"Decoction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the gall.' Says one, 'It is an herb of Mars, and under the sign Aries.' Therefore, 'it strengthens the attractive faculty in man and clarifies the blood, because the one is ruled by Mars. The continual drinking the decoction of it helps red faces, tetters, and ringworms, because Mars causeth them. It helps the plague, sores, boils, itches, the bitings of mad dogs and venomous beasts, all which infirmities are under Mars.' This same writer agrees with Dioscorides that the root of a thistle ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... yet a little without the Citty, growes a tree which they report in their legend grew from the Saint's Staff, which on going to sleepe he fixed in the ground, and at his waking found it had grown a large tree. They affirm that the wood of its decoction cures sundry diseases." (Evelyn's Diary, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... glass of the juice of the green hoarhound, or if that cannot be obtained, a strong decoction from the dry herb will answer; mix it in half a pint of new milk, sweetened either with sugar or honey; take this half an hour before breakfast. It has been known to cure obstinate coughs, and persons that have taken ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... with a failure of strength and appetite, which he speaks of in the eighteenth chapter of "Lavengro," after the Gypsies had gone away. He was almost given over by the physicians, he tells us, but cured by an "ancient female, a kind of doctress," with a decoction of "a bitter root which grows on commons and desolate places." An attack of "the dark feeling of mysterious dread" ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... the sick were quite simple in nature and mainly composed of indigenous substances. For diarrhea red pepper and decoctions of blackberry root and of pine leave were given. For coughs and lung diseases, a decoction of wild cherry bark was administered. Chills and fever were treated with decoctions of dogwood bark, and fever patients who craved something sour, were given a weak acid drink, made by fermenting a small quantity of meal in a barrel ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... stupefied at the virtues of the syrup of marshmallow and the decoction of lichen, prescriptions he had never varied. Dona Victorina was so satisfied with her husband that one day when he stepped on her train, in a rare state of clemency she did not apply to him the usual penal code by ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... in hot water, or hot spirits, or a decoction of bitter herbs. Entire rest, is the remedy for sprains. Bathing in warm water, or warm whiskey is very useful. A sprained leg should be kept in a horizontal position, on ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... scarcely a moment before he had filled the pot and was on the way back to the cabin. Then he cast in the herbs, put it upon a bed of red coals, and soon a steam arose. He found an old, broken-sided gourd among the abandoned utensils, and was able to dip up with it a half dozen drinks of the powerful decoction. He induced his comrade to swallow these one after another, although they were very bitter, and Paul made a wry face. Then he drew from the corner the rude bedstead of the departed settler, and made Paul lie ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... said Herbert. "Even that wretched decoction, Fuller, and that mere dictionary, Driver, never gave cause for imputations like these. What has the ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... BED-BUGS.—1. When they have made a lodgement in the wall, fill all the apertures with a mixture of soft soap and scotch snuff. Take the bedstead to pieces, and treat that in the same way. 2. A strong decoction of red pepper applied to bedsteads will either kill the bugs or drive them away. 3. Put the bedstead into a close room and set fire to the following composition, placed in an iron pot upon the hearth, ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... coition was also supposed to be diminished by drinking a decoction of the pounded leaves of the willow. Vervain, dried coriander, and also mustard, drunk in a fluid state, are also said to prevent the erection of the penis. Alexander Benedictus declares that a topaz having been previously rubbed against the ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... of real milk when mixed with coffee; but drunk pure has a somewhat coarse taste—and it is considered dangerous to drink much of it, however refreshing a small quantity may be. It soon thickens, and forms a tenacious glue, which can be usefully employed in cementing crockery. A decoction of the bark is employed as a red dye for cloth. The fruit, also, is largely consumed; while the wood is excessively ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... but don't think that I did. All I can remember now, is a dim recollection of a nasty, greasy, burning something going down my throat and chest, and smelling, as I remember at this day, like a decoction of red-pepper tea, flavored with coal oil, ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... second to none. Over and over had she told herself that as she mused by the dying embers in a brown study without the lamp because she hated two lights or oftentimes gazing out of the window dreamily by the hour at the rain falling on the rusty bucket, thinking. But that vile decoction which has ruined so many hearths and homes had cist its shadow over her childhood days. Nay, she had even witnessed in the home circle deeds of violence caused by intemperance and had seen her own father, a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... admitted to see the Prince. He made a long and very attentive examination of the unfortunate child, asked him many questions without being able to obtain an answer, and contented himself with prescribing a decoction of hops, to be taken by spoonfuls every half-hour, from six o'clock in the morning till eight in the evening. On the first day the Prince steadily refused to take it. In vain Gomin several times drank off a glass of the potion in his presence; his example proved as ineffectual as his ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... important as alum. The temperature of the mordanting bath must be raised very gradually to boiling point or the wool will dye unevenly. A general method of dealing with copperas is to boil the wool first in a decoction of the colouring matter and then add the mordant to the same bath in a proportion of 5 to 8 per cent of the weight of the wool, and continue boiling for half an hour or so longer. With some dyes a separate bath is needed, such ...
