"Caustic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... difficult to get it ploughed in, particularly in wet weather, immediately after spreading (which is essential where you grow wheat on the same land every year) without injuring the feet of the horses. You speak of ten days or a fortnight being necessary to neutralize caustic lime, but our horses had their feet injured by it six weeks after it had been spread on the land, last year, although the weather had been wet almost the whole of the time, say from the beginning of February to the middle of March. You ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... coach turned to his work, the batting began again, and the crack of the ball, the rush of feet, the sharp cries of the players mingled once more with the laughter and caustic wit of the ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... is as follows: "A Letter from a Gentleman to the Honourable Ed. Howard, Esq., occasioned by a Civiliz'd Epistle of Mr. Dryden's before his Second Edition of his Indian Emperour. In the Savoy, printed by Thomas Newcomb, 1668." The "Civiliz'd Epistle" was a caustic attack on Sir Robert Howard; and the Letter is signed, "Sir, your faithful and humble servant, R. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... papers for a year's furlough with permission to 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 or ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... restitution of the kingdom of Sidon to the lawful heir: a prince with such a hypochondriac name, that he would have disgraced the title-page of any piece; who would have been able to bear an opera entitled L'Abdolonimo? I have contrived to name him as seldom as possible." So true is it, as the caustic Boileau exclaims of an epic poet of his days, who had shown some dexterity in cacophony, when he ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... indeed a little difficult to continue an enthusiastic conversation, unaffected by his running fire of comment. For in these days he was drifting rapidly toward a sort of altruistic socialism, and so listened to her recital with sardonic smiles, snorts of scorn, and caustic annotations. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... In order to renew constantly the air within the flask, the experimenter sucked with his mouth several times a day the open end of the apparatus, filled with the solution of potash, by which process the air entered his mouth from the flask through the caustic liquid, and the atmospheric air from without entered the flask through the sulphuric acid. The air was of course not at all altered in its composition by passing through the sulphuric acid in the flask; but all the portions of living ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... 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 ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... possess on the subject. The organic matters of the soil may be divided into three great classes; the first containing those substances which are soluble in water; the second, those extracted by means of caustic potash; and the third, those insoluble in all menstrua. When a soil is boiled with a solution of caustic potash, a deep brown fluid is obtained, from which acids precipitate a dark brown flocculent substance, consisting of a mixture ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... his two English tracts against Sherlock, his Animadversions on Sherlock's Vindication of the Trinity, 1693-94, 4to., {403} and his Tritheism charged on Sherlock's new Notion of the Trinity, 1694, 4to. For caustic wit and tremendous power of vituperation, I scarcely know any controversial works which surpass, or even equal them. South looked upon Sherlock with profound scorn as a Sciolist, and hated him most cordially as a heretic and a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various
... laymen waited on the archbishops to thank them for dissenting from the judgment. The Convocation of Canterbury also plunged into the fray, Bishop Wilberforce being the champion of the older orthodoxy, and Bishop Tait of the new. Caustic was the speech made by Bishop Thirlwall, in which he declared that he considered the eleven thousand names, headed by that of Pusey, attached to the Oxford declaration "in the light of a row of figures preceded by a decimal ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... various divisions of the capitalist class that the most caustic and virtuous tirades against Gould came. The boards of trade and chambers of commerce were largely made up of men who, while assuming the most vaniloquent pretensions, were themselves malodorous with fraud. To read the resolutions passed by them, and to observe retrospectively ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... 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 that are not so delicate, for that ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... 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
... it seems probable, that nothing is so refreshing to the vulgar mind as some exercise of this faculty, more especially on the failings of their superiors; and that, wherever the lower orders are allowed to express themselves freely, we shall find humor, more or less caustic, becoming a principal feature in their work. The classical and Renaissance manufacturers of modern times having silenced the independent language of the operative, his humor and satire pass away in the word-wit which has of late ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... it into a footnote as a kind of cowardly corroboration. Nor are our other novelists much better. Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty, and wastes upon mean motives and imperceptible 'points of view' his neat literary style, his felicitous phrases, his swift and caustic satire. Mr. Hall Caine, it is true, aims at the grandiose, but then he writes at the top of his voice. He is so loud that one cannot bear what he says. Mr. James Payn is an adept in the art of concealing what is not worth finding. He ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... explained the progress of medical knowledge of morbid growth and cancerous tumors from 1865 to 1872. It cautioned that uncertain methods of diagnosis at that time allowed charlatans and uneducated practitioners to report cures of cancer in instances where nonmalignant growths were "removed by their caustic pastes and plasters." ...
