"Caustic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... usually preferred to originality, which is often much more slowly recognized. Mrs. Gore's fashionable novels, correct in portraiture and upholstery, clever but monotonous, had had their day; Mrs. Trollope's coarse and caustic delineations; G.P.R. James's combats, adventures, skirmishes, disguises, trials, and escapes, and Bulwer's sentimental and grandiloquent romances, had begun to pall upon the public taste. Miss Braddon perceived that the time had come for something ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... Anglo-Saxon, speedily dismember such a commonwealth. But this random gathering of young French painters, with neither apparatus nor parade of government, yet kept the life of the place upon a certain footing, insensibly imposed their etiquette upon the docile, and by caustic speech enforced their edicts against the unwelcome. To think of it is to wonder the more at the strange failure of their race upon the larger theatre. This inbred civility—to use the word in its completest meaning—this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for 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, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... first place, whence arises the caustic condition of his solution, unless it be through the decomposition of the cyanide of potassium which is sometimes added? and if such caustic condition exists, does it not cause a deposition of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... nothing of Rivarol, a caustic wit of the revolutionary time, nor of Joubert, a writer of sayings of this century, of whom Mr. Matthew Arnold has said all that needs saying. He is delicate, refined, acute, but his thoughts were fostered in the hothouse of a coterie, and have none ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... “Who can think Johnson’s heart a good one? In the course of many years’ personal acquaintance with him, I never knew a single instance in which the praise (from another’s lip) of any human being, excepting that of Mrs. Thrale, was not a caustic on his spirit; and this, whether their virtues or abilities were the subject of encomium.” His opinions of poetry were, she thought, “so absurd and inconsistent with each other, that, though almost any of his dogmas may be clearly and easily confronted, ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... Baron Bramwell, in discharging a prisoner at the Old Bailey, made what he thought some appropriate observations, which were followed by a storm of applause in the crowded court. The learned judge, with that caustic humour which distinguishes him, looked up and said, "Bless me! I'm afraid I must have said something very foolish." An amusing scene occurred outside a barrister's lodgings during the Northampton Assizes. Two painters decorating the ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... whom to come in touch, and after a long morning of hard work and the growing hunger of healthy appetites for food for the body rather than for the mind, the girls did not find "a barbed tongue" and a caustic disposition soothing. ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... 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 drinks, as flaxseed ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... chronicler 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 in whom ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... reduced to monosyllables as, miserable and apathetic, they sat thinking of the food they had sent back to Mr. Cone's kitchen with caustic comments, of the various dishes for which the chef of ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... of a hand you'd make at potato digging," pursued Sandy. "But apparently this is the net result of your musical studies"—and, seating himself at the piano, he rattled off a caustic parody of her performance. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... Secret Service, who had instructions to run this man down—this man who signed himself The Eye of Allah. And do it quickly for the notes were threatening. Official Washington, it seemed, was getting jumpy and was making caustic inquiries as to why a Secret Service department ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... goes no further than to the element, Sir;" was the caustic answer. "But, deluded or not, erring or deceived, Alida Barberie is not to be deserted, the victim of a villain's arts. I did love your niece, Mr. Van Beverout, and—pull with a will, men; fellows, are you sleeping on ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... France at the Royal Court. Berryer, the Colonial Minister, received Bougainville coldly, and to his appeal for help replied: "Eh, Monsieur, when the house is on fire one cannot concern one's self with the stable." But the Canadian envoy responded, with caustic wit, "At least, Monsieur, nobody will say that you ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... He, however, sent for Dr Livingstone, who gladly went to him. He and Dr Kirk at once told him that the disease was most difficult to cure, and that he might rest assured he had not been bewitched. They applied lunar caustic externally and hydrate of potash internally, with satisfactory results; so that in the course of a short time the poor ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... at times, to justify his inclinations towards peaceable bourgeois prosperity to the struggling youth who surround his sister Tanya. These cruel young people, however, answer him only with sarcastic remarks, and caustic arguments, and do not hesitate to express their doubts as to the sincerity of his opinions. To his conscience, they are like a living reproach from the past. Once he also was intolerant towards others as these people are towards him to-day. And that is why he suffers under ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... seized with fervour upon his last chance, and was flinging out showers of caustic advice among his foes, ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... editor of a great New York daily was known in the newspaper world as a martinet and severe disciplinarian. Some of his caustic and biting criticisms are classics. Once, however, the tables were turned upon him in a way that left him ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... 