— Vegetable Dyes - Being a Book of Recipes and Other Information Useful to the Dyer • Ethel M. Mairet
... last I reached the end of my earthly trials, and failing asleep in the Lord, I awoke in this abode of the elect. I learned then from the mouth of the angel who brought me here, that Barjas, the tavern-keeper of the Porta Capena, had sold for wine a decoction of roots and barks in which there was not a single drop of the juice of the grape. I had been unable to transmute this vile brew into blood, for it was not wine, and wine alone is changed into the blood of Jesus Christ. Therefore all my consecrations were ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... next morning, the good-natured Indian roused me from my slumbers. The rushing sound of waters invited me to take a bath, and going down to the river, I stretched my limbs with a pleasant swim, and then returned to enjoy a hearty breakfast on salmon, roots, and some decoction which served the purpose of tea. My hosts, too, had provided some new moccasins in ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... before. Soon after the medicine was sent; but O, my dear doctor said it was then too late. In the evening they all again attended, and insisted there was no danger. Saturday morning he seemed very easy, and the physicians said he was in a fine way. The fever was gone; the decoction of bark prescribed; and they said he would be able to-morrow to take it in substance. I was not now the least apprehensive of danger, and was very earnest in prayer that the Lord would sanctify his affliction, and not suffer it to go off without leaving ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... tea an infusion should be made by adding boiling water to the leaves, and permitting them to steep for a few minutes only, for a concentrated decoction, made by boiling for a long time, liberates the astringent and bitter principles and drives off the agreeable aroma which ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... little old book, in which his grandfather, Piotr Andreitch, had jotted down, now—"Celebration in the city of Saint Petersburg of the peace concluded with the Turkish Empire by his Illustriousness Prince Alexander Alexandrovitch Prozorovsky"; now a recipe for a decoction for the chest, with the comment: "This instruction was given to Generaless Praskovya Feodorovna Saltykoff, by Feodor Avksentievitch, Archpriest of the Church of the Life-giving Trinity"; again, some item of political news, like the following: "In the 'Moscow News,' ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... for me that am poor and old and feeble, and cursed by all for witchcraft! So have I with my potions ministered to thee in thy sickness, and behold thou'rt alive, hale and strong again. Give me thy hand! Aha, here's cool, unfevered blood! Show me thy tongue. Oho! Aha! A little sup o' my black decoction—roots gathered at full o' moon—a little sup and shall be thyself by to-morrow's dawn. But—as for thee, thou good-for-naught, thou wicked elf—aha! would'st dare leave thy poor old grannam weak and 'fenceless? Give me thy rogue-ear!" Obediently, the mighty Dwarf arose and sighfully suffered the ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... in an over-dose of castor oil; the nurse, in the plenitude of her bounty, nearly parboiled me in an over-heated bath; my mother drugged me with a villanous decoction of soothing syrup, which brought on a slumber so sound that the first had very nearly proved my last; and the entire household dandled me with such uncommon vigour that I was literally tossed and "Catchee-catchee'd" into a fit of most violent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... is enough for our purpose to observe that herbs really have medicinal properties, and that untutored people invariably confound medicine with magic. A plant or root is thought to possess virtue, not only when swallowed in powder or decoction, but when carried in the hand. St. John's wort and rowan berries, like the Homeric moly, still 'make evil charms ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... left alive, would take the first prize. Already some far-seeing gamblers who had drawn low numbers, had bribed the soldiers and wardens to sprinkle the hair and garments of the Christians with valerian water, a decoction which was supposed to attract and excite the appetite of these great cats. Others, whose tickets were high, paid handsomely for the employment of artifices which need not be detailed, calculated to induce in the lions aversion ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... ragged as though it had been caught by thorns in the unfrequented paths of the forest. His head was bare of covering, his locks disheveled; his face and hands were of an uneven dark color as though stained with some decoction unskilfully applied. His whole manner was so distraught that Francis ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... should be dislodged from the patient's stomach, so an emetic was administered in the form of a handful of common salt, with immediate and seismic effect. Then a decoction of neem leaves was poured down the man's throat. The neem tree is an enemy of all fevers and a friend of man generally, so much so that it is healthful to sleep under its shade. Therefore a decoction of the leaves could not fail to be beneficial in one way or another. The residue of the leaves ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... corpse is closely inspected, and if a blue mark is discovered, it is pointed out as the spot where the invisible poisoned arrow, discharged by the sorcerer, entered the man. The next thing is to detect the culprit. For this purpose a pot containing a decoction of leaves is set to boil on a fire. When it begins to boil over, the side on which the scum first falls is the quarter in which the supposed murderer is to be sought. A consultation is then held: the guilt is laid on some individual, and one of the nearest relations of ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... has as much effect on the disease of criminality, as the remedy of a physician would have, who would sit in the door of a hospital and tell every patient seeking relief: "Whatever may be your disease, I have only one medicine and that is a decoction of rhubarb. You have heart trouble? Well, then, the problem for me is simply—how big a dose of rhubarb decoction shall ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... why should we go While the [nectar] [logwood] still reddens our cups as they flow? Pour out the [rich juices] [decoction] still bright with the sun, Till o'er the brimmed crystal the [rubies] ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... water to yield 3 quarts of decoction, and add to it 30 drops of oil of tansy and 45 drops of oil of cloves, dissolved in a quart of rectified spirits. Dose, 1 ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... mechanical violence would expose his life to danger. They must not be torn off, lest portions remain in the wounds and become a poison; they must drop off spontaneously, and so they will be harmless. The native forthwith prepared a bath for his master, by the decoction of some herbs, and directed him to lie down in it. As soon as he had bathed in the balsam ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... his frugal feasting upon bread and currants, Fletcher strongly believed in the plentiful use of fruit as food. His grapes were succeeded the following summer by a black-cherry diet, and for severe rheumatism he drank a decoction of pine-apple. He had also great faith in exercise, riding in preference to driving, walking whenever he had strength, and when unable to go out of doors allowing himself three minutes of jumping just before dinner. This may sound a curious form of exertion, yet it was ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... leaves it to cool on the ground. Near her are a wooden pestle and mortar for reducing the crisp toasted seed to powder; and a small framework of wood in which rests a flannel bag for straining the rich brown decoction after it has been ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... popular belief regarding this range of sandstone hills at Govardhan is that Lachhman, the brother of Rama, having been wounded by Ravan, the demon king of Ceylon, his surgeon declared that his wound could be cured only by a decoction of the leaves of a certain tree, to be found in a certain hill in the Himalaya mountains. Hanuman volunteered to go for it, but on reaching the place he found that he had entirely forgotten the description of the tree required; and, to ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... 50 lb. of roses, not previously deprived of their calyces, and double the volume of spring water. The distillation is carried on for about l hours, the result being simply a very oily rose-water (ghyul suyu). The exhausted flowers are removed from the still, and the decoction is used for the next distillation, instead of fresh water. The first distillates from each apparatus are mixed and distilled by themselves, one-sixth being drawn off; the residue replaces spring water for subsequent operations. The distillate is received in long-necked bottles, holding ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... might afford them subsistence; even the moss growing on the ground, and disgusting reptiles, were not spared. Their sufferings were somewhat relieved at last, by the use of a bud, which is described as "full of turpentine matter." Of these buds the surgeon made a decoction, which he gave the men to drink, and also applied them hot to their bodies, wherever any part was affected. This was undoubtedly very effectual in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... those who liked it, amidst the chattering of parrots and the squalling of kittens. I longed for the days of the Spectator, when I might have laid my penny on the bar, and retired without ceremony—But no—this blessed decoction was circulated under the auspices of some half-crazed blue-stocking or other, and we were saddled with all the formality of an entertainment, for this miserable allowance of a cockle-shell ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... fluid, but with a quill from the wing of a wild goose, shot by our friend Hanselpecker, (who by the way was fond of such game,) as last fall it took its flight from our cold land to the sunny south, and with home-made ink prepared from a decoction of white maple bark. ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... two drams of nitre in a pint of a decoction of the roots of asparagus, and added to it two ounces of tincture of rhubarb: the patient took a fourth part of this mixture every five minutes, till he had taken the whole.—In about half an hour he made eighteen ounces of water, which was very manifestly ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... of Sulphur and tobacco dust, and strew the mixture over the trees of a morning when the dew is on them. The insects will disappear in a few days. The trees should then be syringed with a decoction ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... how nimbly he climbs the tree; now he hides on a forked branch and thinks we do not see him. Well, I must not forget to tell you that this fungus, growing in this spot so plentifully, is called fly agaric because a decoction of it was once used to destroy flies. The people in Siberia swallow portions of it to produce intoxication. Here is another species closely related to the one we have been considering, and not unlike it in form; this is the blushing agaric (Amanita rubescens); ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... bitter taste the powder is seldom objected to if given between two layers of coarse brown sugar, while with most children the addition of a teaspoonful of treacle will induce them to take very readily that useful medicine, the compound decoction ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... Pere Socquard simply boiled it in a utensil known to all such households as the "big brown pot"; he let the dregs (that were half chicory) settle, and served the decoction, with a coolness worthy of a Parisian waiter, in a china cup which, if flung to the ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... by another, quite as comforting and as thoughtful. Cockburn, the moment Oliver's back touched the wall, had handed him a tooth-brush mug without a handle, filled to the brim with a decoction of Cockburn's own brewing, compounded hot according to McFudd's receipt, and poured from an earthen pitcher kept within reach of Cockburn's hand, and to which Oliver, in accordance with his habitual custom, had merely touched his lips, he being the ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... In the delicate clatter of trays and saucers, in the soft rustle of feminine hospitality, in the common catechism about cream and sugar, we know that the Worship of Tea is established beyond question. The philosophic resignation of the guest to the fate awaiting him in the dubious decoction proclaims that in this single instance the ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... enough to be witness to her morning regimen, which, to my mind, is rather tyrannically enforced against the youngsters of her numerous family, both white and black. She is in the habit of preparing some death-routing decoction for them, in a small pitcher, and administering it to the whole squadron in succession, who severally swallow the dose with a most ineffectual effort at repudiation, and gallop off, with faces all ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... the firm set of her Grace's mouth, and the authoritative flourish of the spoon she held in her small, though imperious hand, Barnabas submitted and lying back among his pillows in sulky dignity, swallowed the decoction in sulky silence, and thereafter lay hearkening sulkily to her merry chatter until he had ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... a decoction of gall-nuts and vinegar will give to ebony which has been discoloured an intense black, after brushing over once or twice. Walnut or poor-coloured rosewood can be improved by boiling half an ounce of walnut-shell extract and the same quantity of catechu in a quart of soft-water, and applying with ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead
... improper manner as tea—which is all the more curious when we consider that perhaps none other that requires heat for its preparation is so easily made. It should be brewed by simply pouring boiling water upon the leaves, but the vessel containing the decoction should not be placed over the fire while the tea is being prepared. Of even greater importance is the necessity of allowing the water to remain in contact with the leaves only a few moments—never more than a minute if we wish the tea to be good. ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... and, bowing their bronze backs, were passing round the gourd of mate. The mozo from the town, having fastened his horse to a wooden post before the door, was telling them the news of Sulaco as the blackened gourd of the decoction passed from hand to hand. The grave alcalde himself, in a white waistcloth and a flowered chintz gown with sleeves, open wide upon his naked stout person with an effect of a gaudy bathing robe, stood by, wearing a rough beaver hat at the back of his head, and grasping a tall staff with a silver ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... air. By the following experiment these vessels were agreeably visible by a common magnifying glass, I placed in the summer of 1781 the footstalks of some large fig-leaves about an inch deep in a decoction of madder, (rubia tinctorum,) and others in a decoction of logwood, (haematoxylum campechense,) along with some sprigs cut off from a plant of picris, these plants were chosen because their blood ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... re-enacted his deeds of valor, pursuing and thrusting at the imaginary Thimagoa as they fled before his fury. Whereat the chief, at length convinced, led the party to his lodge, and entertained them with a certain savory decoction with which the Indians were wont to regale those ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... sacrifice." Thereupon the old woman took all she required of aromatic roots and placed them in water which she boiled over the fire till the black essence of them was extracted. She waited till the decoction was cold, then dipped the corner of a long kerchief therein and stained her face therewith. Moreover, she donned over her clothes a long gaberdine with an embroidered border and took in her hand a rosary, and afterwards ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... head, followed by a cataplasm upon it, the backbone anointed with a very choice balsam of earthworms or bats. One prescription for melancholia contains no less than twenty-seven ingredients, to be made into a decoction, to which is to be added that sine qua non, the ever precious hellebore. Other remedies were prescribed; in some cases the "bezoartick pastills," composed of an immense number of ingredients, including the skull ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... sir? What reck I to whom I discover? I have it in musk, civet, amber, Phoenicobalanus, the decoction of turmerick, sesana, nard, spikenard, calamus odoratus, stacte, opobalsamum, amomum, storax, ladanum, aspalathum, opoponax, oenanthe. And what of all these now? what are you the better? Tut, it is the sorting, and the dividing, and the mixing, and ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... it. They make their cabbage soup from salt meat; they roast it too. They have just served me some salt meat roasted: it's most repulsive; I chewed at it and gave it up. They drink brick tea. It is a decoction of sage and beetles—that's what it is ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... her without delay to the English lady who lived in the Faubourg St. G——. But when she got up no Joe was visible, and the old woman managed to convey to her that he had gone out to make some inquiries about their journey south, and would not be back for some hours. She then poured out a decoction which she called coffee and gave it to the children, and Cecile drank it off, wondering, as she did so, how she, who did not know a word of French, could find her way alone to the Faubourg St. ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... and cruel method," he writes, "which I recommend only to men of excessive vigour, with coarse black hair, a skin of mingled ochre and vermilion, squarish hands and legs like the balustrades in the Palace Louis XV. It consists in the employment of a decoction of ground coffee taken cold and anhydride (a chemical term which signifies 'little or no water') and on an empty stomach. This coffee falls into your stomach, which, as you have learned from Brillat-Savarin, is a sack with a ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... kind of lake, produced by dyeing chalk or whitening with decoction of Brazil wood, peachwood, sapan, bar, camwood, &c. It is a pigment much used by paper-stainers, and in the commonest distemper painting, &c., but is too perishable to merit ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... invariably excellent. Some of them are prepared from native fruit flavors that are quite unknown here. The guanabana ice is particularly to be recommended. All such matters are quite individual, but a decoction called chocolate Espanol is also to be recommended. It is served hot, too thick to drink, and is to be taken with a spoon, to the accompaniment of cake. It is highly nourishing as well as palatable. There is a wide variety of "soft drinks," made with oranges, limes, or other ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... professional prohibition of the indulgence, was sitting on the sunny side of the porch trying to ignore the first uneasy symptoms of indigestion. The Little Doctor had taken his pipe away from him that morning, and had badgered him into taking a certain decoction whose taste lingered bitterly. The paper he was reading was four days old and he disagreed with its political policy, and there was no telling when anyone would have time to go in after the mail and his favorite paper. Ranch work was growing heavier ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... is a very strange thing. "If the Lord had told Moses to go and get some herbs, or roots, and stew them, and take the decoction as a medicine, there would be something in that. But it is so contrary to nature to do such a thing as look at the serpent, that I cannot do it." At length his mother, who has been out in the camp, comes in, and she says, "My boy, I have just the best news in the world ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... "A decoction of the rind of the tree tinctures hair of a golden colour, esteemed a beauty in some countries." It would be