— History of the Division of Medical Sciences • Sami Khalaf Hamarneh
... this perfect assumption there appeared a series of really familiar epistles, either remonstrating with or speaking of the "Gineral," or, as the Major latterly styled the President, "the Govermint;" no less admirable for the political acumen they display than for a caustic drollery, which is enforced with shrewd Yankee humour, and in the singular phraseology current amongst 'Uncle Sam's' kindred. These letters have been collected, and are published both in America ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... acknowledged that the balm he sought in satire, was a dangerous caustic which, while closing one wound, might well cause others to open. At the same time, the money embarrassments inherited from his predecessor in the estate went on accumulating, and the period was approaching when the cassock, donned in boyish fun, was to be exchanged for the grave ermine of a peer ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... turns, of Chopinesque morbidezza, of Chopinesque melodies. The harmonic scheme rarely transgresses the limits which Chopin set himself. The pieces are obviously the work of one who in the course of concert-playing has come to discover the finesses of the Pole's workmanship. And yet, Cesar Cui's caustic description of the preludes as "Bits filched from Chopin's trousseau," is eminently unjust. For even in those days, when Scriabine was a member of the Russian salon school, there were attractive original elements in his compositions. ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... would produce them; but he changed his mind as soon as he saw them himself. Another philosopher, more prudent, refused to put his eye to the telescope lest he should see them and be convinced. He died shortly afterwards. 'I hope,' said the caustic Galileo, 'that he saw them while ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... Tippet to say that the Eagle did not find her a congenial bird of prey in this region. On the contrary, she had to drag her unwilling friend down into it; and as Miss Tippet was too conscientious and kind-hearted to agree with her in her sweeping censures and caustic observations and wilful misconstructions, it is difficult to conceive wherein she (the Eagle) found pleasure in her society. Probably it was because she found in her one who would submit meekly to any amount of contradiction, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... and that which will digest the most readily, will produce the least phlegm—such as milk, seeds, and vegetables. By cooling and relaxing the solids, the phlegm will be more readily thrown up and discharged—more, I say, by such a diet than by a hot, high, caustic, and restringent one; but that discharge is a benefit to the constitution, and will help it the sooner and faster to become purified, and so to get into perfect good health. Whereas, by shutting them up, the can or cask must fly and ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... 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
... The one at one time possessed L200,000; the other had a considerable fortune. The Earl alone has died wealthy. It is saving, not getting, that is the mother of riches. They all had wit. The Earl's was crack-brained and sometimes caustic; Henry's was of the very kindest, best-humoured, and gayest that ever cheered society; that of Lord Erskine was moody and maddish. But I never saw him in ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... witticisms of his European brother. We are not among the least grateful to those foreign philanthropists who take so deep an interest in our welfare as seldom to let any republican foible pass, without applying to it, as it merits, the caustic application of their purifying pens. We are, perhaps, the more sensible of this generosity, because we have had so much occasion to witness, that, so great is their zeal in behalf of our infant States, (robust, and a little unmanageable perhaps, but still infant) they are ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Movement, Anglican Theology—the squire had his say about them all. And while the coolness and frankness of the method sent a shock of indignation and horror through the religious public, the subtle and caustic style, and the epigrams with which the book was strewn, forced both the religious and irreligious public to read, whether they would or no. A storm of controversy rose round the volumes, and some of the keenest observers of English life had said ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... my design, however, to expatiate upon the merits of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for themselves. Boccalini, in his "Advertisements from Parnassus," tells us that Zoilus once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very admirable book; whereupon the god asked him for the beauties of the work. He replied that he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing this, Apollo, handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him pick out all the ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... made to gush, unto the illumination and purification of the whole being. A stray word, an unknown influence, a breath of the Spirit, is continually effecting such changes, such salvations. True, there are many fettered by vices, torn by sins, ploughed by the caustic shares of remorse, lost to peaceful freedom, lost to spiritual joys, lost to the sweet, calm raptures of religious belief and love, and, in that sense, plunged in damnation. But this, they say, is the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Johnson, in one of his caustic moods, "there go two and forty sixpences, you know, to one guinea." This is one of the cuts at poor Goldsmith in which Johnson went contrary to head and heart in his love for saying what is called a "good thing." No one knew better than himself the comparative superiority ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... been doing police stations longer, Foster, you will learn that you can't judge criminals by their faces," snarled the sergeant, and as the other reporters heard this caustic ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... in him rejoiced at their failure. For he was adventurously happy in his propinquity to that simple and sincere creature. He was so happy, and his heart was so active, that he even made no caustic characteristic comment on the singular behaviour of the beings who had just abandoned them to their loneliness. He was also proud because he was sitting alone nearly in the dark with a piquant and wealthy, albeit amateur actress, who had just participated in a triumph ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... named Hernando, was a legitimate son,—'legitimate," continues the same caustic authority, "by his pride, as well as by his birth." His features were plain, even disagreeably so; but his figure was good. He was large of stature, and, like his brother Francis, had on the whole an ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... 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 the word No. Now did cheerful old times come ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... 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
... with a 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 misplaced in her breakfast-rolls—had ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... —that is, to shew vice its own image—to scourge impudent imposture —to expose hypocrisy—to laugh down solemn quackery of every kind—to create blushes on brazen brows and fears of scorn in hollow hearts—to make iniquity, as ashamed, hide its face—to apply caustic, nay cautery, to the sores of society—and to destroy sin by shewing both the ridicule which attaches to its progress and the wretched consequences which are its end. But various causes prevented him from fully realising his own ideal, and thus becoming the best as ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... soft discolorations and excrescences of the skin, popularly called moles, may be removed by touching them every second or third day with strong acetic or nitric acid, or with lunar caustic. If covered with hair they ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... Detroit, he has," said Mrs. Meecher. "Miss Doland, too." She broke off to speak a caustic word to the boarding-house handyman, who, with Sally's trunk as a weapon, was depreciating the value of the wall-paper in the hall. "There's that play of his being tried out there, you know, Monday," resumed Mrs. Meecher, after the handyman had bumped his way up the staircase. "They ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the last of them, by a 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 ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... stirred by a pleasure which holds them for hours. After all, it must be the content of the performances which is decisive of the incomparable triumph. We have no right to conclude from this that only the merits and excellences are the true causes of their success. A caustic critic would probably suggest that just the opposite traits are responsible. He would say that the average American is a mixture of business, ragtime, and sentimentality. He satisfies his business instinct by getting so much for his nickel, he enjoys his ragtime in ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... February 28, 1861, Bunch wrote to Russell, describing the election of Davis and Stephens[84], to the Presidency and Vice-Presidency of the Confederacy, and giving a personal characterization of many members of the Government. He was rather caustic. Davis, he said, was the only able man, and he, unfortunately, was a confirmed "manifest destiny" leader, so much so in fact that Bunch prophesied a renewal of filibustering when once the North had ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... very caustic upon the women who block the pavement outside drapers' shops, but surely she was unjust. They always seem unconscious, to be enjoying themselves intensely and most innocently, more so probably than an audience at a Wagner ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... of society and the men and women who composed it, drawing vivid pictures of its usages, beliefs, and modes of thought and expression. Gradually she glided into personalities, giving some of her individual experiences, and sketching in an acquaintance or two, with brilliant, caustic touches. Soon Thorne's name appeared, and she noticed that the listener's interest deepened. She spoke of him in warm terms of admiration—dwelt on his intellect, his talents and the bright promise of his manhood; and then, observing that the brush had ceased its regular passes over the bright brown ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... Further, it ties the aspirant to his oar for at least ten weeks, which is perhaps its greatest disadvantage; and it involves intense application and a pretty good temper under remarks from the "coach" that are sometimes almost more than caustic. But against these drawbacks are to be set the pleasure of gratified ambition, the healthy life, and, best of all, the sensation of the flight of the boat driven by eight men, of whom none are really bad oarsmen, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... boarding-school misses. Ferdinand Count Fathom will be there, as well as my Lord Ogleby; Lady Bellaston (and Mr. Thomas Jones); Geoffry Wildgoose and Tugwell the cobbler; Lismahago and Tabitha Bramble; the caustic Mrs. Selwyn and the blushing Miss Anville. Be certain, too, that, sooner or later, you will encounter Mrs, Candour and Lady Sneerwell, Sir Benjamin Backbite and his uncle, Mr. Crabtree, for this is ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... mixes the particle of blood-stained wood, or earth, or dust, or cloth fibres, with water and caustic potash, and filters it. Then he takes a drop of the liquid and places it in the useful watch-glass. Into this he puts some glacial acetic acid and a crystal of ordinary table salt. He heats the mixture and lets it cool. And, if it is blood, he gets peculiar ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... sent forth from his place of confinement a succession of editorials as bitterly vigorous as any previous efforts of his pen. He also wrote a series of open letters addressed to the Attorney-General, in which that official's career, from his infancy onwards, was reviewed with caustic bitterness.[129] These letters were published in successive numbers of the Freeman, and must be presumed to have been a source of great annoyance to the gentleman to whom they were directed. Though many of the statements ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... which the President criticized in his proclamation. They united over their own signatures in a public "Protest" against the action of Mr. Lincoln. The paper was prepared by Mr. Davis, which of itself was guaranty that it would be able, caustic, and unqualified. Mr. Wade was known to be a man of extraordinary courage, both physical and moral. To these qualities Mr. Davis added a highly cultivated mind and a style of writing which in political controversy ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... in the skies; Whose roots diverging with opposing toil Contend below for moisture and for soil; Round the tall Elm the flattering Ivies bend, And strangle, as they clasp, their struggling friend; Envenom'd dews from Mancinella flow, And scald with caustic touch the tribes below; 50 Dense shadowy leaves on stems aspiring borne With blight and mildew thin the realms of corn; And insect hordes with restless tooth devour The unfolded bud, and ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... but to do this requires attention. The thought of 198:15 disease is formed before one sees a doctor and before the doctor undertakes to dispel it by a counter-irritant, - perhaps by a blister, by the application of caustic or 198:18 croton oil, or by a surgical operation. Again, giving an- other direction to faith, the physician prescribes drugs, until the elasticity of mortal thought haply causes a 198:21 vigorous ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... that certain persons may apply the rules of criticism which he employs against the visions of the male and female saints of whom he speaks in his work, and that they may say, for instance, that Jeremiah yielded to his melancholy humor, and Ezekiel to his caustic disposition, to predict sad and disagreeable ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... finest literary craftsman in the West, became (a little later) a leader in our group and a keen delight to us all. He was at this time a small, brown-bearded man of thirty-five, whose quick humor, keen insight and unfailing interest in all things literary made him a caustic corrective of the bombast to which our local reviewers were sadly liable. Although a merciless critic of Chicago, he was a native of the city, and his comment on its life had to be confronted with such equanimity as our ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... had been heard at the 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
... that time ought never to pass, but if, in any measure, the criticism of the church has of late been suspended, it is certainly reopened now, in good earnest. Nor is this criticism confined to outsiders; the church is forced to listen in these days to caustic censures from those who speak from within ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... however, I would suggest the question whether the caustic may not be employed with benefit even in some of the severer diseases to which the human frame is liable. Indeed I consider the investigation as only just begun, and many other uses of the lunar caustic, besides those ...
— An Essay on the Application of the Lunar Caustic in the Cure of Certain Wounds and Ulcers • John Higginbottom
... 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 of our descendants, and those ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... for Rat when the Badger and the Mole at length returned, and he had to face them at table with his pitiful and unconvincing story. The Badger's caustic, not to say brutal, remarks may be imagined, and therefore passed over; but it was painful to the Rat that even the Mole, though he took his friend's side as far as possible, could not help saying, "You've been a bit of a duffer this time, Ratty! ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... 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
... and Mrs. Kingsley, as usual, received Mrs. Wrapp's caustic and rather crude opinions with as good grace as they could muster. Plain it was that they felt themselves a shade removed from this younger and newer member of society. But they could not show direct antagonism to her influence any more ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... 'is sacred to the infernal deities,'—for which reason, we presume, those who were seated 'below the salt' at the banquets of the Middle Ages were always 'poor devils.' Attic salt is always held to be more pungent when there is a touch of the diabolical and caustic in it,—and therefore caustic itself is known as lapis infernalis. 'Poor Mr. N——,' said a country dame, of a recently deceased neighbor who was over-thrifty, 'he always saved his salt and lost his pork.' ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... 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 ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... were intermediate between Crustacea and Mollusca, in the shells of which latter, the animal basis consists of albuminates. For after placing the valves of Lepas and Pollicipes in cold acid, I found that the membrane left could not be dissolved in boiling caustic potash, but could, though slowly, (and without change of colour,) in boiling muriatic acid; and these are the main diagnostic characters of Chitine, compared with albuminous substances. I may add, that Schmidt was also induced ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... employed for the manufacture of soft soap. As a chemical reagent its action is almost precisely like that of caustic soda, though it is usually considered a stronger base, as K is a more electro-positive ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... that the 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 ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... 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 which resulted in the capture ...
— 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
... and then closing his display by demanding what he would take for the horse 'including the rider.' The supposed reply of Coleridge might seem good to those who understand nothing of true dignity; for, as an impromptu, it was smart and even caustic. The baronet, it seems, was reputed to have been bought by the minister; and the reader will at once divine that the retort took advantage of that current belief, so as to throw back the sarcasm, by proclaiming that neither horse nor rider ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... purveyors to the king's pleasure were of a temper and capacity widely different. Sir George Goring was caustic and severe; Sir John Finett pleasant and social, delighting in nothing so much as in the happiness and gratification of his friends. But the natural disposition of his thoughts was wild and melancholic, taking its hue from some early impression, that was ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... modesty, would have hesitated to face the audience; but Douglass possessed neither retiring modesty nor the sobriety which comes with years. He not only read the resolutions, but he defended them with such vigorous logic and with such caustic criticism of Whigs and half-hearted Democrats, that he carried the meeting with him in tumultuous approval of the course of Andrew Jackson, past ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... was perhaps his chief fault as a writer that he could never abstain from that dash of satire which he felt to be demanded by the weaknesses which he saw around him. The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little,—or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives. I myself regard Esmond as the greatest novel in the English language, basing that judgment upon the excellence of its language, on the clear individuality of the characters, on the ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... Vinegar or lemon juice, followed by of hartshorn, lye, caustic { soothing drinks or ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... artists must have recognised them as belonging to one common family. They associated with their efforts after true and exact representation a certain caustic humour, which impelled them often to substitute for a portrait a more or less jocose caricature of their adversaries. On the walls of the Pylons, and in places where the majesty of a god restrained them ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... splendid volumes the deeds of the Moslem corsairs run like the scarlet thread which is twisted through a Government rope. It is evident that the fact of having to deal with such rascals annoys the good Bishop not a little, as his severe and caustic comments frequently display. There was incident and accident enough in the life of the famous "Carlos Quinto" without the historian having to turn aside to chronicle the deeds of the pirates; but their exploits were so daring, the consequences thereof were so far-reaching, ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... cured—you should have tried—you should have burnt the wound with a hot iron, or covered it with caustic. You gave no time; and now it is too ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... He was incapable of audible speech, but hour by hour he grew stronger until at dinner-time he was able to partake of some soup and roast beef, and even to listen with a wan smile to Moe's caustic appraisement of Leon Sammet's character. Finally, after a good night's rest, Moe and Abe awoke to find the engine stilled at Quarantine. They were saved the necessity of packing their trunks for the cogent reason ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... Sea, 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 pearls ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... had become disgusted with him; he struggled against fate with constantly waning patronage for another year, when he succumbed to the inevitable and sought a new field, a wiser if a sadder man. His mantle has fallen upon E. S. Bower, whose capacity and style were graphically portrayed in caustic rhyme by Mrs. Ellsworth, making him the target for the wit of the women ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... key that locks up the acids and caustic alkalies! To go and get a spare pan! a pan with a lid! and that I shall perhaps never use! Everything is of importance in the delicate operations of our art! But, devil take it! one must make distinctions, ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... be taken in the 'laicisation' of the schools has been already revealed in the famous 'Article 7' of M. Ferry. M. Ferry is the true, though more or less occult, head of the present Administration in France. 'M. Ferry,' said a caustic French Radical to me in Paris, 'ought to be the mask of M. Carnot. Nature gave him a Carnival nose for that purpose. Everything is topsy-turvy now in France, and so M. Carnot is the mask of M. Ferry. But the nose will ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... child was born in a hip-bath and narrowly escaped drowning. The mother was a European woman aged forty, who had borne two children, the last nine years before. She was supposed to have dropsy of the abdomen, and among other treatments was the use of a speculum and caustic applications for inflammation of the womb. The escape of watery fluid for two days was considered evidence of the rupture of an ovarian cyst. At the end of two days, severe pains set in, and a warm hip-bath and an opiate were ordered. While in the bath she bore a fully-matured, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... She tried her caustic wit upon him, and he looked at her out of mild blue eyes and made no reply. He had no intention of competing with her on her own preserve; and he had a pride in his profession that equaled ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... woman you meant?" said the General, turning to Boris. He spoke as if he were on the parade-ground, every word sharp, caustic, staccato. ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... begins to zigzag a bit, peering through the gloom for some familiar 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 marks of bivouacs against the sand, and suddenly ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... absent-minded way, then an arm like that of a gorilla shoots out, and the quizzer (Untersucher) receives a resounding box on the ears to the huge delight of his companions. The old man then permits his iron-lipped mouth to relax into a caustic smile, after which he is left in peace ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... practise my quackery very early, and administered solution for the eye in various parts of the streets pro bono publico. The Rais sent for me likewise, and I poured a few drops of caustic into his eyes. In fact, I was full of business, although but a few hours in the town, and hardly had time to look about me. This business after such a journey! My turjeman, Bel-Kasem, also took me into his garden, and gave me a supply of onions, peppers, and dates. The gardens appeared ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... moment, after hearing this report from his private detective, and then got into his chaise, and turned Caustic's head in the direction of the Dudley mansion. He had been suspicious of Dick from the first. He did not like his mixed blood, not his looks, nor his ways. He had formed a conjecture about his projects early. He had made a shrewd guess as to the probable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... face, however, was not framed to express enthusiasm. It was caustic, cold and delicate. His eyes were as clear and as hard as a sky of frosty morning, and his small, firm lips were hard. His chin and lower lip advanced slightly, so that when he smiled his teeth met edge to edge, and the little black moustache, to ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... 1820! The sting of my teeth, he declared, still tingled in his hand, while the kicks I bestowed on his ankles, occasionally displayed the scars they had left on his limbs. He seemed particularly annoyed, however, by some caustic remarks I had made about his protuberant stomach, and forgave the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... electricity, and actually refuse to ride on a motorcycle because the throbbing engine scared him, was more than they could understand. They quickly decided that he was a coward and had already lost respect for him, as was evident from the caustic comments made by the group under the maple ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... thee it will always flow the right way," said the dwarf. "I showed the complaining citizens who it is that slaughters their flesh and blood, and from whom to look for peace and content. I poured caustic into their wounds, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Thorald as "the usefullest biddablest male person" she had ever seen. She also extended special sympathy to Mrs. Thorald on account of her peculiar burden, and the Swedish woman had no antipathy to her color, and seemed to take a melancholy pleasure in Julianna's caustic speeches. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... the battle-words of Mirabeau, the fierce zeal of St. Just, the iron energy of Danton, the caustic wit of Camille Desmoulins, and the sweet eloquence of Vergniaud found echoes in all lands, and nowhere more readily than in Great Britain, the ancient foe and rival of France. The celebrated Dr. Price, of London, and the still more distinguished Priestley, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... win the applause of the finer spirits, but raised a shout of laughter from the students, and was no insignificant factor in adding to contempt for the church. The first book of these Letters, published in 1515, was followed two years later by a second, even more caustic than the first. This supplement, also published without the writer's name, was from the pen of Ulrich ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... sent for 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 driving up ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... robust, what man so violently in love as to persist in his passion, after ten years of marriage, in presence of a wife who loves him no longer, who gives him proofs of this every moment, who repulses him, who deliberately shows herself bitter, caustic, sickly and capricious, and who will abjure her vows of elegance and cleanliness, rather than not see her husband turn away from her; in presence of a wife who will stake the success of her schemes upon the horror caused by ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... from growing on the feet, wear easy shoes, and bathe the feet often in lukewarm water, with a little salt and potash dissolved in it. The corn itself may be completely destroyed by rubbing it daily with a little caustic solution of potash, till a soft and flexible skin is formed. For chilblains, soak the feet in warm bran and water and rub them well with flour of mustard. This should be done before the chilblains ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... to study morals, or even to consider them," was the somewhat caustic reply. "When once a brief is in my mind, it is a matter of brain, cunning and resource. The guiltier a man, the greater the success if you can get ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a third entertainment has, of late years, sprung up, termed the constables feast, with this difference, it is charged to the public. We may consider it a wart on the political body, which merits the caustic. ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... human charity, or require contemptuous crusade against equally honest, living toilers? Are antiquity and foreign birthplace imperatively essential factors in the award of praise for even faithful and noble work? We lament the caustic moroseness of embittered Schopenhauer, brooding savagely over his failure to secure contemporaneous recognition; yet after all, did he malign his race, or his age, when, in answer to the inquiry where he desired to be buried, he scornfully exclaimed: "No matter ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... through the column and collect at the bottom of the tank, to be cleared out when needful. The effluent water is not of course chemically pure, but sufficiently so to be turned into any ordinary stream. The second invention rests on a curious fact in chemistry, namely, that caustic soda or potash will absorb steam, forming a compound which has a much higher temperature than the steam absorbed. If, therefore, exhaust-steam be discharged into the bottom of a vessel containing caustic alkali, not only ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... steady course pursues: True to herself advances, undeterr'd By the rude clamours of the savage herd. As some bold surgeon, with inserted steel, Probes deep the putrid sore, intent to heal; So the rank ulcers that our patriot load, Shall she with caustic's healing fires corrode. 60 Yet ere from patient slumber satire wakes, And brandishes the avenging scourge of snakes; Yet ere her eyes, with lightning's vivid ray, The dark recesses of his heart display; Let candour own the undaunted pilot's power, Felt in severest danger's trying hour! ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... seductions, as happens with the vast majority of Anglo-Saxon opium-eaters, through a medical prescription. An attack of inflamed cornea was treated with caustic applications, and the pain assuaged by internal doses of M'Munn's Elixir. When my friend came out of his dark room and bandages at the end of a month he had consumed twenty ounces of this preparation, whose probable distinction from the tincture known as laudanum ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... of the English landscape painter, Turner, at the praise which was so glibly lavished on Claude—an indignation that caused Turner to bequeath two of his own landscape paintings to the trustees of the National Gallery, on the caustic condition that they should always be placed between the two celebrated 'Claudes,' known as 'The Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca' and 'The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba'—helped to shake the English art world's faith in its former idol. Mr Ruskin's adoption and proclamation ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... are in a naked and helpless condition, the parent birds, with tender assiduity, carry out what comes away from their young. Was it not for this affectionate cleanliness the nestlings would soon be burnt up, and destroyed in so deep and hollow a nest, by their own caustic excrement. In the quadruped creation the same neat precaution is made use of; particularly among dogs and cats, where the dams lick away what proceeds from their young. But in birds there seems to be a particular provision, that the dung of nestlings is enveloped into a tough kind of jelly, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... slightly at this caustic remark and the accompanying scorn on the high-bred face; and the flush which had risen to her cheek a moment before vanished, leaving her quite pale, although in no ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... trades and the conditions under which they must be carried on. Feather-sorters, fur-workers, cotton-sorters, all workers on any material that gives off dust, are subject to lung and bronchial troubles. In soap-factories the girls' hands are eaten by the caustic soda, and by the end of the day the fingers are often raw and bleeding. In making buttons, pins, and other manufactures of this nature, there is always liability of getting the fingers jammed or caught. For the first three times the wounds ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... his paper he steadily did us justice, and in Parliament was sure to repel any unmerited assault upon our national character and policy. He was clear and forcible, with, at times, a most effectively caustic utterance ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... tables, the population of Mentone has scarcely increased by two thousand souls since its annexation by France. Mentone will not be possible as a winter residence for invalids until the tables have disappeared from the littoral.' Nice also suffers, says this caustic French censor, from its proximity to Monte Carlo. 'Unfortunately, people play at the Massena and Mediterranean clubs in Nice as much as at Monaco. The passion for gambling has permeated all ranks of society at Nice, until it has infected the very tradespeople—has even ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... stood there thus, a tenth as long, before the copper name-shield of the Claridge, 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 have paused for a bluff joke or two himself, a knowing word of importance, before ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... frieze and rotten metope Express, as though they were an open tome Top-lined with caustic monitory gnome; "Dunces, ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... agreeably nodded back under the mistaken impression that they were glad to see him, he systematically checked up all the groups. Ruth was not among the punch-table devotees, who were being humorous and amorous over cigarettes; not among the Caustic Wits exclusively assembled in a corner; not among the shy sisters aligned on the davenport and wondering why they had come; not in the general maelstrom in the center of ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... the peculiar phrases of democracy, with a view to confound the distinction between the sovereign will of one and the sovereign will of the many. Napoleon III. enjoyed proclaiming himself the great champion of universal suffrage, although what his plebiscites really were the caustic pen of Kinglake has told us. The other day the French imperialists celebrated at Chiselhurst the fete of the late emperor; and there Prince Louis had the audacity to say: "Planting myself as an exile near the tomb of the emperor, I represent his teachings, which may be summarized in the motto, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... whose talent all parties had now begun to recognize. The slight bred coolness, and as Peel began to veer towards free trade principles, Disraeli, gathering a few ardent Tory protectionists about him, made himself a thorn in the premier's side. His caustic sayings about Peel's acceptance of the principles of the opposition were the talk of the clubs. "The right honorable gentleman," he said, "caught the Whigs bathing and he walked away with their clothes." He characterized the premier's genius as ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... 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 in water and thus sprinkled on the feed. If mixed dry the horse will often ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... true, cannot well flourish in any assemblage of young men, whose plain interest it is to undeceive all self-deception and quell every insurrection of individual vanity, and who soon understand the art of burning the nonsense out of an offending brother by caustic ridicule and slow-roasting sarcasm. But there is danger of mutual deception, springing from a common belief in a false, but attractive principle of culture. The mischief of intellectual conceit in our day consists ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... characters from plays and novels from Plautus down to Walter Scott and Jane Austen; images and similes from poets of every age and every nation, 'pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical;' shrewd thrusts from satirists, wise saws from sages, pleasantries caustic or pathetic from humorists; all these throng Macaulay's pages with the bustle and variety and animation of some glittering masque and cosmoramic revel of great books and heroical men. Hence, though Macaulay was in mental constitution one of the very least Shakesperean writers ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley |