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 solve a morphological ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... Englishmen," the caustic John had time to throw in, before the silent arrangement at the gangway was interrupted by ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... obtained; the tall thin Arariba Amarelho, or Amarelhino (Centrolobium robustum), a great number of Lobelia trees, with their elongated light green leaves and clean barked stems, which eject, from incisions, a caustic and poisonous juice. The tallest of all the trees in that region was perhaps the Jacaranda, with its tiny leaves.... There were four kinds of Jacaranda—the Jacaranda cabiuna, rosa, tan and violeta, technically known as Dalbergia nigra, Machaerium incorruptibile, ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... ill-conditioned Socialist Member got up, and, blundering and unconscious agent of Destiny in a fast-emptying House, began a personal attack on Paul. Whereupon there were cries of "Shame!" and "Sit down!" and the Speaker, in caustic tones, counselled relevancy, and the sympathy of the House went out to the Fortunate Youth; so that when he went soon afterwards into the outer lobby—it was the dinner hour—he found himself surrounded by encouraging friends. He did not wait long among them, for up in the Ladies' Gallery was his ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... passage while the present Governor was in office, but that his rival, Stringer, had conceived the cruel scheme of putting him in the position, by a hue and cry against monopoly and corporate interests, where his election to the senatorship would be imperilled if he did not veto the measure. By a caustic speech in the Senate Stringer drew public attention to the skilfully concealed iniquities of the proposed franchise, and public attention thus aroused began to bristle. Newspapers here and there throughout ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... technical 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 solution was added to furnish 25 or ...
— Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material - United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 404 • Lyster H. Dewey and Jason L. Merrill
... its impetus. Vomits are to be administered now and then, but cathartics more frequently. It is particularly requisite to draw the redundant humor from the head, which is done by blisters; but better, by applying a caustic near the occiput, and making an issue, which is ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... elements 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 ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... neighbouring village, the news was brought them that a peasant had died of typhus. Three days later Bazaroff came into his father's room and asked him if he had any caustic to burn a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... newspaper girl possessed a fondness for study and never neglected her lessons was a point in her favor, in Patience's eyes. As the daughter of a well-known man of letters she had inherited her father's love of study and an appreciation of that same love in others. She frequently smiled at the clever, caustic remarks the strange, moody girl was wont to make about everything and everybody, and occasionally she surprised even Kathleen herself by her ready appreciation of the themes ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... approaching if not reaching, that of an unscrupulous pettifogger, enabled him to get the upper hand in every transaction. His personal habits were considered repulsive by the conventional and fastidious. "He was dry and caustic in his remarks," says Houghton, "and very rarely spared the object of his satire. He was plain and careless in his dress, looking more a beggar ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... likely that Cecil remembered the caustic lash of his father's ironies while he was lifting Mother of Pearl over the posts and rails, and sweeping on, with the halloo ringing down the wintry wind as the grasslands flew beneath him? Was it likely that he recollected the difficulties that hung above him ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... many years; she had practised faithfully until six months ago, when she had asked her teacher to tell her father that she could never become even a third-rate musician; and Don Roberto had, after a caustic hour, concluded that he would "throw no more good money after bad;" she had had long and meaning conferences with her mirror, conjuring up phantasms of the beautiful dead women of her race, and decided sadly that the worship of man was not ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... aviation, communications, computer-aided design and manufactures, medical electronics), wood and paper products, potash and phosphates, food, beverages, and tobacco, caustic ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... Technic. (He taps his parchmentroll energetically) This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars. Consult index for agitated fear of aconite, melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Virag is going to talk about amputation. Our old friend caustic. They must be starved. Snip off with horsehair under the denned neck. But, to change the venue to the Bulgar and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in male habiliments? (With a dry snigger) You intended to devote an entire year to the study of the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... great solemnity all round, and retired to his own lodgings, where he applied a caustic to the wart; but it spread in such a manner as to produce a considerable inflammation, attended with an enormous swelling; so that when he next appeared, his whole face was overshadowed by this tremendous nozzle; and the ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... the future poet or statesman, had never attracted his attention or that of men of his kind. They saw only what was on the surface. It was the froth of college life that gave him a not unwelcome excuse to form caustic generalisations ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... gloomy alarm, was sad and 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
... 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 her pride ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... pretending to some knowledge. He told him that he might distinguish himself by hard steady work, but would never do so without infinitely more pains than he took the trouble to apply. His quiet and caustic strictures, and the easy sarcasm with which he would allow Bruce to flourish his way through a passage, and then go through it himself, pointing out how utterly Bruce had "hopped with airy and fastidious levity" above all the nicer shades of meaning, and slurred over his ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... conveniently divided into two classes, insecticides and fungicides. An insecticide is a poison by which the insect is killed either directly by eating it, or indirectly by the caustic, smothering, or stifling effects resulting from closing its breathing pores. Direct poisons are used for insects which eat some part of the tree or fruit and are called stomach poisons. Sprays which kill indirectly are used for ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... Indies and other tropical countries. The stem furnishes a milky juice, which becomes hard and black when dry, and is used as a varnish. It also secretes a gum, like gum arabic. The nut or fruit contains a black, acrid, caustic oil, injurious to the lips and tongue of those who attempt to crack the nut with their teeth; it becomes innocuous and wholesome when roasted, but this process must be carefully conducted, the acridity ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... compromise either of them. At the same time, it is obvious that to appoint as Finance minister the president of a bank which had recently closed its doors (no matter for what cause) would be to invite criticism of the most caustic kind. ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... Coppée on the occasion: “It is with the greatest pleasure that I present to my confrères my good friend, the ballad-writer, Aristide Bruant. I value highly the author of Dans la Rue. When I close his volume of sad and caustic verses it is with the consoling thought that even vice and crime have their conscience: that if there is suffering there is a possible redemption. He has sought his inspiration in the gutter, it is true, but he has seen there a ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... of wood or iron plate, P, the corrugated zinc plates, b, b', b", are placed one above the other, each alternating with a flat one, a, a', a". These plates have previously been scoured, first with a weak solution of caustic soda in order to remove every trace of fatty matter derived from rolling, and then with very dilute hydrochloric acid, and finally are washed with common water. In order to facilitate the disengagement ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... institutions which had been so misused. Writers arose, among whom Voltaire and Rousseau were the most eminent, who aimed at the overthrow of all the ideas which had come to be thus abused. The one by his caustic wit, the other by his enthusiastic simplicity, gained willing ears, and, the writers in a great Encyclopaedia then in course of publication, contrived to attack most of the notions which had been hitherto taken for granted, and were closely connected with faith and with government. ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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
... Paris consigned to the same penalty D'Aubigne's Histoire Universelle for the freedom of its satire on Charles IX., Henri III., Henri IV., and other French royal personages of the time. The second edition of D'Aubigne (1626) is the poorer for being shorn of these caustic passages. ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... making periodic trips to this pornographic Mecca for the reason that they could there be accommodated with the simultaneous ministrations of two or even three soiled doves of the stripe of her of whom Martial (ix, 69) makes caustic mention: ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... were no uncommon thing. The clash of tempers lasted for several minutes, then Maud flung out of the room. An hour later, at dinner-time, she was rather more caustic in her remarks than usual, but this was the only sign that remained of the ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... 