entertaining to know if this is the foundation of the "auricomous fluids" ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... complacency. The rich smoke of the rasher, and the eggs with which it was flanked, already spread itself through the apartment; and the hissing of these savoury viands bore chorus to the simmering of the pan, in which the fish were undergoing a slower decoction. The table was covered with a clean huck-aback napkin, and all was in preparation for the meal, which Julian began to expect with a good deal of impatience, when the companion, who was destined to share it with him, entered ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... exclusively by the real fishermen. In the months of July and August many of the latter go into the interior and assist in the hay-harvest, for which they receive butter, sheep's wool, and salt lamb. Others ascend the mountains and gather the Iceland moss, of which they make a decoction, which they drink mixed with milk, or they grind it to flour, and bake flat cakes of it, which serve them ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... alembecks, continual fires, and preparation of the ingredients, (as indeed there goes to it six hundred several simples, besides some quantity of human fat, for the conglutination, which we buy of the anatomists,) but, when these practitioners come to the last decoction, blow, blow, puff, puff, and all flies in fumo: ha, ha, ha! Poor wretches! I rather pity their folly and indiscretion, than their loss of time and money; for these may be recovered by industry: but ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... sleep, and I wished for sleep, of which I got but little. It was well that I did not die that time, for I repeat that I was sadly ignorant of many important things. I did not die, for somebody coming gave me a strange, bitter draught; a decoction, I believe, of a bitter root which grows on commons and desolate places: and the person who gave it me was an ancient female, a kind of doctress, who had been my nurse in my infancy, and who, hearing of my state, had come to see me; so I drank the draught, and became a little better, and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... bleak and lonely household, there had been little comfort for the woman who knew no hour, no second, free from pain. But Masha, like many country-bred women, was skilled in the decoction of those herbs and simples that seem, at times, more efficacious than more scientific medicines. Moreover, the old woman was passionately devoted to the mistress whom she had tended as a child, and nursed through every illness of girlhood. Thenceforth ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... for malaria, given in the Lancet, is the following: "Take a full-sized lemon, cut it in thin transverse slices, rind and all, boil these down in an earthenware jar containing a pint and a half of water, until the decoction is reduced to half a pint. Let this cool on the window-sill overnight, and drink it ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel
... (L60) of the negro's freedom, since it is now known how to cure slaves without mercury."[10] And in colonial South Carolina a slave named Caesar was particularly famed for his cure for poison, which was a decoction of plantain, hoar-hound and golden rod roots compounded with rum and lye, together with an application of tobacco leaves soaked in rum in case of rattlesnake bite. In 1750 the legislature ordered his prescription published for ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... number of his sicke men. Domagaia straight sent two women to fetch some of it, which brought ten or twelue branches of it, and therewithall shewed the way how to vse it, and that is thus, to take the barke and leaues of the sayd tree, and boile them togither, then to drinke of the sayd decoction euery other day, and to put the dregs of it vpon his legs that is sicke: moreouer, they told vs, that the vertue of that tree was, to heale any other disease: the tree is in their language called Ameda or Hanneda, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... less than nothing," disclaimed Manuel once more; and went in to ask the senora for a most palatable decoction whose chief ingredient was blackberry wine, which the senora recommended to all and sundry for various ailments. Though Manuel, the deceitful one, had no ailment, he did have a keen appreciation of the flavour of the cordial, and his medicine ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... the whereabouts of the purse; it was to the effect that the purse had been stolen and was in the possession of a fellow-worker. "The doctor," he said, "gave me some herbs. I have cooked them, and by his direction each of you is invited to immerse his hands in the decoction which is now cool. If you are not the thief, nothing would happen to you, but to the one who has stolen my money," he added with emphasis, "the doctor said that the medicine will snap the thief's fingers clean off and leave him only with ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... and at last, after protracted, harassing delays, the day of the trial came. Avdeyev borrowed fifty roubles, and providing himself with spirit to rub on his leg and a decoction of herbs for his digestion, set off for the town where the ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was left alone, the exhaustion of pain and fatigue,—for the whole day's exercise had been severe,—threw him into a profound, but yet a feverish sleep, which he chiefly owed to an opiate draught administered by the old Highlander from some decoction ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... the two sisters brewed a pot of tea, and after partaking of the refreshing decoction, went to their ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... him was, like most of her country people, skilled in the treatment of wounds. The bandages were kept bathed with water, snow was constantly applied to his head, and a decoction of herbs given him to drink. His good constitution was in his favor and, at last, he recovered his senses; to find himself convalescent, but ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... that those who joined in the mystical movements went according to the course of the sun, as they attached much importance to the ceremony of going three times round their sacred circle from the east to west. At the celebration of sacred mysteries there was a caldron for the preparation of a decoction from plants held in high esteem. This liquor being holy, possessed rare virtues, one of which was the power of inspiring those who partook thereof, or to whom it was applied. The caldron was kept boiling a year and ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... porcupine, but soon got his mouth filled with the barbed quills, which gave him exquisite pain. An Indian undertook to extract them, and with much perseverance plucked them out, one by one, and carefully applied a root or decoction, which ...
— The Country of the Neutrals - (As Far As Comprised in the County of Elgin), From Champlain to Talbot • James H. Coyne
... things were then carried, with no small show of solemnity, into the hot-house. Here they remained three whole days and nights, in separation from the rest of the people, applying warm ablutions to their bodies, and sprinkling themselves with a decoction of snake root. During a part of the time, the female relations of each of the consecrated company, after having bathed, anointed, and drest themselves in their finest apparel, stood, in two lines opposite ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... Lesengeld busied herself about the oil stove. Instantly, however, he straightened up as another and more delicious odour assailed his nostrils, for Mrs. Lesengeld made coffee by a mysterious process, that conserved in the flavour of the decoction the delicious fragrance of the freshly ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... consciousness, or his intelligible genius, say, may come to recognize for it. At Arezzo, however this might be, one was far from Rome, one was well within genial Tuscany, and the historic, the romantic decoction seemed to reach one's lips in less stiff doses. There at once was the "general impression"—the exquisite sense of the scarce expressible Tuscan quality, which makes immediately, for the whole pitch of one's perception, a grateful, a not at all strenuous difference, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... Dr. Prior suggests the Common Reed, which is probable. I have been rather inclined to suppose it to be one of the Horse-tails (Equiseta).[278:1] They are very sharp and spearlike, and their rough surfaces would soon draw blood; and as a decoction of Horse-tail was a remedy for stopping bleeding of the nose, I have thought it very probable that such a supposed virtue could only have arisen when remedies were sought for on the principle of "similia similibus curantur;" so that ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... out, his teeth were loosened in their sockets, his whole system was deranged by a scarcely perceptible trace of poison. Dr. Poulain racked his brains. He was enough of a man of science to see that some destructive agent was at work. He privately carried off the decoction, analyzed it himself, but found nothing. It so chanced that Remonencq had taken fright and omitted to dip the disc in the ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... 64, Peculiar Principles of Narcotic Plants. 65, Relative quantities of Cinchonia and Quinia with indention in the most esteemed Varieties of Peruvian Bark. 66, Sulphate of Quinia, extracted from the Cinchona Bark, exhausted by Decoction. 67, Analysis of Rhubarb. 68, Alkaline Lozenges of Bicarbonate of Soda. 69, Presence of Mercury in Samples of Medicinal Prussic Acid. 70, Proposed Method of preparing Protoxide of Mercury by precipitation, for Medical Employment. 71, Goulard's ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... ignition, inflammation, adustion[obs3], flagration| [obs3]; deflagration, conflagration; empyrosis[obs3], incendiarism; arson; auto dafe[Fr]. boiling &c. v.; coction[obs3], ebullition, estuation[obs3], elixation|, decoction; ebullioscope[obs3]; geyser; distillation (vaporization) 336. furnace &c. 386; blanket, flannel, fur; wadding &c. (lining) 224; clothing &c. 225. still; refinery; fractionating column, fractionating tower, cracking tower. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Dr. Magliori to the discovery of an agent of this sort which was traditionally in use by certain Italian families. It is an exceedingly simple thing—merely a decoction of lemon. It is prepared by cutting up one lemon, peel and all, into thin slices, which are then put into three glassfuls of water and the whole boiled down to one glassful. It is then strained through linen, squeezing the remains of the boiled lemon, and set aside for some hours ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... One of them, of the size of our largest firs, grows much after their manner, but the leaves, and small berries on their points, are much liker the yew. It was this which supplied the place of spruce in making beer; which we did with a strong decoction of its leaves, fermented with treacle or sugar. And this liquor, when well prepared, was acknowledged to be little inferior to the American spruce beer, by those who had experience of both. The other sort of tree is not unlike a maple, and grows often to a great ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... allusion to its rough bark and naked stem, crowned in an aged state with a few distorted branches, is scarcely less plentiful. It is an inferior firewood and does not been well unless when cut in the spring and dried during the summer; but it affords a great quantity of potash. A decoction of its resinous buds has been sometimes used by the Indians with success in cases of snow-blindness, but its application to the inflamed eye produces much pain. Of pines the white spruce is the most common here: ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... and tailless dogs, whose appetites had not gone with their tails; and an old woman kindly delivered a lecture on the most approved method of making a ptisan from the flowers of the lime-tree, and on the many medicinal properties of that decoction, to which she attributed her good health at so advanced an age. I silently supplemented her peroration by attributing her garrulity ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... the deceased, and that suspicion could only be verified by putting the accused to the test of some dreadful ordeal. A favourite ordeal, he said, was to make the suspected person drink a large quantity—a gallon and a half, or more—of a decoction of a bitter and slightly poisonous bark. If vomiting occurred, then a verdict of guilty was passed upon the unfortunate wretch, and no protestations, or even direct proof of his innocence, could ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... would build a tiny smoky fire in the bottom of the pail, feeding it with peat, damp moss, punk maple, and other inflammable smoky fuel. This censer swung twice or thrice about the tent, effectually cleared it. Besides, both men early established on their cheeks an invulnerable glaze of a decoction of pine tar, oil, and a pungent herb. Towards the close of July, however, the insects began sensibly to diminish, ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... on; red wines and white wines; and a large china bowl of punch, brewed by the gentleman of a convivial turn, who adjured the Miss Pecksniffs not to be despondent on account of its dimensions, as there were materials in the house for the decoction of half a dozen more of the same size. Good gracious, how they laughed! How they coughed when they sipped it, because it was so strong; and how they laughed again when somebody vowed that but for its colour ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... crocodile, only a man who has leisure to be ill and is determined to doctor himself on the reckless principle of "blow the expense," could afford any such luxurious physic. It is reckoned next in virtue to a text from the Koran written on board: "Wash off the ink, drink the decoction, and lo! the cure is complete." So, too, if the Lama doctor has no herbal medicines he prescribes something symbolic. He writes the names of the remedies on scraps of paper, moistens the paper with ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... from the ages in which scholastic philosophy deduced physical consequences a priori;—the ages in which, because a lion is strong, rubbing with lion's fat would have been held an infallible tonic. In those happy days, if a physician had given decoction of a certain bark, only because in numberless instances that decoction had been found to strengthen the patient, he would have been a miserable empiric. Not that the colleges would have passed over his returns because they were ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... to have been a dangerous calling at that time. A learned German physician, named Anthony, in whom Ivan placed much confidence, was sent by him to attend a Tatar Prince who was a visitor at his court. When the Prince died after taking a decoction of herbs prepared by the physician, Ivan gave him up to the Tatar relatives of the deceased, to do with him as they liked. They took him down to the river Moskwa under the bridge, where they cut him ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... with their food; so they ate contentedly with good appetite. The wind howled without, the snow found its way in through divers apertures, but the warmth of the central fire filled the hovel. Their hosts produced a decoction of honey, called mead, of which a little went a long way, and soon ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... word, but, I say, it's Weathercock's doing. He has invented some decoction to charm creoles, and henceforth old Dis ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... is John Bernard, who is about eighty. Few of them were even fairly well clothed; the majority were in rags. A few wore home-made deer-skin boots, but most of them had purchased ready-made boots or shoes. They make deer-skin boots by scraping caribou skin, and tanning it in a decoction of spruce bark. Such boots are, they state, worn through in a few days. The women can spin wool, and knit stockings. Their food consists chiefly of flour, a few potatoes, some cabbage, and perhaps about half a score of caribou a year for each family, hung up on trees and thus frozen ...
— Report by the Governor on a Visit to the Micmac Indians at Bay d'Espoir - Colonial Reports, Miscellaneous. No. 54. Newfoundland • William MacGregor
... detailed admonition, kept Rosy-Lilly from again obtruding upon the patient's leisure; and McWha had nothing to do but smoke and whittle. He whittled diligently, but let no one see what he was making. Then, borrowing a small tin cup from the cook, he fussed over the stove with some dark, smelly decoction of tobacco-juice and ink. Rosy-Lilly was consumed with curiosity, especially when she saw him apparently digging beads off an Indian tobacco-pouch which he always carried. But she did not go near enough to get enlightened ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... wife be suspected of infidelity, the husband may charge her with it, and demand that she drink the poisonous decoction of sassy-wood, which is used as the test of guilt or innocence, in all cases that are considered too uncertain for human judgment. If her stomach free itself from the fatal draught by vomiting, she is declared innocent, and is taken back by her family ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... other side of the port. I hinted to the secretary that I had had nothing to eat that day and felt decidedly hungry. I was accordingly served before my departure with a meal of fish and boiled bread, with a cup of rice wine, a decoction which tasted like thin, sour claret. This done, I was placed in charge of my former escort, who struck across country from the rear of the Man-tse-ying, passed two or three other forts and numerous entrenchments ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... seething cauldron.—This was the mystical cauldron of Ceridwen which Taliesin considered to be the source of poetic inspiration. Three drops, he avers, of the seething decoction enabled him to forsee all the secrets ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... congregate. They will not crawl over the wool. A little sulphur sprinkled over a plant will keep them from it; while wall-fruit, etc., may be kept free from them by surrounding it with a broad band of chalk. Should they become troublesome on account of their numbers a strong decoction of elder leaves poured into the nest will destroy them; or a more expeditious method of getting rid of them is to put gunpowder in their nests and fire it with a piece of touch-paper tied ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... barrels—barrels take too long to handle. Send eggs, butter, rice, macaroni, onions, turnips, cheese, and above all, some really good coffee. The calcined peas we've been using for coffee would discourage even Captain Hallam if he dared drink the decoction. ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... hundredfold by the certainty he felt of taking nauseous doses of boneset tea, administered by zealous old women outside the "regular practice." Children who had to have their noses held before they would—or, indeed, could—swallow the decoction, cheerfully munched ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... at Oxford, and an instantaneous glimpse of people scalding their throats with an intolerable decoction called coffee extract. The figure of an imperious guard with a waving lamp. The vision of a stampede. Gone. Then an interlude of sleep, during which an orchestra plays dream music, with a roll, roll, roll of wheels as a musical groundwork to the theme. ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... infected. They were in a purulent condition, and a mass of maggots—the terrible bishus, which were the pest of Brazil. So we had the great job of cleaning them all with a powerful disinfectant as well as washing them with a decoction of warm barbatimao (Stryphnodendron barbatimao M.), a wood with a great resistance to crushing (K. 1.015) and a specific gravity of 1.275. The decoction, which was really very beneficial for wounds and sores of animals, was made with the bark of that tree warmed in water ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... coarse pearl-barley (or of rice), roast it till yellow; then boil it with one quart of water for ten minutes; add one teaspoonful of muriatic-acid, and four or six tablespoonfuls of honey; mix it well and use it for a gargle, tepid. The decoction should be passed through some linen, or a sieve, before the acid and honey are added, to keep back the ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... his overcoat, stiffened with the ice, and strode into the library toward the blazing hearth. Mrs. Marable was suddenly roused to remember the decoction that she herself had prepared, and put the glass into his hand. But he took only a single swallow, gazing in absorption at Gladys, who had undertaken to detail the discovery of the stone in the pocket of the little red ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... regarded as so many fetiches and were selected from some fancied connection with the disease animal, according to the idea known to modern folklorists as the doctrine of signatures. Thus at the present day the doctor puts into the decoction intended as a vermifuge some of the red fleshy stalks of the common purslane or chickweed (Portulaca oleracea), because these stalks somewhat resemble worms and consequently must have some occult influence ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... yells, as with frantic gesticulations they brandished their war-clubs and vaunted their deeds of prowess. Then they drank the black drink, endowed with mystic virtues to steel them against hardship and danger; and Gourgues himself pretended to swallow the nauseous decoction. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... 1/2 drachm, tincture of orange 2 drachms, compound decoction of aloes 8 oz., mix. Dose, a wine glass full whenever the fit is expected. This is ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... hair is light, not a "sable silvered," but a yaller gilded; you can see some of it sticking out of the top of his hat; his costume is the national costume of Arkansas, coat, waistcoat, and pantaloons of homespun cloth, dyed a brownish yellow, with a decoction of the bitter barked butternut—a pleasing alliteration; his countenance presents a determined, combined with a sanctimonious expression, and in his brightly gleaming eye—a red eye we think it is—we fancy a spark of poetic fervor ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... the standard things, and learn to talk knowingly of the rest. Of course, one must keep up a reputation. I have seen people greatly enjoy themselves, and elevate themselves in their own esteem, in a wise and critical talk about all the choice wines, while they were sipping a decoction, the original cost of which bore no relation to the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to diminish the number of articles, and add to the quality of what we do have. I am very much like the poor woman who preferred a cup of clear, strong, fragrant coffee, three times a week, to a decoction of burnt rye every day. What I ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... to say to you, Adrian. My boys are going to the English riders this evening, and would be glad to have you accompany them. You can begin with the decoction to-day." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... did like lemonade; though, to be sure, it was generally as cold as lemonade, and I used to think the cook had an icehouse, and dropt ice into his coffee. But what was more curious still, was the different quality and taste of it on different mornings. Sometimes it tasted fishy, as if it was a decoction of Dutch herrings; and then it would taste very salty, as if some old horse, or sea-beef, had been boiled in it; and then again it would taste a sort of cheesy, as if the captain had sent his cheese-parings forward to make our coffee of; ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... a decoction made from the Orchis mascula root, a common meadow plant, or else from Sassafras, and was at one time sold in the streets as a drink before the introduction of tea and coffee. In the United Service Museum there is a cake of the portable soup which was on board the Endeavour, ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... can freeze there a strong Brine of Bay-Salt; and a strong Decoction of Sal Gemmae, or Soot; or a strong Solution of Salt of Tartar, or ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... sleeve of his coat we had a sort of celebration. He'd found an empty bottle somewhere in the woods, and he had made a wild-cherry decoction that he declared was cherry brandy, keeping it in the sun to ferment. Well, he insisted on opening the brandy that day and passing it round. We had cups made of leaves and we drank to his sleeve, although the stuff was villainous. He had put the sleeve on, and it looked rather inadequate. ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of circumstances in the leaves of plants, the following experiment was made, June 24, 1781. A stalk with leaves and seed-vessels of large spurge (Euphorbia helioscopia) had been several days placed in a decoction of madder (Rubia tinctorum) so that the lower part of the stem and two of the undermost leaves were immersed in it. After having washed the immersed leaves in clear water I could readily discover the color of the madder passing along the middle rib of each leaf. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... blew in with a decoction she called catnip tea. She brought it all the way from the Bronx in a thermos bottle, so I had to drink it or lose a perfectly ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... including those of dangerous quality. There was never race or tribe so primitive as to be ignorant of deadly herbs. This scarcely half-civilized daughter of miscegenation was a Hecate in the skilful decoction of potent leaves, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... zeylanica or (Kanarese) Thumba Soppu) plants about two feet in diameter, and, after removing the roots, boil it for about four or five hours, and let it cool all night, and in the morning apply the decoction to the coffee trees affected, with the aid of a garden syringe. The trees should be well syringed, and it is advisable to give the tree a second application. The refuse of the boiled plant should be scattered on the ground around ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... hours' rest at night, for several days; and though I was carried all the time, the jolting of my litter, as we ascended or descended the steep hills, was very inconvenient. But the Indians collected a variety of herbs, and making a decoction of them, fomented my leg whenever we stopped, so that the swelling gradually subsided, and the ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... beverages there were tea and coffee, the latter, of course, being the Transvaal national drink—that is to say, when "dop" cannot be had. Beer is almost unknown, except the imported kinds of Bass and Schlitz, for what is known as "Kaffir beer" is a filthy decoction. About midday I received a formal reply from Gordon, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... "Miranda! Fetch up the mint!" Then a buxom colored lady in calico—with a grin like that which made Aunt Sallie famous—having appeared, panting, with two large glasses and a bundle of green herbage upon a silver salver, the old fossil poured out a seething decoction—of which like only the memory remains—performed an incantation over each glass with the odoriferous greens, smiled fondly upon the work of his hands and remarked with amiable hospitality, "Well, my son! ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... meals at the "stations," of which you were obliged to partake or go hungry: biscuit hard enough to serve as "round-shot," and a vile decoction called, through courtesy, coffee—but God help the man ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman |
