and portion of a large process which projects from the ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... its lunch deep in the toothsome kernel, and now a rod off playing at hide-and-seek, with the nut stowed away in its chops, where were half a dozen more besides, extending its cheeks to a ludicrous breadth,—as if it were devising through what safe valve of frisk or somerset to let its superfluous life escape; the stream passing harmlessly off, even while it sits, in constant electric flashes through its tail. And now with a chuckling squeak it dives into the root of a hazel, and we see no ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... till Nilo's strength was restored; as for Basil, he discovered that he must return to Montenegro that night. He stalked off through the misty moonlight, glad, I believe, of the fresh air and rapid climb as a safety-valve for his overflowing rapture. One look was all the thanks he offered me at that time, but what a world of feeling did ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... in the boy, but she becomes filled with vague undefined and undefinable longings. It is the period of "crushes" when the girl is apt to bestow her overflowing emotion on a girl friend. There is nothing reprehensible in these crushes—they act as a safety valve—and only in rare cases are they apt to lead to abnormal development. This is also the period of day-dreaming and of romancing; the girl likes to read love-stories and novels in which she identifies herself with the heroine. And it makes quite some difference as to what ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... Continental nations in time of calm, and from their feverish and spasmodic energy in time of excitement. Its decisions, if not instantly accepted, never fail to have a profound and calming influence on the public mind. It is the safety-valve of the nation. The discontents, the suspicions, the peccant humours that agitate the people, find there their vent, their ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... is wont to overflow in heroics or absurdity. The exuberance of Pickwick, Micawber, Pecksniff, Sairey Gamp, Sam Weller and a host of others is perhaps the most normal thing about them; it is as the rattling of a safety valve, which speaks not of stagnant water but of a full head of steam. For Dickens deals with life, and you can exaggerate life as much as you please, since there is no end to either its wisdom or foolishness. Nothing but a question can be added to the ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... might seek to intrude. It often happens that those who set them get caught, for they are not infallible. Whatever the form or patent assumed by these water-dams, they amount to a bend in the pipe rilled with water. (Fig. 2.) Sometimes a ball or other form of valve is used, but ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... distinctively human manifestations. The great accumulation of social energy, and the necessary limitations of one kind of work, leave a human being tired of one form of action, yet still uneasy for lack of full expression; and this social need has been met by our great safety valve of ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... women are displaying over there—you can't answer 'em in a word or in two words. This city is having a boom; every valve factory in the valley, every needle and pin factory, is makin' munitions today—valves and needles and pins all gone by the board for the time being. Money's never been so plenty in Whitewater County ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... of Monna Vanna. We have all of us, I suppose, stumbled, either as actors or onlookers, into painful situations, which not even a miracle of tact could possibly save. As a rule, of course, they are comic, and the agony they cause may find a safety-valve in laughter. But sometimes there occurs some detestable incident, over which it is equally impossible to laugh and to weep. The wisest words, the most graceful acts, are of no avail. One longs only to sink into the earth, or ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... hardship than had been anticipated, was not so much the result of changes in the government itself, as of economic progress in the nation, aided by a healthier growth of public opinion. The violence which marked the early stages of the reform movement has been described as a safety-valve against anarchy; it was, in reality, the chief obstacle to a sound and comprehensive reform bill. While it lasted, the middle classes and liberals of moderate views were estranged from the cause; when it ceased, the demand for a ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... Kate; people have become so very virtuous, that they're driven into all manner of abominable resources for amusement and occupation. If I had sons and daughters I should think a little flirting the very best thing for them as a safety valve. When people get to be old, there's a difficulty. They want to flirt with the young people and the young people don't want them. If the old people would be content to flirt together, I don't see why they should ever ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... The fountain should be hung up as high above the patient as the india-rubber tube will allow. The patient should lie on the right side, with knees drawn up. The tube should then be introduced into the rectum, and should be three or four inches in. The water may then be turned on with the thumb valve. If the abdomen can be rubbed by an attendant in an upward direction it will be better. The water should be retained, if ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... same to the officer of the deck every half hour. Extreme care was taken to guard against fire. In case fire was discovered, it was the duty of the man on watch to run and turn on the water—the key for the valve which regulated this being always carried on his wrist. Then he must notify the officer of the deck, shouting "fire" as he went, after which he must go back and with the hose endeavor to ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... Regent's Park," said Charlotte. She made up her mind, as she was swiftly bowled along, that she would walk back. She was just in that condition of suppressed excitement, when a walk would be the most delightful safety-valve in the world. ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... pump-valve, was gone. He had to take it apart, cut a new valve out of sole leather, and put ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... a new pop to stick, and as the steam runs up it is well to try it, by pulling the relief lever. If, on letting it go, it stops the escaping, steam at once, it is all right. If, however, the steam continues to escape, the valve sticks in the chamber. Usually a slight tap with a wrench or a hammer will stop it at once, but never get excited over escaping steam, and perhaps here is as good a place as any to say to you, don't get excited over anything. As long as you have plenty of water, ...
— Rough and Tumble Engineering • James H. Maggard
... rudder is communicated to the steam cut-off by means of the shaft, C, crank, J, rod, K, crank, I, and the hollow valve spindle. When the tiller is amidships the valve handle, H, is at right angles to the cylinder, and parallel to the tiller. By moving the lever, H, to right or left, steam is admitted to one end or the other ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... confidentially. And you have been so good to me, so willing to listen to all I had to say, that I can not help but speak my whole mind. It is my only safety valve. Remember how I have to sit in the presence of this man with my thoughts all choked up. It is killing me. But I think I should go back content if you will listen to one more suggestion I have to ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... turned a valve and adjusted some levers. There was a hissing sound, and the Advance began sinking. She was about to dive beneath the surface of the ocean, and those aboard her were destined to go through a terrible ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... in Sound as in b bib v valve d did th this g gig z zin j jug z azure n nine r rare m maim w we ng hang ...
— McGuffey's First Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition • William Holmes McGuffey
... to this new vessel, could not divest himself of uneasiness; for when her stern fell into the sea, it struck with so much violence as to be more like the resistance of a rock than the sea. The water, at the same time, often rushed with great force up the rudder-case, and, forcing up the valve of the water-closet, the floor of his cabin was at times laid under water. The gale continued to increase, and the vessel rolled and pitched in such a manner that the hawser by which the tender was made fast ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson |
