"Caustic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... passages now consigned to "the late Lord ——'s library" were not in the manuscript. On the arrival of the final copy they were discovered, and thereby hangs an amusing tale, consisting of a series of letters which, in so far as they were written with a certain caustic, humorous Irish pen, have taken their high place among the "Curiosities of Literature." The upshot of the matter was that the publisher, entangled in the "weeds" brought over by his Mayflower ancestors, found himself ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... scarcely remunerative. Mother had never approved. Dad had chuckled and said that it was a curse descended upon me from the terrible old Kitty O'Hara, the only old maid in the history of the O'Haras, and famed in her day for a caustic tongue and a venomed pen. Dad and Mother—what a pair of children they had been! The very dissimilarity of their natures had been a bond between them. Dad, light-hearted, whimsical, care-free, improvident; Mother, gravely sweet, anxious-browed, trying to teach economy to the handsome Irish husband ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... Peel's change of front, the representative of Shrewsbury, and gradually organized about himself the dissatisfaction and indignation of the landed proprietors with Sir Robert Peel's concessions to the free-trade movement. His strictures on Peel were severe, caustic, and bitter. "What," said this eloquent speaker, "shall we think of the eminent statesman, who, having served under four sovereigns, who, having been called to steer the ship on so many occasions and under such ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... Secessionism. Passing now to the weekly papers, of which we can name only two or three, we find the Conservative "Press," the Anglican-Clerical "Guardian" the "Examiner,"—a representative of a somewhat old-fashioned form of Liberalism or "Whiggery,"—and the caustic, Liberal-Conservative "Saturday Review," (already mentioned,) on the side of the South; the advanced Liberal "Spectator" on that of the North. It is a significant sign of the widespread Southernism in all grades of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... faintest disposition to descend to the level of his audience; eloquent, but with no trace of the empty rhetoric which so often does duty for that quality; full of a high seriousness, but with no suspicion of pedantry; lightened by an occasional epigram or flashes of caustic humour, but with none of the small jocularity in which it is such a temptation to a lecturer to indulge. As one listened to him one felt that comparative anatomy was indeed worthy of the devotion of a life, and that to ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... term for the operation by which fibrous raw materials are reduced to a residue of cellulose pulp by means of chemical treatment. In these tests about 300 pounds of hurds were charged into the rotary with the addition of a caustic-soda solution, such as is regularly employed in pulp mills and which tested an average of 109.5 grams of caustic soda per liter, or 0.916 pound per gallon, and averaged 85 per cent causticity. Sufficient caustic ...
— Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material - United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 404 • Lyster H. Dewey and Jason L. Merrill
... self-feeding power of the brain to meet an emergency, and a revelation, also, of the possible limitations of the starvation period. This was the case of a frail, spare boy of four years, whose stomach was so disorganized by a drink of solution of caustic potash that not even a swallow of water could be retained. He died on the seventy-fifth day of his fast, with the mind clear to the last hour, and with apparently nothing of the body left but bones, ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... sir," retorted he, "you have the thick skin necessary to living up to that rule." And the twinkle in his eyes betrayed the man who delights to exercise a real or imaginary talent for caustic wit. Such men are like nettles—dangerous only ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... to all these questions is that there are some substances called bases, which are the opposites of acids, and some of which are as powerful as acids. Lye, ammonia, caustic soda, and baking and washing soda are common bases. The strong bases, like lye and caustic soda, are also called alkalies. If you want to see what a strong base—an alkali—will do to "the most delicate of fabrics," and to fabrics ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... uncomb'd grizzly locks wild staring, thatch'd A head for thought profound and clear, unmatch'd: Yet tho' his caustic wit was biting, rude, His heart was ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... that Arethusa began to remember sundry lessons in economy also; she feared its cost would prove terrific. She had never seen anything nearly so Wonderful in the shape of a Gown before. Then too, those caustic remarks of so positive a nature concerning green with her red hair, which Miss Eliza had spoken so often in her hearing, began to worm themselves into ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... stimulants nor biting draughts nor caustic applications could hinder the deadly parchment ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... cold. The figure of the woman was growing smaller and smaller, as though melting away, and Foma, without lifting his eyes, stared at her and felt that aside from fear for his father and sorrow for the woman, some new, powerful and caustic sensation was awakening in his soul. He could not name it, but it seemed to him as something like a ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... sheet of thin white writing paper in a weak solution of caustic (as I then called it) and dried it in an empty box, to keep it in the dark; when dry, I placed it in the camera and watched it with great patience for nearly half an hour, without producing any visible result; evidently from the solution being to weak. I then soaked the same ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... to take all the criticism, even the caustic remarks of Anderson the foreman, because it began to look now very much as if the stubborn, dogged, plodding German were on the road to financial success. He had been through the regular struggles necessary to make his model and get his patent. But he had finally succeeded in all the preliminary ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... journalist who had acquired more reputation by dint of doing nothing than others had derived from their achievements. A bold, caustic, and powerful critic, he possessed all the qualities that his defects permitted. An outspoken giber, he made numberless epigrams on a friend to his face; but would defend him, if absent, with courage and loyalty. He laughed at everything, even at his own career. Always impecunious, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... go right away," said her mother, very caustic. "And I've no doubt you'd find other people didn't put up with you for very long either. You've too much opinion of yourself ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... office was quickly made. Hite's few sentences were short, sharp, barking ones. Hite was keyed up to the highest pitch. By this time a call had gone out and he had enough men to handle all phases of the story. Hite gave some brief orders, made some caustic comment and switched the ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... dullness at all disappears. After the country of Leaphigh is reached the story is far less absurd and more entertaining; though (p. 135) Cooper's descriptions are of the nature of caricature rather than of satire. There are, however, many shrewd and caustic remarks scattered up and down the pages of the latter part of the work, but they will never be known to anybody, for nobody will read ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... story of the idle rich, and is a vivid and truthful picture of society and stage life written by one who is himself a conspicuous member of the Western millionaire class. Full of grim satire, caustic wit and flashing epigrams. "Is sensational to a degree in its theme, daring in its treatment, lashing society as it was never scourged before."—New ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... thrilling with the echoed miraculous chord of the child of ten, sitting gravely, alone, among the shrill satins and caustic voices of a feminine throng, was complete. She saw herself, Linda Condon, as objectively as Pleydon's described vision: there was a large bow on her straight black hair, and, from under the bang, her gaze was clear ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... becoming a candidate for University honors, that his scientific attainments are far from inconsiderable. He is well known to be the author of an essay in the Philosophical Transactions on the accurate rectification of a circular arc, and of an investigation of the equation of a lunar caustic—a problem likely to become of great use in ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... very near to the heart and the life of Greece, and waken a kindly enthusiasm in every one who approaches them. In Humphrey Prideaux's letters there is not a trace of any such feeling. He does his business, but it is hack-work. In this he differs from the modern student, but in his caustic description of the rude and witless society of the place he is modern enough. In his letters to his friend, John Ellis, of the State Paper Office, it is plain that Prideaux wants to get preferment. His taste and his ambition ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... materials needed with which to manufacture the supplies are mild carbon steel for the barrels, bayonets, bolt, and locks; well-seasoned ash or maple, straight-grained, for the stocks; brass, iron, powder, antimony, benzol or phenol, sulphuric acid, nitric acid, and caustic soda, &c. Of these various materials the most difficult to secure are those used in ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... mountains as Ireland is by the sea, is like a lost island, fabled, remote, its speech Provencal, its soul purely Celt. Laughter loving, warlike and brave in the idyllic years of their prime, the Gruyeriens of to-day are still gay, caustic of wit as they are kindly at heart; and, in a changed world, as tenacious of their new republican rights as they were erstwhile valiant vassals to their pastoral kings. The source of innumerable songs and legends in the rich ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... which was illustrated with several clever caricatures of the unfortunate Henri and contained much caustic wit, took like wildfire in the village; and Henri, in consequence, had a very bad time. Eventually it was shown to Beatrice, and it was then that the climax was reached. Although Henri was present at the moment, unable to restrain herself, she went into peals ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... and dry a 3 by 1 glass slip and place it on one of the squares of filter paper. Deposit a drop of water (preferably distilled) or a drop of 1 per cent. solution of caustic potash, on the centre of the slip, by ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... not propose to open the chest with the bistoury. The operation, even though aided by chloroform, would cause too violent a shock to the nervous system. But I intend to burn through gradually, by successive applications of caustic, as in the procedure for opening hepatic cysts. Deep-seated adhesions would form and shut out the lungs securely, and thus probably obviate the necessity for artificial respiration. The pericardium would be reached with comparatively ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... of battles, when physical courage sits so high, the reader—if he is swept off in the general opinion—will expect under such a title something caustic. He will think that I am about to loose against all cowards a plague of frogs and locusts as if old Egypt had come again. But cowardice is its own punishment. It needs no frog to nip it. Even the sharp-toothed locust—for in the days ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... The caustic alkalies; sodium hydroxide, NaOH, or potassium hydroxide KOH, have a most deleterious action on wool. Even when very dilute and used in the cold they act destructively, and leave the fibre with a harsh feel and very tender, they cannot therefore be used ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech
... in good part by the captain, who at once corrected the mistake. But after going twice round the deck, and drawing forth many humorous as well as caustic remarks as to his size and general appearance, he was forced to the conclusion that his sister was not there. The ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... degrees of hardness, and probably differ from each other in the proportions at least of their component parts; when a patient, who labours under this afflicting disease, voids any small bits of gravel; these should be kept in warm solutions of caustic alcali, or of mild alcali well aerated; and if they dissolve in these solutions, it would afford greater hopes, that that which remains in the bladder, might be affected by these medicines taken by the stomach, or injected into ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Jour. f. prakt. Chem., 1911, 84, 140.] from the chloride of trimethylgallic acid and the methyl ester of the acid from the glucoside of syringin; on saponification with caustic potash the former compound yielded trimethylgallic acid ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... of the family circle, particularly of the smaller Jackson sisters, were so breezy and unrestrained that Mrs. Jackson generally felt it necessary to apply the closure. Indeed, Marjory Jackson, aged fourteen, had on three several occasions been fined pudding at lunch for her caustic comments on the batting of her brother Reggie in important fixtures. Cricket was a tradition in the family, and the ladies, unable to their sorrow to play the game themselves, were resolved that it should not be their fault if the standard was not ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... evolution of oxygen; and in contact with concentrated sulphuric acid with liberation of chlorine peroxide. The most important is potassium chlorate, KClO3, which was obtained in 1786 by C.L. Berthollet by the action of chlorine on caustic potash, and this method was at first used for its manufacture. The modern process consists in the electrolysis of a hot solution of potassium chloride, or, preferably, the formation of sodium chlorate by the electrolytic ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... drooped from disappointment. With Charley, any emotion always reached the ultimate absurdity. He was a flowing, flexible phantom of translucent color and radiance. But now the colors faded like gaudy rags in caustic solution. Charley whined as Denver went through the grotesque ritual of donning space helmet and zipping up his glass cloth and metal foil suiting before he dared venture outside. Charley even tried to help by pouring himself through the stale ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... The caustic bodie would dander away with a grin, leaving a poor writhing soul. When he reached the Cross he would tell the Deacon blithely of the "fine one he had given him," and the Deacon would lie in wait to give him a fine one too. In Barbie, at least, your returning ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... of her sisters exclaimed, reproachfully. These innocent sisters never could accommodate themselves to Nera's caustic tongue. ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... conflicting interests of men who would furnish the supply. Some dealers in fresh burned lime have asserted that it was folly to expect any appreciable result from the use of unburned limestone. The manufacturer of ground limestone has pointed out the possibility of injuring a soil by the use of caustic lime, and oftentimes has so emphasized his point that farmers have become unwilling to apply fresh or water-slaked lime to their land. Manufacturers of hydrated lime in some instances have made a confused situation worse by insisting upon the claim that there was a fertilizing ...
— Right Use of Lime in Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... first transcribing the above letter for the press, omitted the whole of this caustic, and, perhaps, over-severe character of Mr. Hunt; but the tone of that gentleman's book having, as far as himself is concerned, released me from all those scruples which prompted the suppression, I have considered myself at liberty to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Nostromo's speeches I have heard first in Dominic's voice. His hand on the tiller and his fearless eyes roaming the horizon from within the monkish hood shadowing his face, he would utter the usual exordium of his remorseless wisdom: "Vous autres gentilhommes!" in a caustic tone that hangs on my ear yet. Like Nostromo! "You hombres finos!" Very much like Nostromo. But Dominic the Corsican nursed a certain pride of ancestry from which my Nostromo is free; for Nostromo's lineage had to be more ancient still. He is a man with the weight of countless ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... heard her own name, but invariably as "Miss Wood"; nothing less respectful came out, and frequently he answered some one as "ma'am." At these fragments of revelation Mrs. Taylor abstained from speech, but eyed Molly Wood with caustic reproach. As the night wore on, short lulls of silence intervened, and the watchers were deceived into hope that the fever was abating. And when the Virginian sat quietly up in bed, essayed to move his bandage, and looked steadily at Mrs. Taylor, she rose quickly and ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... idea that some non-Romans could claim equality with herself. Neither proposition did she accept consciously. The prejudice wore quietly away. But other things about the city she gathered quickly enough from the caustic explanations ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... the scales at a hundred and sixty, she was as slim and round as a reed, and it was well known that the grip of her firm fingers applied to the closed fist of any of the young fellows on the place would make him howl. She was an emotional creature, with a caustic tongue on occasion, and when it pleased her mood to look over her shoulder at one of her numerous admirers and to wither him with a look or a word, she did not hesitate to do it. For instance, when Apollo first asked her to marry him—it had been his habit to propose to her every ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... indulged himself to but one reply to the other's caustic taunts. Bending low to catch Chandler's fast crystallizing gaze, he pointed to the sleeping lady's door with a gesture so stern and significant that the prostrate man half-lifted his head, with his remaining strength, to see. He saw nothing; but he caught ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... hours a day he toiled, but he was a sociable man, nevertheless, a cultured man fond of music, possessing a tongue that was feared as much as is the Russian knout. Mr. Moore has printed many specimens of his caustic wit. Whistler actually kept silent in his presence—possibly expecting a repetition of the mot: "My dear friend, you conduct yourself in life just as if you had no talent at all." Manet good-naturedly ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... nothing of the grace of Plato; he illuminates his works with no myths or allegories; his manner is dry, sententious, familiar, without the slightest attempt at ornament. There are occasional touches of caustic humour, but nothing of emotion, still less of rhapsody. His strength lies in the vast architectonic genius by which he correlates every domain of the knowable in a single scheme, and in the extraordinary faculty for illustrative detail with which he fills the scheme in every ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... colored before Henrietta's expression, a mingling of amusement, indignation, and contempt, a caustic comment upon his disregard of the effect of such indiscretion upon a Saint X young married woman's reputation. "Then," said she, looking straight and significantly at him, "you'll be able to drop me at my house on ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... occasionally. Bettie is a friend of Mrs. Mundy. Owing to kinlessness and inability to care for herself, owing, also, to there being nowhere else to which she could go, she has been forced to enter the Home. Her caustic comments on its management are of a clear-cut variety. Bettie was born for a satirist and became an epileptic. The result at times is speech that is not guarded, a calling of things by names that ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... the last of that particular line of Georges. I say that he handsomely complied with the requirements of the will; but my statement appears to be subject to qualification, for on the day of his obsequies it was remarked of him by a caustic contemporary: "Well, yes, Mr. Jaffrey was a gentleman by profession, but ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of which that party had hitherto been composed. Now did the Reverend Samuel Pentecost, whose light had hitherto been hidden under a bushel, prove at last that he could do something by proving that he could eat. Now did Pedgift Junior shine brighter than ever he had shone yet in gems of caustic humor and exquisite fertilities of resource. Now did the squire, and the squire's charming guest, prove the triple connection between Champagne that sparkles, Love that grows bolder, and Eyes whose vocabulary is without ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... is more caustic than correct. Boabdil never showed a want of courage in the defence of Granada, but he wanted firmness and decision: he was beset from the first by perplexities, and ultimately by the artifices of Ferdinand and the treachery of those ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... meet the King in some sylvan glade. Why it was a comfort to Edward to be with him, it would be hard to say; probably from the habit of old fellowship, for Henry's humour had not grown more courtly or less caustic. ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... knew her as a personal influence. Her strenuous and rather overbearing individuality made an impression not altogether agreeable upon many of her contemporaries. Lowell introduced a caricature of her as "Miranda" into his Fable for Critics, and Hawthorne's caustic sketch of her, preserved in the biography written by his son, has given great offence to her admirers. "Such a determination to eat this huge universe!" was Carlyle's characteristic comment on her appetite for knowledge ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... detention was for a long time debated in the Assembly. "What right," said one, "have we to prohibit these ladies from traveling." "We have a law," another indignantly replied, "paramount to all others—the law which commands us to take care of the public safety." The debate was finally terminated by the caustic remark of a member who was ashamed of the protracted discussion. "Europe," said he, "will be greatly astonished, no doubt, on hearing that the National Assembly spent four hours in deliberating upon the departure of two ladies who preferred hearing mass ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... vain: it wrapped me round like a cloak. It was a universal caustic, that would not endure to be touched; much less torn away. I groaned. I gnashed my teeth. I griped my hands. I struck myself violent blows. I ran with fury, in circles, in zigzag, with sudden turns ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... holy grail, the cup which our Lord used at the Last Supper. Of garments purporting to be the seamless coat of Christ there were a considerable number shown in different places; but the most famous to this day remains the Holy Coat of Treves, which, in Dr. Robertson's caustic words, "the Empress Helena (the mother of Constantine) was said to have presented to an imaginary archbishop of her pretended birthplace, Treves." During the First Crusade the army before Antioch was only spurred on to the efforts ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... results are—(1) The mercerisation action commences with a lye of 10 deg.B., and increases with increased strength of the lye up to a maximum at 35 deg.B. There is, however, a relatively slight increase of action with the increase of caustic soda from 30-40 deg.B. (2) For optimum action the temperature should not exceed 15-20 deg.C. (3) The duration of action is of proportionately less influence as the concentration of the lye increases. As the maximum effect is attained the action becomes practically instantaneous, ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross
... feed. Drinking filthy water or eating spoiled, mouldy feeds are common causes. In cattle pasturing in low, marshy places, enteritis may be common. The toxic form is caused by irritating poisons, such as caustic acids, alkalies ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... Were I blessed with the genius of Praxiteles or of Angelo, I would chisel and bequeath to the world a noble statue,—typical of that rare, fearless friendship, which, walking through the lazaretto of diseased and morbid natures, bears not honied draughts alone, but scalpel, caustic, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... be as finely pulverized as possible, in order to obtain rapid solution and absorption. Their action is in this way facilitated and intensified. Powders must be free from any irritant or caustic action upon the mouth. Those that are without any disagreeable taste or smell are readily eaten with the feed or taken in the drinking water. When placed with the feed they should first be dissolved or suspended ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... repeatedly and with great emphasis what specific act had deprived these rebellious States of their rights as States of the Union. Mr. Shellabarger gave an answer to that question, which, as a caustic summary, is worthy to be quoted in full. "I answer him," said the member from Ohio, "in the words of the Supreme Court, 'The causeless waging against their own Government of a war which all the world acknowledge to have been the greatest civil war known in the history of the human race.' ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... found refuge from Hattie's caustic comments in Bertie's immediate devotion. He had won her heart on the night of her arrival, when he had gone to sleep in her lap with a last injunction, that she "must stay with them always, until ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... The educational process is complex. There must be first the incitement to thought. Most effective in this direction is criticism. If the roads are such a handicap to the comfort and safety of travel that there is caustic criticism at the next town meeting, public opinion begins to set definitely in the direction of improvement. If city government is corrupt and the tax rate mounts steadily without corresponding benefits to the ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... Hawthorne, they sigh for an historical atmosphere, and then, when they come to Europe and get it, they do not like it, and think Schenectady, New York, "a better place." It is not easy to understand what ailed Hawthorne with Europe; he was extremely caustic in his writings about that continent, and discontented. Our matrons were so stout and placid that they irritated him. Indeed, they are a little heavy in hand, still there are examples of agreeable ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... pressed in his. Euphemia never made a secret of the tenderness she professed; and Miss Beaufort having been taught by her own heart to read distinctly the eyes of Lady Sara, the result of her observations had long acted as a caustic on her peace; it had often robbed her cheeks of their bloom, and compelled her to number the lingering minutes of the night with sighs. But her deep and modest flame assumed no violence; removed far from sight, it burnt the ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... described how the Emperor once every year went forth into the fields, and there with his own hand guided the plough as it traced the long furrows. Raynal elaborated this formality into a characteristic rhapsody on peace, simplicity, plenty, and the father of his people. As a caustic critic of M. Poivre remarked, if a Chinese traveller had arrived at Versailles on the morning of Holy Thursday, he would have found the King of France humbly washing the feet of twelve poor and aged men, yet, as Frenchmen knew, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... with the petty duties of her days, and left him lorn. Madame de Sevenie had taken a flattering fancy to him, and frequently came to gossip beside his bed or chair. He found her tremendously entertaining, endowed as she was with an excellent and well-stored memory, a gift of caustic characterization and a pretty taste in the scandal of her bygone day and generation, as well as with a mind still active and better informed on the affairs of to-day than that of many a Parisienne of the haute ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... Fens, some miles to the east of the great north road, without any special trade, and without any neighbouring territorial magnates, it is hardly surprising that the place seemed incapable of progress, and remained long eminently respectable and stagnant. In one of his caustic epigrams Dean Duport does indeed speak of the wool-combers as if there were a recognised calling that employed some numbers of men; but he is not complimentary to those employed, for he says that the men that comb the wool, and the ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... I," agreed her husband, with his usual caustic turn of speech. "I swan! I can sleep better under the elder's preaching than I ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... steps he had been forced to take to bolster up the young man's courage sufficiently to admit of his being brought to the encounter. Richard so disgusted him that he felt if he did not quit his company soon, he would be quarrelling with him himself. So, congratulating him, in a caustic manner that Richard did not relish, upon the happy termination of the affair, Vallancey took his leave of him and Blake at the cross-roads, pleading business with Lord Gervase, and left them to proceed without ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... always an acute observer and a caustic commentator, and she soon discovered that the cloister is not necessarily a celestial abode, and that its inmates do not inevitably enjoy consolatory peace. She found feminine spite there of the same texture with that wreaked by worldly women upon each other, and she notes ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... journey, and ranks the march as one of the greatest exploits in Roman military history. Described by the names known to modern geography, it was from the Gulf of Cabes to Cape Africa. Pope, in a letter to Henry Cromwell, dated November 11, 1710, makes some caustic remarks on the geography of this book. (See "Pope's Works", Vol. vi., 109; by Elwin & Courthope.) (31) See Line 444. (32) See Book IV., 65. (33) The "Palladium" or image of Pallas, preserved in the temple of Vesta. (See ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... Chemical antidotes may sometimes be used for special poisons, as advised below. In general, if an acid has been taken it may be neutralized with an alkali, such as chalk, magnesia, bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), ammonia (diluted), or soap. If the poison is an alkali, such as caustic soda or potash (lye), or ammonia, an acid, such as diluted (1 per cent) sulphuric acid or vinegar, may be administered. Special treatments and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... Hyppomane. With the milky juice of this tree the Indians poison their arrows; the dew-drops, which fall from it, are so caustic as to blister the skin, and produce dangerous ulcers; whence many have found their death by sleeping under its shade. Variety of noxious plants abound in all countries; in our own the deadly nightshade, ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... of protest was through the satirical poets. Of these caustic writers, Persius (34-62) is obscure and of a moderate degree of merit. Juvenal (about 55-135), on the contrary, is spirited and full of force. Martial (43-101), a Spaniard by birth, was the author of numerous short poems of a pithy and pointed character, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... landmark. The men, who for the most part would be completely lost in three minutes on their own, are critical and unsympathetic, and rightly, for this is what an officer is paid extra for. They whisper caustic comments in the rear. All sense of direction seems suddenly to fail the unhappy man, and he sinks into the depths of a misery which few others can equal. At last a light shines out ahead. Making towards it with a wild hope he sees the darker ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... Rust, and of every man, woman and child of his acquaintance. He grew merry over the rare doings which had taken place in Rust's den. He then descanted upon the peculiarities of the old man; his fierce fits of passion, his cold, shrewd, caustic manners, his coming in, and his going out; how long he was absent; how profoundly secret he kept himself, his doings, his whereabouts, and his mode of life. 'And,' said he, in conclusion, 'I know nothing of him. He's a queer dog, a wonderfully queer one. It would take a long time to fathom him, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... previous conduct was in itself sufficient to occasion a great contrast in their situation before the Court. Moreau was full of confidence and Georges full of resignation. The latter regarded his fate with a fierce kind of resolution. He occasionally resumed the caustic tone which he seemed to have renounced when he harangued his associates before their departure from the Temple. With the most sarcastic bitterness he alluded to the name and vote of Thuriot, one of the most violent of the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... father's house of a Sunday, and was authorized to turn the conversation out of the austere and Calvinistic tone, which it usually maintained on that day, upon subjects of history or auld langsyne. He remembered the forty-five, and told many excellent stories, all with a strong dash of a peculiar caustic humor. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... This one was for nearly two hundred; and at the end of the long list of items, the biggest of which was that bathroom without water that had sent Annalise out on strike, was the information that a remittance would oblige. A remittance! Poor Fritzing. He crushed the paper in his hand and made caustic mental comments on the indecency of these people, clamouring for their money almost before the last workman was out of the place, certainly before the smell of paint was out of it, and clamouring, too, ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... a deep gulf which separates California from the American continent, and makes it almost an island, the Malays were rubbed with a mixture of tar and dragon's blood, dissolved in a caustic oil, to give to their olive skins a deeper shade, and their flat noses and silky hair making them pass for Yolof negroes, they were exchanged at Cape St. Lucas, along with the rest, for ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... one group of Quakers among the glittering throng, who looked sufficiently quaint to attract attention, while the matron of the party said clever, caustic things, differing in quality as well as quantity from the sparkling, playful jests and repartees, that, as the evening passed, were flung about by Mr. Jerdan, the popular editor of the 'Literary Gazette,' the oracle of that time, and stammered forth by Dr. Maginn. "The Doctor" and Mr. Jerdan ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... forgiveness, but he is asking for a process of purifying which will be long and hard. 'I am ready,' says he, in effect, 'to submit to any sort of discipline, if only I may be clean. Wash me, beat me, tread me down, hammer me with mallets, dash me against stones, rub me with smarting soap and caustic nitre—do anything, anything with me, if only those foul spots melt away from the texture of my soul!' A solemn prayer, my brethren! if we pray it aright, which will be answered by many a sharp application of God's Spirit, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Society of Yale College, August 14, 1850, by Oliver Wendell Holmes. This poem contains many beautiful gems, interspersed with some satirical descriptions of men and manners, which prove Mr. Holmes to be a caustic as well ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... the old Doctor. It was not long before the solid trot of Caustic, the old bay horse, and the crashing of the gravel under the wheels, gave notice that the physician was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... the grin as a distinct insult to his intelligence and he pounced upon the little brown man in an even more caustic tone: ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... in connection with the writing of his Autobiography. On more than one occasion, he declared that the Autobiography was going to be something awful—as caustic, fiendish, and devilish as he could make it. Actually, he was in the habit of jotting on the margin of the page, opposite to some startling characterization or diabolic joke: "Not to be published until ten (or twenty, or thirty) years after my death." ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... be Mrs. Harvey—no, thank you!" she replied, in a choking, caustic voice. "But while you are at it, have you any further suggestions ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... and the necessity for self-defense at last developed in Mr. Early that literary style which he had found it impossible to cultivate while he still had nothing to say. He grew a peculiar ability for self-glorification and for slugging the other man. Particularly caustic did his pen become in respect to those, whether painters, musicians, poets, novelists or reformers, who had endeared themselves to the great mass of the public. The Aspirant always called the public "the rabble," and you can't damn humanity more easily and cheaply than by calling it "the ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... fortunate," said Austen, resolved not to be the necessary second in a quarrel. He knew his father, and perceived that these preliminary and caustic openings of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... passing through salt water in these cells decomposes the salt into caustic soda and chlorine ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... every passing year made appear a more hopeless undertaking. At by-elections Home Rule was scarcely mentioned. In the eyes of average Englishmen the question was dead and buried, and most people were heartily thankful to hear no more about it. Mr. T.M. Healy's caustic wit remarked that "Home Rule was put ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... Caustic Potash.—The solution of blood obtained in water is boiled, when a coagulum is formed soluble in hot caustic potash, the solution formed being greenish by transmitted ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... her grandmother's caustic reply, and then paid no further attention until her keen ear caught the sound of Stephen's name. It was a part of her unhappiness that since her broken engagement no one would ever allude to him, and she longed to hear him mentioned, ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... complete at once from the hands of the Creator of all things, and the first essays of a man of real genius are such, in all their grand and most important features, as no subsequent assiduity can amend. Add to this, that Mr. Fuseli is somewhat of a caustic turn of mind, with much wit, and a disposition to search, in every thing new or modern, for occasions of censure. I believe Mary came something more a cynic out of the school of Mr. Fuseli, than ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... such as caustic potash, nitric or sulphuric acid, may also induce local tissue necrosis, the general appearances of the lesions produced being like those of severe burns. The resulting sloughs are slow to separate, and leave deep punched-out cavities which ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... might arise, I determined on making an experiment with the view of cutting off its source. Accordingly, after the patients had felt an indisposition of about twelve hours, I applied in two of these cases out of the three, on the vesicle formed by the virus, a little mild caustic, composed of equal parts of quick—lime and soap, and suffered it to remain on the part six hours. [Footnote: What effect would a similar treatment produce in inoculation for the smallpox?] It seemed to give the children but ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... Three Mariners for a considerable time. The difference of accent, the excitability of the singer, the intense local feeling, and the seriousness with which he worked himself up to a climax, surprised this set of worthies, who were only too prone to shut up their emotions with caustic words. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... to make herself feel interested, and, when this failed, upon her courtesy, to appear so; but she was conscious of relapses more and more frequent into the dreary regions of Boredom. Every body would agree with every body else so completely! A bold contradiction, a stinging sarcasm, or a caustic retort, would have been worth any thing just then to take off the cloying taste of the everlasting honey. She roused herself at these last words enough to ask languidly, "What has ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... attached to the production of the gas; while it is not clear that the yield per unit weight of carbide decomposed should be as high as that obtained in wet generation. The inventor has claimed that his by-product should be valuable and saleable, apparently partly on the ground that it should contain caustic soda. Evidence, however, that a reaction between the calcium oxide or hydroxide and the sodium carbonate takes place in the prevailing conditions is not yet forthcoming, and the probabilities are that such decomposition would not occur unless the residue were largely diluted with water. ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... every fifty men who think they can play poker one ain't mistaken," was the Girl's caustic observation. The next instant, however, she jumped down from the table and was back at her post, where, fearful lest he should think her wanting in hospitality, she proposed: ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... single familiar word. There is a great deal of false sentiment in the world, as there is of bad logic and erroneous doctrine; but—it is very much less disagreeable to hear a young poet overdo his emotions, or even deceive himself about them, than to hear a caustic-epithet flinger repeating such words as "sentimentality" and "entusymusy,"—one of the least admirable of Lord Byron's bequests to our language,—for the purpose of ridiculing him into silence. An overdressed woman is not so pleasing as she might be, but at any rate she ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... rather more in common with Lamb, the contrast is much more obvious than the resemblance. Each wants the other's most characteristic vein; Hazlitt has hardly a touch of humour, and Lamb is incapable of Hazlitt's caustic scorn for the world and himself. They have indeed in common, besides certain superficial tastes, a love of pathetic brooding over the past. But the sentiment exerted is radically different. Lamb forgets ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... woman who had accused her of administering a poisonous potion. Dame Kepler employed a young advocate who for reasons of his own "nursed" the case so long that after five years had elapsed without any conclusion being reached another judge was appointed, who had himself suffered from the caustic tongue of the prosecutrix, and so was already prejudiced against her. The defendant, knowing this, turned the tables on her opponent by bringing an accusation of witchcraft against her, and Catherine Kepler was imprisoned and condemned to the torture in July, 1620. Kepler, ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... news." But each day found it harder to begin, and only the announcement of her intended departure one morning brought him to the hazard. He was beginning to feel less secure of her, and less indifferent to the gibes of the town jokers, who found in his enslavement much material for caustic remark. They called him the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... of silver which is to be reduced is put into a flask with about twice its volume of a solution of caustic potash (of one part of caustic potash to nine of water), in which a small portion of sugar has been dissolved. Let it boil gently. The operation is complete when the blackish powder which results from this process, having been washed in several waters, is entirely soluble in nitric acid, which ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... to be worth fifty pounds of his own; and as for railing at human follies, it would have been rank ingratitude in one who so very unequivocally got his bread by them. About this time, his remarks on the subject of taxation, however, were singularly caustic, and well applied. He railed at the public debt, as a public curse, and ominously predicted the dissolution of society, in consequence of the burdens and incumbrances it was hourly accumulating on the already overloaded shoulders of ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... born at Bagnols, in the department of Var; famed for his caustic wit; was a Royalist emigrant at the time of the Revolution, and aided the cause by his pamphlets; he was styled by Burke "The Tacitus of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... suitable instrument, they should cut out the central part bitten, and then bathe the wound for some time with warm water, to make it bleed freely. The wound should afterwards be rubbed with a stick of lunar caustic, or, what is better, a solution of this—60 grains of lunar caustic dissolved in an ounce of water—should be dropped into it. The band should be kept on the part during the whole of the time that these means are being adopted. The wound should afterwards ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... singularly plastic medium of dramatic expression. The marble is too richly veined for ideal sculpture, but it takes the print of life. The wit, exuberant as it is, does not coruscate indiscriminately upon all lips; and it has many shades and varieties—caustic, ironical, imaginative, playful, passionate—which take their temper ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... was looked upon with fear by all the villagers. Her manner was brusque, her speech sharp, and her criticism of neglectful mothers caustic and much to the point. Prim, always in black bonnet and jet-trimmed cape of years gone by, both in summer and winter, she took no heed of the vagaries of fashion, even when they ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... he is an Anglais of dignity,"—Irish in reality, and a thought blusterous. "He has a condensed (SERRE) caustic way of talk; and I know not what of frank which one finds in the English, and does not usually find in persons of his trade. French Tragedies played at Berlin, I myself taking part; an Englishman Envoy of France there: strange ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... life into Coralie. But the next day, as they breakfasted together, Lucien opened Lousteau's newspaper, and found that unlucky anecdote of the Keeper of the Seals and his wife. The story was full of the blackest malice lurking in the most caustic wit. Louis XVIII. was brought into the story in a masterly fashion, and held up to ridicule in such a way that prosecution was impossible. Here is the substance of a fiction for which the Liberal party attempted to win credence, though they only succeeded in adding one ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... caustic bitterness that had its roots. Her own venture in second marriage had been catastrophic—so catastrophic that her neglected bakery had gone very much to the bad. Still more closely to the point, Madame Jolicoeur—incident to finding entomologic specimens ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... we only separate a quantity of air from lime and alkalis, when we render them caustic they will be found to lose part of their weight in the operation, but will saturate the same quantity of acid as before, and the saturation ...
— Experiments upon magnesia alba, Quicklime, and some other Alcaline Substances • Joseph Black
... whatever may have been the issue, Gracchus improved the occasion by an harangue to the people,[589] in which he defended his conduct as one of their representatives in Sardinia. The speech was important for its caustic descriptions of the habits of the nobility when freed from the moral atmosphere of Rome. With extreme ingenuity he worked into the description of the habits of his own official life a scathing indictment, expressed in the frankest terms, of the self-seeking, the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... acids are of opposite properties, and when brought together they unite and neutralize each other, forming compounds which are neither alkaline nor acid in their character. Thus, carbonic acid (a gas,) unites with lime—a burning, caustic substance—and forms marble, which is a hard tasteless stone. Alkalies and acids are characterized by their desire to unite with each other, and the compounds thus formed have many and various properties, so that the characters of the constituents give no indication of the character of ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... venture, out upon the uncertain waters of public opinion, I shall say but few words of preface. In the past I have received considerable well-deserved criticism from the gentlemen of the caustic pen, but so far from having any hard feeling toward them, I have rather wondered that they found so much to say that was favorable. How they will judge this simple October story (if they think it worth while to judge it at all) I leave to the future, and turn ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... never meet her popular approval. It's, what do the French call it—a faux pas that's not only frowned on, but actually scowled at, an' made the excuse for numerous an' sundry barbed shafts of sarcasm an' caustic observations of a more or less personal application, all of which is supposed to make a man feel like he'd not only et the canary, but a whole damn buzzard—an' wish he hadn't lived to survive doin' it." The man glanced up at the sun. "Time I was gettin' outside of this lunch she packed ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... gentleman on the train to Dalny spoke of General Stoessel's surrender in very caustic terms, basing his position on information received from one of the officers on the General's staff. It occurred to me that the officer would not be likely to give favorable testimony, as there was a possibility of his also suffering penalties in Russia. It will always be a mooted question whether ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... by ridicule, or silence by sarcasm, all who may oppose him with statements that cannot be disproved, or arguments that cannot be upset by reason. That which duty bids him do, practice enables him to do with terrible precision and completeness; and in many a case the caustic tone, assumed at the outset as a professional weapon, becomes habitual, and, without the speaker's knowledge, gives more pain within his home ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... ruined by the cruelty of a society leader! how many a young man has had his blood frozen by a contemptuous smile at his awkwardness! How much of the native good-will of an impulsive person has been frozen into a caustic and sardonic temper by the lack of a little optional civility? The servant who comes for a place, and seats herself while the lady who speaks to her is standing, is wanting in optional civility. She sins from ignorance, and should be kindly told of her offence, and taught better manners. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... I think you are more caustic than Amy," said Kate, while she drew her head back to look at ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... hitherto unheard-of conditions that she meant to impose. In recalling to her remembrance the possible suitors that she had met in the world, she remembered also the dark, but true picture, which Rodin had drawn with so much caustic bitterness. She remembered, too, not without a certain pride, the encouragement this man had given her, not by flattery, but by advising her to follow out and accomplish a great, generous, and beautiful design. The current ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... indicators; barium hydroxide solutions may be prepared which are entirely free from carbon dioxide, and such solutions immediately show by precipitation any contamination from absorption, but the hydroxide is not freely soluble in water; ammonia does not absorb carbon dioxide as readily as the caustic alkalies, but its solutions cannot be boiled nor can they be used with all indicators. The choice of a solution must depend upon the nature of the ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot
... the leaching of ashes may be taken by a child accidentally. The antidote is vinegar, or oil of any kind. The vinegar neutralizes the alkali by uniting with it, forming the acetate of potash. The oil unites with the alkali, and forms soap, which is less caustic than the ley. Give, at the same time, large draughts of mucilaginous ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... not smile; he only looked pained. Once only have I seen the Californiac silenced. A dinner party which included a globe-trotter, were listening to a victim of an advanced stage of Californoia. He had just disposed of the East, South and Middle West with a few caustic phrases and had started on his favorite subject. "You are certainly a wonderful people," the globe-trotter said, when he had finished. "Every large city in Europe has a colony of Californians, all rooting for California as hard as they can, and all living as far ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... without collecting about him a fawning, favor-hunting throng so dense, so tenacious, and troublesome to traffic that it would have brought the officer from his place beside the surface-car tracks, caustic-tongued, to investigate and disperse it. Nor would that officer have ordered them to move on, six months before, once he had discovered what monarch it was who held informal court there. He would ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... reminiscent of old jokes between the games; John Jennings lagged at cards, but flashed out now and then with fine wit, while his fervently working brain lit up his worn face with the light of youth. The lawyer, who drank more than the rest, played better and better, and waxed caustic in speech if crossed. As for the Squire, his frankness increased even to the risk of self-praise. Before the evening was over he had told the whole story of little Jerome, of Doctor Prescott and himself and the Edwards mortgage. The three friends stared at him with unsorted ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the historical novel. In 1841 D. went to America, and was received with great enthusiasm, which, however, the publication of American Notes considerably damped, and the appearance of Martin Chuzzlewit in 1843, with its caustic criticisms of certain features of American life, converted into extreme, though temporary, unpopularity. The first of the Christmas books—the Christmas Carol—appeared in 1843, and in the following year D. went to Italy, where at ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... old chap," said Hume, still smarting under the recollections of Brett's caustic utterance, "say you forgive me for keeping that thing back. There is nothing else, believe me. It ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... June! But the glitter of the buttercup, which is as nothing to the glitter of a gold dollar in the eyes of a practical farmer, fills him with wrath when this immigrant takes possession of his pastures. Cattle will not eat the acrid, caustic plant—a sufficient reason for most members of the Ranunculaceae to stoop to the low trick of secreting poisonous or bitter juices. Self-preservation leads a cousin, the garden monk's hood, even to murderous practices. Since children will put everything within ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... in a tone of good-humored tolerance—"He has the most caustic wit of any man in Al-Kyris! He is a positive marvel of perverseness and ill-humor, well worth the four hundred golden pieces I pay him yearly for his task of being my scribe and critic. Like all of us he must live, eat and wear decent clothing,—and that his only ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... I now met for the first time, and for whom I ever afterwards entertained the warmest regard, was Edwin Johnson,[2] Assistant-Adjutant-General of the Bengal Artillery, in which capacity he had accompanied Brigadier Wilson from Meerut. He had a peculiarly bright intellect—somewhat caustic, but always clever and amusing. He was a delightful companion, and invariably gained the confidence of ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... Brown's hat, which was lying in a chair, sat down on it. Little Brown sprang up and became abusive in a moment. The stranger smiled, smoothed out the hat, and offered it to Brown with profuse apologies couched in caustic sarcasm, and begged Brown not to destroy him. Brown threw off his coat and challenged the man to fight —abused him, threatened him, impeached his courage, and urged and even implored him to fight; and in the meantime the smiling stranger placed himself under our protection ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and grieving over the useless loss and suffering of his gallant men, it was but natural that he should vent his feelings in sharp and caustic denunciation of all who were in any degree responsible for the blunder. He was especially outspoken with Grant and Rawlins, whose confidence he had won in the Chattanooga campaign, and with whom he had since been on terms of the closest intimacy and ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... as ever it did. And simply as a wild story, one fancies that it will appeal quite as effectually, no matter how many editions may be its future, to a public perhaps unsympathetic toward its elliptical satire, its caustic wit, its fantastic course of narrative, and its incongruous wavering between the flippant, the grotesque, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... children returned with the wailing Samuel Saul to the place where Mandy, 'Vada, and Aunt Sophie were standing, loftily ignoring the angry mother and making caustic remarks calculated to ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... pedagogue displaying much attractiveness in his Cyropoedia, the sensible, refined, and delightful master of familiar and practical life in his Economics; Theophrastus, botanist, very witty satirical moralist, highly caustic and realistic—these three established Greek wisdom for centuries, and probably for ever, erecting a solid and elegant temple wherein humanity has almost continuously sought salutary truths, and where some at least ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... Civilibus Galliae dissensionibus commentariorum libri tres (Martene et Durand Amplissima Collectio), v. 1438. After these delineations of his character by not unfriendly pens, it is scarcely surprising that a caustic contemporary pamphlet—Le livre des marchands (1565)—should describe him as "ce cardinal si avare, et si ambitieux de nature, que l'avarice et l'ambition mise dedans des balances, elles demeureroyent egalles entre deux fers." (Ed. ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... the snowy streets a slack-jowled editor sat at supper with some friends at the Press Club, eating and drinking heartily, as is the custom of newspaper men let down for a moment from the strain of their work. He had told a story, and his caustic way of telling it had amused his hearers, for each and every one of them remembered the shabby applicant for work, and all of them had wasted baffling hours on the mystery of this girl ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... he was playing the frank, good fellow, and aiming at popularity. He had become one of the club. He played at whist, and only smiled, after his sort, when his partner revoked, and he lost like a gentleman. His talk was brisk, and hard, and caustic—that of a Philistine who had seen the world and knew it. He had the Peerage by rote, and knew something out-of-the-way, amusing or damnable about every person of note you could name; and his shrewd gossip had a bouquet ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... that with his colleagues he had suddenly become rather a person of importance. His "place" in the country was held in some dim way to increase the grandeur of the College. He found himself deferred to and congratulated. Mr. Redmayne was both caustic and affectionate. ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... had but one brother, Hiley, who subsequently figured so often in the caustic rhymes of Canning, and who, under his brother's auspices, was successively secretary of the treasury, paymaster of the forces, and under-secretary of state. In his twelfth year, Henry, followed by Hiley, was sent to Winchester, then ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... Miss Percival away. Ingram was loquacious, though rather caustic; Chevenix a good foil, easy-tempered, always at a run, a very fair marksman for all his random shooting. His was that happy disposition which finds Nature at large, including men, as precisely there for his amusement. He relished, never failed to relish, the works of God. But then he had perfect ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... used to give a good deal of time and thought to her dresses, inventing trimmings and embroidering them; she planned out her costumes with the maid whom she had brought with her from Paris, and so maintained the reputation of Parisiennes in the provinces. Her caustic tongue was dreaded; she was not loved. In that keen, investigating spirit peculiar to unoccupied women who are driven to find some occupation for empty days, she had pondered the President's private opinions, until at length she discovered what he meant to do, and for some time past she had advised ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... good work," he said, when he had finished reading her pungent and caustic words; "and yet—" A thoughtful expression crossed his face, he was silent for a moment, then he looked up at the young ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... had that very afternoon written a note to the illustrious arbiter, asking for an answer and appointing an interview in the theater. For this reason, Don Custodio, in spite of the active opposition he had manifested toward the French operetta, had gone to the theater, which action won him some caustic remarks on the part of Don Manuel, his ancient adversary in the ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... spend the first half in India. This was granted, and my leave commenced from March 27th. By April 9th I was at Nowshera, and by three o'clock on the following morning, with head shaved, a weak solution of caustic and walnut juice applied to hands and face, and wearing the dress peculiar to the Meahs or Kaka Khels, and in company with Hosein Shah, I sallied out as Mir Mahomed ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... led up to it, did not apparently enjoy it; on the contrary, she felt him gradually withdrawing and cooling, becoming a little dry and caustic, even satirical, as on the first afternoon of their acquaintance. So that after a while her gossip flagged; since the game wants two to play it. Then Anderson walked on with a furrowed brow, and raised colour; and she could not imagine what had ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... other skull. If there be a nest of ants near the camp, place the skull in their immediate vicinity. Some recommend putting in water till the particles of flesh rot, or till the skull is cleared by the fishes. A strong solution of caustic water may be used if you wish to get the bones cleaned very quickly. Some put the skulls in quicklime, but it has a tendency to make the bones splinter, and it is difficult to keep the teeth from getting loose and dropping out. The best but slowest ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... did not confine his more or less caustic commentary to the well-known folk of whom there seemed no dearth; in the ten or twenty minutes that we sat together he further revealed himself as a copious gossip, with a wide net alike for the big fish and for the smallest fry. There was a sheepish gentleman ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... especially with England; and Middleton could not help being struck with the accuracy of the old man's knowledge respecting that country, which so few Englishmen know anything about; his shrewd appreciation of the American character,—shrewd and caustic, yet not without a good degree of justice; the sagacity of his remarks on the past, and prophecies of what was likely to happen,—prophecies which, in one instance, were singularly verified, in regard to a complexity which was then arresting the attention ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... may be used, as Paris green, Scheele's green, arsenate of lead, etc. The first two are used at the rate of one-half pound to 50 gallons of water. The milk of lime made from 2 to 3 pounds of stone lime should be added to neutralize any caustic effect of the arsenical on the foliage. Arsenate of lead is used at the rate of 2 pounds to each 50 ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various |