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 and ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... neither. And it was so wonderful a mass of chiffon and silk and lace 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 ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... 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 perilous circumstances, has only during the last three or four ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... the silken reins of her camel. Behind her veil a sarcastic smile played about the corners of her mouth. Aquila watched her resentfully, waiting with an immense reserve of caustic words for her refusal ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... something more than a caustic critic. For the terrible ills of his age and country he had one plain and homely remedy, and that for all true Christians to leave the Church of Rome and return to the simple teaching of Christ and His Apostles. If the reader goes to Peter for systematic theology, he will ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... 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
... "Caustic creature! You never have a kind word for me; but in spite of you, and all other envious detractors, I know I am beautiful; I feel it, I see it—for there is a great looking-glass in the dressing-room, where I can view my shape from head to foot. Will you go with me now, and let ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... of Copper. A battery with zinc positive and iron negative electrodes. The excitant is a 30 or 40 per cent. solution of sodium or potassium hydrate (caustic soda or caustic potash). The depolarizer is copper oxide. In action the copper is gradually reduced to the metallic state. The iron element is often the containing vessel. The battery is ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... was passing an empty lot last night when a brindle cur just deliberately jumped out and nabbed him. Of course he kicked the beast away, and it ran off howling; but his father, on being told the circumstances this morning, thought he ought to have a little caustic applied so as to take no chances. Think of it—a brindle cur, and that sneak ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... fellow had descended upon it. In his later books, such as Coningsby, Sybil, and Tancred, he wished to propound a new party programme. Lothair was a picture of British society, partly indulgent and sympathetic, partly caustic or contemptuous, but presented all through with a vein of persiflage, mockery, and extravaganza. All this was amusing and original; but every one of these things is fatal to sustained and serious art. If an ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... mate was almost fainting with the heat before he left the Grosser Carl, but he insisted on being the last man on board, and then guyed the whole performance with caustic gayety when he was dragged out of the water, into which he had been forced to jump, and was set to drain on the floor gratings of ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... a caustic voice, "but that is hardly the point. He has taken to ways of relieving his sufferings which make him ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... however, was confined to the enjoyment of the title and benefice, for if ever man was penetrated to the marrow by the spirit of worldliness, it was Pierre de Bourdeilles. What he has written about the women of his time is something more than the critical observations of a chronicler who was also a caustic analyst of the female character. Such was his cynicism that he, the Abbot of Brantme, laughed in his sleeve at the horrible strife of Catholics and Huguenots in his own and neighbouring provinces. It ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... clothes; also the big Bible and a very small box, which latter contained Mrs Roby's limited wardrobe. He tied all up in a tight bundle. A coil of rope hung on a peg on the wall. The bundle was fastened to the end of it and lowered to the ground, amid a fire of remarks from the crowd, which were rather caustic and humorous than complimentary. ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 the cold words ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... 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, and not employ for almost domestic ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... German dramatists of the middle of the nineteenth century were Franz Grillparzer, Friedrich Hebbel, and Otto Ludwig. In a caustic epigram written in 1855, Grillparzer set forth that Dame Poetry, for some years a widow and now ailing, needed a husband, but could find none; and we remember that the heroine of Libussa rejects the wise Lapak, the strong Biwoy, and the rich Domaslaw because she desires in one ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... remainder of the day, he sits outside the wall and, by following the sun, he manages to remain in the shade. He watches the road to proclaim the arrival of visitors, smokes cigarettes, and delivers caustic criticisms on the younger generation when he can get anybody to listen ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... a substratum of truth in the remark once made by a caustic foreign critic, that an Englishman talks more and knows less about horses and their management ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... 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
... the stanch supporter of Tammany Hall, and the apologist of almost every evil movement for nearly thirty years, was a writer of diabolical cleverness whose newspaper competed with Godkin's among the intellectual readers in search of amusement. At one time, when Godkin had been particularly caustic, and the Mugwumps at Harvard were unusually critical, Roosevelt attended a committee meeting at the University. After talking with President Eliot, he went and sat by a professor, and remarked, play fully, "Eliot is really a good fellow at heart. Do you suppose that, if he ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... 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 ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... ax on his sinciput (if again I may be permitted to use your ingenious metaphor)? Hah, hah! And do you mean to say that when I spoke to you about quarters provided by the State, that—hah, hah! You are very caustic. But I won't revert to that again. By-and-by!—one remark produces another, one thought attracts another—but you were talking just now of the practice or form in vogue with the examining magistrate. But what is this form? You know as I do that in many cases the form ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... the other young lady continually harking back to "conjugal" subjects, which seemed to interest her; the mamma slightly flabbergastered at the rather revolutionary nature of the communications; and our host every now and then throwing in a rude or caustic remark. I dreaded to think what might have been the result of a domiciliary visit paid by a Commissioner in ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... of "the Prince," it is true, the young girl lost her gayety; but this was another cross. Her mother found her cold, awkward, and silent—brief, and slightly caustic in her replies. She feared M. de Camors would misjudge her ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... crosses he had to bear. He was lamenting one day in Hall the unwieldy size of his library. "I really don't know what to do with my books," he said, and looked round for sympathy. "Why not read them?" said a sharp and caustic Fellow opposite. It may be thought that I am in need of the same advice, but it is not the case. There are, indeed, many books in our library; but most of them, as D. G. Rossetti used to say in his childhood of his father's learned volumes, are "no good ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... opportunity it offered for unrestrained tears. But it was the same abroad; as Ike Marvel has it, Rousseau and Diderot over in France, philosophers as they professed to be, "blubbered their admiring thanks for 'Clarissa Harlowe."' Similarly, at a later day we find caustic critics like Jeffrey and Macaulay writing to Dickens to tell how they had cried over the death of Little Nell—a scene the critical to-day are likely to stigmatize as one of the few examples of pathos overdone to be found in the works of that master. It is scarcely too much ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... one of the most famous of our diplomats and the author of many books of permanent value. My friendship with MacVeagh and White continued during their lives, that is, for nearly sixty years. MacVeagh was one of the readiest and most attractive of speakers I ever knew. He had a very sharp and caustic wit, which made him exceedingly popular as an after-dinner speaker and as a host in his own house. He made every evening when he entertained, for those who were fortunate enough to be his guests, an ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... Supplement to a Paper on the Intensity of Camb. Phil. Soc. Light in the neighbourhood of a Caustic. ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... 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
... the march, in prison and in hospital, Carey the journalist had become a byword for coolness and endurance. It was Carey, caustic of humour, uncompromising of attitude, who sauntered through a hail of bullets to fill a wounded man's water-tin; Carey who pushed his way among stampeding mules to rescue sorely needed medical stores; Carey who had limped beside ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... process, invented by M. Meliner in France in 1865, the chips from spruce and poplar logs are boiled under pressure in a strong solution of caustic soda. ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... 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 ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... caustic soda, textiles, cement and other construction materials, food processing (particularly sugar refining and vegetable oil production), ferrous and non-ferrous ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... stared at his grandfather, trying to comprehend what it meant—this bitterness, this savage resentment, this arbitrary authority that took no heed of his own wishes. He had always known a calm, kindly, sometimes caustic, but never impatient Thelismer Thornton. This old man, surly, domineering, and unreasonable, was new to him. And after a little while, worried and saddened, he went away. His presence seemed to stir even more rancor ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... 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, in the face of the Shuttleworth countenance and support. He ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... of rulers that would find a common interest with her in dismembering the kingdom of Frederick. She knew she could count on Saxony. She easily secured an ally in the Tsarina Elizabeth of Russia, who had been deeply offended by the caustic wit of the Prussian king. She was already united by friendly agreements with Great Britain and Holland. She had only France to win to her side, and in this policy she had the services of an invaluable agent, Count Kaunitz, the greatest diplomat of the age. Kaunitz held out to France, ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... arrives. Give stimulants. Do not touch the burns more than is absolutely unavoidable. For Burns of Acids Dash cold water on the burns, then cover with lime-water and sweet oil, or linseed oil. For Burns of Caustic Alkalies Apply vinegar. Glass, coarse or Give the patient large quantities of bread powdered crumbs, and then induce vomiting. Ivy poison Wash at once with soap and water; using scrubbing brush. Then lay on cloths saturated with strong solution bicarbonate of soda. Give cooling ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... my auspices and leaving Oxford with flying colors when I retired myself a year or two ago. He has been very lucky since, he is full of ambitions in the political line, and he has a fearless and rather caustic wit." ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... His wit became less caustic; his manner more genial. People who once irritated now interested him. Some who used to fear him now liked him. And as for the undergraduates who had hero-worshiped this former tennis champion, they ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... 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
... moistening a very small slip of litmus paper in solution of caustic potassa, and then passing the electric spark over its length in the air, I gradually neutralized the alkali, and ultimately rendered the paper red; on drying it, I found that nitrate of potassa had resulted from the operation, and that the ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... at this time, wrote in the newspapers under this signature, and thereby became the object of the caustic satire of the author of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... from meeting the same faces at the boarding house table, hearing the same stale jokes or caustic remarks about Mrs. Atterson's food from Fred Crackit and the young men boarders of his class, or the grumbling of Mr. Peebles, the dyspeptic invalid, or the inane monologue of Old ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... of Condorcet, 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 ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... conabatur." Prosperi Santacrucii de 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." ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... under an obligation to be at leisure for him; and Sir Charles Moreton, who was argus-eyed where Lady Mabel was concerned, ventured to ask: "What pleasure can you find in talking to this austere soldier? His smile is a sneer; he warms only to grow caustic, and his cynical air betrays how little he cares ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... tobacco, two pipes, a match-box with a single match in it, a six-pence, a necktie, a stick of chocolate, a tomato, a handkerchief, a dead bee, an old razor, a bit of gauze, some tow, a stick of caustic, a reel of cotton, a needle, no thimble, two dock leaves, and some sheets of yellowish paper. He separated from the rest the sixpence, the dead bee, and what was edible. And in delighted silence the three little Trysts gazed, till Biddy with the tip ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of the intense rigour of the six months' winter in this part of the world. Stones crack with the noise of thunder; in a crowded hut the breath of its occupants will fall in flakes of snow; wine and spirits turn to ice; the snow burns like caustic; if iron touches the flesh, it brings the skin away with it; the soles of your stockings may be burnt off your feet, before you feel the slightest warmth from the fire; linen taken out of boiling water, instantly stiffens to the consistency ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... is good,—that sin by the commandment might become, might be seen to be, exceeding sinful. The law is like a chemical test. It eats into sin enough to show what sin is, and there stops. The lunar caustic bites into the dead flesh of the mortified limb; but there is no healing virtue in the lunar caustic. The moral law makes no inward alterations in a sinner. In its own distinctive and proper action upon the heart and will of an apostate being, it is fitted only to elicit ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... wit less caustic, his heart more tender, his talk more reverent, as he approached the term of a long, prosperous life—and knew, practically, the small value of all that he had ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... little pieces of meat, roasted, besides milk. I was accompanied by my stupid mahadee, who is, nevertheless, not a bad market-man. He purchased a large calabash of milk, and a peck of beans, for some small pieces of jaui, or benzoin. I then administered caustic to all the eyes of the village—at least sixty persons—including men, women, and children, with the Sheikh. Bad eyes were the only pressing complaints of ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... and preferred to rely upon her own resources. She followed her first book, the success of which was immediate and very great, by a novel entitled "The Refugee in America," in which the plot is ill-constructed, and the characters are crudely drawn, but the writer's caustic humour lends animation to the page. "The Abbess," a novel, was her third effort; and then, in the following year, came another record of travel, "Belgium and Western Germany in 1833." Her Conservative instincts found less to offend them in Continental ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... Phoenix said in regard to his autograph, may be relied upon as authentic, as it is written exclusively by me. But it is not to be published in full until I am thoroughly dead. I have made it as caustic, fiendish, and devilish as possible. It will fill many volumes, and I shall continue writing it until the time comes for me to join the angels. It is going to be a terrible autobiography. It will make the hair of some folks curl. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... expressed even in the back of his head, he sat on the box, burning to begin to talk to me. While waiting for me to begin by some question, he confined himself to a low muttering in an undertone, and some rather caustic instructions to the horses. 'A village,' he muttered; 'call that a village? You ask for a drop of kvas—not a drop of kvas even.... Ah, Lord!... And the water—simply filth!' (He spat loudly.) 'Not a cucumber, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... acquiesce in his animadversions upon the scene they had just left. It was certainly a function in which she was peculiarly fitted to shine, and she had taken her part with every appearance of enjoyment; yet her comments were more caustic ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... occasions was enhanced by a temperate circulation of the wine bottle. There must have been very good talk at these social meetings. Evarts and Schurz were citizens of the world. Evarts was a man of keen intelligence and wide information, and possessed a genial as well as a caustic wit. Schurz could discuss present politics and past history. He was well versed in European history of the eighteenth century and the Napoleonic wars, and could talk about the power of Voltaire in literature and the influence of Lessing on Goethe. From appreciative discourse on the ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... 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 ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... 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 only hell there is. At the longest, it can endure but for the night of this life: deliverance ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... face. He grew anxious about his health, and a hundred worries tightened his belt and shook his great fat hand, just the least in the world, and when through some gossip that his wife brought him from the kitchen he felt the scorn of an old friend burn his soul like a caustic, for many days he would brood over it. Finally care began to chisel down his flinty face, to cut the fat from his bull neck, so that the cords stood out, and, through staring in impotent rage and pain at the ceiling in the darkness of the night, red rims began to worm around his eyes. ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... iron were tried in succession, without any good results. Ten days passed in this manner, the haemmorrhage only ceasing for a few moments at a time, and the child was nearly exsanguinated from the continued serous seepage and the paroxysmal haemorrhages, when a lucky application of caustic potassa almost immediately stopped the haemorrhage. This case was seen by nearly all the leading medical men of Leghorn, who lent their aid and counsel to save the little life. The case is interesting from the length of time it persisted, and that even after all the loss of blood and suffering ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... sentiment slush,—sentiment, that is, in books and on the stage,—and he was indulgently inclined to suspect that there was something "in it" for whoever appeared to be essaying a benevolent enterprise. Respectable, liberal-handed, habitually amused, slightly caustic, he looked out for the good of himself and those related to him and considered that he was justified in closing his corporate regards at that point. He had no cant and no hypocrisy, no pose and no fads. A sane, aggressive, ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... 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 God ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... resignation. At a question cunningly framed by Dartrey, Tallente rose in the House to defend his position, and acting on the soundest axiom of military tactics, that the best defence is attack, he turned upon Miller, and with caustic deliberation exposed the plot framed for his undoing. He threw caution to the winds, and though repeatedly and gravely called to order, he poured out his scorn upon his enemy till the latter, white as a sheet, rose to demand the protection of the ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "Demonologie." From one passage we might suppose that he thought it sinful to laugh, as he says that man can only laugh, because he can only sin. But he kept two clowns for his amusement, and also appreciated Ben Jonson, to whom he gave the direction of the Court Masques. He occasionally made some caustic remarks, which have come down to us, such as, "Who denys a thing he even now spake, is like him that looks in my face and picks my pocket." "A travelling preacher and a travelling woman never come to any ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... repeating the replies he had made to the various editors and theatrical managers who had declined his articles, and refused to print his prose or his verse. His mots on these occasions had been clever and caustic; but with Madame de Barancy he was never able to reach that point, preceded as it must necessarily be with lengthy explanations. At the critical moment Ida would invariably interrupt him,—always, to be sure, with some thought ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet |
