"Precipitate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lamented that its Author had not carried back the story nearer to the time of the Revolution. Scott, entirely off his guard, replied, "Ay, I might have done so; but—" there he stopped. It was in vain to attempt to correct himself; he looked confused, and relieved his embarrassment by a precipitate retreat.' I have no recollection whatever of this scene taking place, and I should have thought that I was more likely to have laughed than to appear confused, for I certainly never hoped to impose upon Lord ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... name of the Fan." The comedy ends with the successful cooking of the election returns by Mr Mayor in favour of the Ministerial candidates, for which "return" he is promised a "very good turn very soon"; and by the precipitate marriage of one of the said candidates to the Mayor's daughter "to strengthen his interest with ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... another time, I trust. I—I feel presumptuous, but it is my earnest hope to be allowed to stand on the footing not only of a comrade in the cause, but of a neighbour; I live quite near. Forgive me if I seem a little precipitate. The privilege ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... cried out the constant summons heard by him alone? She did not yet dare to hope it; she had stopped short, in the rear, watching him with giddy anxiety, ever fancying that she saw him take the terrible leap, but resisting her longing to draw nearer, for fear lest she might precipitate the catastrophe by showing herself. Oh, God! to think that she was there with her devouring passion, her bleeding motherly heart—that she was there beholding everything, without daring to risk one movement to hold ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... "we will bring that to an issue within a few months." I knew he meant that Austria would precipitate the Balkan question. Kinderlen-Waechter ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... indignation of the pupils became universal; and as several chivalrous gentlemen inquired rather pressingly of Mr. Augustus Cooper, whether he required anything for his own use, or, in other words, whether he 'wanted anything for himself,' he deemed it prudent to make a precipitate retreat. And the upshot of the matter was, that a lawyer's letter came next day, and an action was commenced next week; and that Mr. Augustus Cooper, after walking twice to the Serpentine for the purpose ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... proved that he was not wholly without humor, for he wrote to a friend, "The exile of my dear son distressed me much less than does this precipitate recall." ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... encrusted with sulphur. This deposit is scarcely visible when the water of Mariara is suffered to cool in an open vessel; no doubt because the quantity of disengaged gas is very small, and is not renewed. The water, when cold, gives no precipitate with a solution of nitrate of copper; it is destitute of flavour, and very drinkable. If it contain any saline substances, for example, the sulphates of soda or magnesia, their quantities must be very insignificant. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... was probably his affection for her through which I had silently won her confession. Almos would then have no cause to regret my action, and Zarlah would never know the strange circumstances that had brought them together. Thus did I picture in my mind a happy conclusion to my selfish and precipitate action, which, I had feared at first, must bring overwhelming sorrow and humiliation into three lives, two of which were dearer to me ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... could not remain as we were, for in a few seconds we should be drifted over the falls; and how high these were we knew not. We had never heard of them: they might be fifty feet—they might be a hundred! High enough, they were, no doubt, to precipitate ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... open-mouthed wonder, which soon changed to a look of horror. Remembering the pipe of peace among the American Indians, I drew out a cigar, and hastily striking a match upon my trousers, I held the weed and flame toward them. Not a man of them stayed to see any more. Their flight was more precipitate than the ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... would be better not to do so, as he might break in upon the interview, and possibly only bring matters to a climax at once, which they agreed had better be avoided, as even if the men fought then and there, the fact of the governor being killed by the count would only precipitate the danger which already threatened. Still they agreed that it was absolutely necessary that the conversation should be thoroughly understood, and the few words which they would glean here and there might ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... BRUGUIERA RHEEDI (red or orange mangrove.) Some of the roots of the latter spread over the surface and have vertical kinks. The roots and the accessories act as natural groynes, causing the waves to swirl and to precipitate mud and sand. BRUGUIERA PARVIFLORA and CERIOPS CANDOLLEANA assist in the general scheme, the former depending upon abutments for security instead of adventitious roots. Its radicles resemble pipe-stems, or as they lie stranded on the beach, slightly curved and with the brown tapering calyx tube ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... at the back of the stuff, has his design outlined on the upright threads and sees in a mirror the shadow of the pattern and picture as it grows gradually to perfection. He spoke at much length on the question of dyes—praising madder and kermes for reds, precipitate of iron or ochre for yellows, and for blue either indigo or woad. At the back of the platform hung a lovely Flemish tapestry of the fourteenth century, and a superb Persian carpet about two hundred and fifty years old. Mr. Morris pointed out the loveliness of the carpet—its delicate suggestion ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... skeleton trees; the broad serpentine course of the frost-bound river, with here and there patches of open water showing darkly against the snow-covered ice; the scattered groups of soldiers treading carefully, and with the possibility before them that at the next step the treacherous floor might precipitate them ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... will not, or do not understand me. What I mean is, that we were both precipitate in the choice of a profession—I retired in time, but you persevere; that ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... that this was not yet the waterfall, they now pioneered the way for about a mile farther along the rocks, some of them keeping near, and continually cautioning me to look to my feet, as a single false step might precipitate me into the raging abyss of waters, the tumult of which seemed to shake even the solid ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... they had found occasion to observe, that to be prompt was not therefore to be precipitate; and that to act without delay was not always to act without reflection; that error was often to be preferred to indecision, that his errors, whatever they might have been, were those of rule and principle, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... Were changed to long despairs, till God's own grace Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me bring And let it drop adown thy calmly great Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing Which its own nature does precipitate, While thine doth close above it, mediating Betwixt the ...
— Sonnets from the Portuguese • Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
... How would she feel if she knew where he was at this moment, resting on a cotton-bale, on a city wharf, penniless and without a friend in the great city, except the ragged boy who was already asleep at his side? She would feel badly, Ben knew that, and he half regretted having been so precipitate in his action. He could remedy it all, and relieve his mother's heart by going back. But here Ben's pride came in. To go back would be to acknowledge himself wrong; it would be a virtual confession of failure, and, moreover, knowing his father's sternness, he ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... This interruption made me regret his earlier manner, and I was sorry the polish had rubbed through so quickly and brought us to a too precipitate familiarity. "We're Western out here," he continued, "and we're practical. When we want a thing, we go after it. Bishop Meakum worked his way down here from Utah through desert and starvation, mostly afoot, for a thousand miles, and his flock to-day is about the only ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... I felt like a murderer of the deepest dye. It is one thing to hand over to the police their natural prey, a thief taken red-handed, but quite another, and a much more harrowing one, to have him slip through your fingers, precipitate himself into mid-air, and drop four stories to the pavement, scattering his brains far and wide. There was not a vestige of hope for ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... think himself under an obligation to gratify and submit to all the wishes of those who, from a fugitive and an exile, had created him general of so great an army and given him the command of such a fleet. But, as became a great captain, he opposed himself to the precipitate resolutions which their rage led them to, and, by restraining them from the great error they were about to commit, unequivocally saved the commonwealth. For if they had then sailed to Athens, all Ionia and the islands and the Hellespont would have fallen into the enemies' hands without opposition, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... me he had been sending copies of Fred and Maria and Me to friends in Ireland. Martha and Jane, and M. and H. were all standing in a row together when the parsons come out to tea, and one of them marched up to the row, saying to papa, Are these your children? when Martha and Jane made a precipitate retreat into the pantry. Good-night, darling; lots of love to Mrs. Smith and all ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... first were shocked and silent. Then a mighty wave of wrath swept over the country—a wrath that demanded victims, and seemed likely in the principal city of the country to precipitate scenes not unlike those witnessed in the "Reign of Terror" ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... and now it was meat, and drink, and health, and sunshine, to find herself of a sudden the most precious object on earth to one faithful heart! Although the General had given a promise not to be too precipitate in his wooing, it was easy to prophesy how things would end; but before the "two or three weeks" had come to an end, another event happened of such supreme importance to the Trevor household as to put in the background every other subject, interesting and romantic though ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... of wrath in the distance, and she saw a gleam of light precipitate itself hastily into the road, where, for a moment, it flashed along the tree ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... requires them to use their influence in procuring an adjournment of this body to the 4th of April next. It is the wish of that State that opportunity may be given for full consideration of any constitutional amendment that may be proposed here, and especially to avoid precipitate action under apprehensions of resistance to the inauguration of Mr. LINCOLN on the ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... this time of the guests in their newspapers aggravated her nervous sense of her utter helplessness. All her feminine reserve and modesty came over her; alone in this room among men, she felt overpowered, and she was about to make a precipitate retreat when the clock of the coffee-room sounded the half hour. In a paroxysm of nervous excitement she exclaimed, "Is there not one among ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... he would have consented, and we might have talked it out. We each thought a great deal more than we said, but after all, maybe it was well as it stood. What could he ever be to me more than an old friend—twice my age—and maybe I was too precipitate and presumptuous. How did I know he thought of me in any other light than the child he had always known me? I stood up with this impediment thrown voluntarily in the way, and took off my street apparel. In a quarter of an hour later dinner was served, ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... and all frontiers were armed. On October 28th I find in my diary: "Had urgent appeal to go to Belgrade, but decided not—I don't want to get badly mixed in their politics." The Montenegrins were all for war, and the wildest reports reached us of Prince George of Serbia's efforts to precipitate it. ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... she opened the door softly, looked in at him, thought he was asleep, and went softly away. But he had never been further from sleep in his life. Henrietta Hastings's harum-scarum gossiping and philosophizing happened to be just what his troubled mind needed to precipitate its clouds into a solid mass that could be clearly seen and carefully examined. Heretofore he had accepted the conventional explanations of all the ultimate problems, had regarded philosophers as time wasters, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... penniless swain who could give a good account of himself should enter the lists, he should be judged quite upon his personal merits. There were other things besides. The Doctor thought it very vulgar to be precipitate in accusing people of mercenary motives, inasmuch as his door had as yet not been in the least besieged by fortune-hunters; and, lastly, he was very curious to see whether Catherine might really be loved for her moral worth. He smiled as he reflected ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... sleep on earth. Further analysis would insult your intelligence, and having very briefly laid before you the intended line of testimony, I believe I have assigned a motive for this monstrous crime, which must precipitate the vengeance of the law, in a degree commensurate with its enormity. Time, opportunity, motive, when in full accord, constitute a fatal triad, and the suspicious and unexplainable conduct of the prisoner in various respects, furnishes, in connection with other ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... standing rigid as a statue. To have fallen back a step would have been to precipitate an immediate charge; to have rushed forward to meet the other might have had the same result, or it might have put the bellicose one to flight—it all depended upon the young bull's stock ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... thunder in that story too—up to the last wild delirious interview; either Lotte was no good at all, or else Werther should have remained alive after that; either he knew his woman too well, or else he was precipitate. But an idiot like that is hopeless; and yet, he wasn't an idiot—I make reparation, and will offer eighteen pounds of best wax at his tomb. Poor devil! he was only the weakest—or, at least, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... made stealthy descents upon the premises without first having duly observed these quarantine regulations; whereupon he was attacked by Caddy, who, with the assistance of the minions under her command, so shook and pummelled him as to cause his precipitate retreat through the same opening by which he had entered, and that, too, in so short a space of time as to make the whole manoeuvre appear to him in the light of a well-executed but involuntary feat of ground and lofty tumbling. One afternoon he started ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... and the triumph of Taitsong; but when that ruler thought to add to this success the speedy overthrow of the Khitan power in Leaoutung he was destined to a rude awakening. His action was certainly precipitate, and marked by overconfidence, for the army of Leaoutung was composed of soldiers of a warlike race accustomed to victory. He advanced against it as if it were an army which would fly at the sight of his standard, but instead of this he discovered that it was superior to his own ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... each other. But the moment he attempts to reproach him, he banishes away like the schismatic taints of the rainbow, the cause of which it was the astonishing and perspiring genius of a Newton, who first deplored and enveloped the cause of it. Cannot the poor man, sir, precipitate into all the beauties of nature, from the loftiest mounting up to the most humblest valley as well as the man prepossessed of indigence? Yes, sir; while trilling transports crown his view, and rosy hours allure his sanguinary youth, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... cradling is the same, the appliances required are simple and inexpensive, and the proportional yield of gold highly reassuring. It is impossible to forecast the results of this most momentous discovery. It will revolutionise the new world. It will liberate the old. It will precipitate ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... storms have of gathering near the ocean, clouds tumbled over clouds, piling mountains high, then dipping down in veritable spouts ready to empty their weight of water on the shrinking earth. The weather had been just warm enough to precipitate this sort of shower, and before the first drops fell people scurried for shelter, deserting piers, and board walk, as if swept away by ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... staring, frowning, grinning, rolling of eyes, menacing, ghastly looks, broken pace, interrupt, precipitate, half-turns. He will sometimes sigh, weep, sob for anger. Nempe suos imbres etiam ista tonitrua fundunt,[6127]—swear and belie, slander any man, curse, threaten, brawl, scold, fight; and sometimes ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... shock on Britain's vanguard train, And led whole squadrons in his captive chain; Where veteran troops to half their numbers yield, Tread back their steps, or press the sanguine field, To Princeton plains precipitate their flight, Thro new disasters and unfinish'd fight, Resign their conquests by one sad surprise, Sink in their pride and see ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... view. I think, in fact, that, in this as in other cases, the true answer to extreme theorists would be very different. I hold that we would begin by admitting the immense value of the lesson taught by the old individualists, if that be their right name. If they were precipitate in laying down "iron laws" and proclaiming inexorable necessity, they were perfectly right in pointing out that there are certain "laws of human nature," and conditions of social welfare, which will not be altered by simply declaring them to be unpleasant. They did an inestimable ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... will not dispute the point, though I am sure I am right," returned Lydyard. "But be not too precipitate. Since the apprentice has seen you, some alteration may be necessary in your plans. Come with me into the house. A few minutes can ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... I could make sure of putting my hand on Magda when he comes," grumbled Lady Arabella. "That's the hitch I'm afraid of! If only she hadn't been so precipitate—only waited a bit for him to ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... science in its application to History. Add now that his induction rests almost wholly on two main instances, of which one is yet incomplete! Should one, therefore, say that his logic is somewhat precipitate, and his "science" somewhat lacking in matter, he would appear not to prefer a wholly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... consistency, integrity, and faithfulness of the friendship thus abruptly reproached and cast away. But a sleepless night gave me leisure to recollect that you were ever as generous as precipitate, and that your own heart would do justice to mine, in the cooler judgment of future reflection. Committing myself, therefore, to that period, I determined Simply to assure you, that if my last letter hurt either you or Mr. Piozzi, I am no less ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... experience which doesn't come to every girl." She looked at her friend quizzically. "What are you going to do about Colin? I rather think you should have an answer ready; the circumstances are apt to make him rather precipitate." ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... the new principle peculiar to St. Augustine. He has found a principle of slavery, which is neither natural inequality, nor war, nor agreement, but sin. Slavery is no more a transitory fact which we accept provisionally, so as not to precipitate a social revolution: it is an institution which has become natural as a result of the corruption of our nature. (3) It must not be said that slavery, resulting from sin, is destroyed by Christ who destroyed ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... this stony rock! whose rifted crest, Lets the rough, roaring torrent force a way, And, foaming, pour its waters on the vale! Behold them tumbling from their dizzy height, Like clouds, of more than snowy whiteness, thrown Precipitate from heav'n, which, as they fall, Diffuse a mist, in form of glory, round! This was my darling haunt a long time past! Here, when a boy, in pleasing awe, I sate, Wistfully silent, with uplifted eye, And heart attun'd to the sad, lulling sound They made descending. Far below my feet, Near ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... sludge caused by lime as a precipitant contains nearly all the phosphoric acid, there is not a trace of the potash or ammonia removed. Sulphate of alumina has also been used, both alone and in conjunction with lime. The advantage claimed by it over lime is, that the resulting precipitate is much less bulky. In other respects, however, it does not seem to be any more efficient as a precipitant. In the well-known A, B, C process, a mixture of alum, clay, lime, charcoal, blood, and alkaline salts, in different proportions, has been used. This mixture is said to extract, in ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... are as eager to precipitate a world revolution as ever. But at the moment they are even more eager to establish relations with the markets of the world, so that Russia may be saved from economic catastrophe.... The Kremlin realizes full well that it cannot ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... utmost and most beneficial importance to the family of Stuart, but which, according to their usual ill-fortune, helped to precipitate their ruin, next called forth the public gratulation of the poet-laureate. This was the birth of that "son of prayers" prophesied in the dedication to Xavier, whom the English, with obstinate incredulity, long chose to consider as an impostor, grafted upon the royal ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... his enemy to perish at sea, he places the canoe-shaped stone bottom upwards before the skulls, which, on the principles of homoeopathic or imitative magic, must clearly make his enemy's canoe to capsize and precipitate its owner into the sea. Whichever of these ceremonies he performs, the wizard accompanies the magical rite, as usual, with prayers and offerings of food to the ancestral spirits who are represented by ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... before seen it, and his speech, also, in the highest degree inflammatory. His face and forehead were as blotched and swollen as if he had just run his head into a hornets' nest, and his manner as precipitate as if the whole swarm was still at ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... must not be too severely scanned. You cannot stand chaffering at a bargain as to the cheapest mode of extinguishing a fire kindled by a red-hot cannon-ball at the door of the magazine. But the crisis and the necessity for precipitate action are past. The rebellion, dragged to the light of day, has assumed definite proportions. The means for its suppression are ample, and nothing is requisite but the firmness and sagacity to apply them. In other words, the one thing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... nutrition. One thing fertilizer makers find expensive to accomplish is concocting a mixture of soluble nutrients that also contains calcium, a vital plant food. If you dissolve calcium nitrate into a solution containing other soluble plant nutrients, many of them will precipitate out because few calcium compounds are soluble. Even Rapid-Gro doesn't attempt to supply calcium. Recently I've discovered better-quality hydroponic nutrient solutions that do use chemicals that provide soluble calcium. These also make excellent foliar ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon
... and felt the faint, natural dismay which any human girl would feel in the circumstances. Charmion herself was enough romance for the present, and a precipitate "lover next door" would for the moment have ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... really a variety of the Sanskrit, cut down into agreement with the Mongolian monosyllabic speech. He began, with the assistance of a pundit, to compile a grammar, and to make a rough beginning of a translation of the Scripture, a work indeed in which the Serampore people were apt to be almost too precipitate, not waiting for those refinements of knowledge which are needful in dealing with the shades of meaning of words of such intense importance and delicate significancy. But on their principles, they could ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... red precipitate Mercuric oxide (HgO) a heavy red crystalline powder formed by heating mercuric nitrate, or by ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... be truly called an unhealthy decomposition, it being productive of diseases common to misconducted fermentation, acidity, putridity, and lack of spirits, with a tendency to precipitate and burn upon the bottom of the still; hence, all the decompositions are confounded ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... of her remoteness, her unattainability. He was like a man who, in an hour of rashness and vanity, has boasted that he can attain a certain mountain peak, and finds himself stalled at its very base. He decided that he must assert himself; he tried to nerve himself to seize her in his old precipitate, boisterous fashion. He found that he had neither the desire to do so nor the ability. He had never thought her so full of the lady's charm. That was just the trouble—the lady's charm, not the human being's; not the charm ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... 200 deg. and 250 deg. C). The mass is filtered, pressed while still tepid, and the filtrate allowed to stand until the oil has completely separated from the aqueous solution. The oil is drawn off and carefully neutralized with very weak hydrochloric acid. A white bulky precipitate of cocaine hydrochloride is obtained, together with an aqueous solution of the same compound, while the petroleum is free from the alkaloid and may be used for the extraction of a fresh batch of leaves. The precipitate is dried, and by concentrating the aqueous solution ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... waterway might have sufficed, but the VALLEYS MAY COME TO BE MELIORATED BY DRAINAGE.' One field drained after another through all that confluence of vales, and we come to a time when they shall precipitate by so much a more copious and transient flood, as the gush of the flowing drain-pipe is superior to the leakage of ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the treatie, are now with all their forces removed.' Sept. 3, 1622. Cabala 201. How difficult this was for him we see from a letter of Nethersole to Carlisle, Oct. 18, 1622. 'The slowness of resolution of this side may move H. Mai. [the King of Bohemia] to precipitate his before the time, which will be then to lose the fruits of ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... might expose one to matrimony and settlements. There was no tame, trite medium of propriety and suppressed confidence, no bridge from board to bed, over which a false step (and your wine-cup is a marvellous corrupter of ambulatory rectitude) might precipitate into an irrecoverable abyss of perilous communication or unwholesome truth. One's pillow became at once the legitimate and natural bourne to "the overheated brain;" and the generous rashness of the coenatorial ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... they proceeded to the Island of Marundum, a favorite rendezvous for pirates, where they came on a fleet of the Illanum tribe, who, however, did not give them an opportunity of closing; but, cutting their sampans adrift, made a precipitate flight, opening fire as they ran out on the opposite side of a small bay, in which they had been watering and refitting. This, of course, led to a very exciting chase, with a running fire kept up on both sides; but the distance was too great for the range of the guns on either ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... him. They immediately proceeded to the house, and made prisoners of a son of Mr. Carpenter, two sons of Mr. Brown[16] [73] (all small children) and one woman—the others belonging to the house, were in the field at work. The Indians then dispoiled the house and taking off some horses, commenced a precipitate retreat—fearing ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... I will be patient! I will endure, though the vulture gnaws incessant at my heart! I will do nothing precipitate. No, no: I must beware of that! But let me prove them treacherous—let them once falter, and go aside from the straight path, and ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... look out," warned Page, "you'll precipitate matters. You may bring the storm down on Jetson if you test the temper and stubbornness of an ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... equipped a fleet of forty imperial war-junks, mounting from eighteen to twenty guns each. On the very first rencontre, twenty-eight of the imperial junks struck to the pirates; the rest saved themselves by a precipitate retreat. ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... "Do not be so precipitate; there is no need to apply before Tuesday, and I believe even Wednesday would do. Spend the intervening days in town; something suitable may be advertised in newspapers. You have not yet applied at any registry ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... history of the country during the first three administrations. Fortunately upon this occasion Lee sided with Franklin, and the untimely trial of French friendship was not made. Had it been, it would have been more likely to jeopardize forever than to precipitate the good fortune which, though still invisible, was close ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... me for seeming to be brusk and arbitrary," said the lieutenant smiling, "but I can't permit you to go back. For our own sake, as well as yours. You might precipitate a general engagement, and while we're not running away from anything like that, we are not looking for it just ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... Lord Roehampton, "you know I never like anything precipitate. Besides, why should the citadel surrender when I have hardly ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... regards technical military points; but it would have been a help to know exactly what one's Chief desired and thought. Fitzgerald was a great standby on such occasions. I gathered from him that the Secretary of State was not anxious to precipitate bringing the question to a head, with the conception ever at the back of his mind of conserving sufficient fighting resources under his hand to deal the decisive blow in the war when the psychological moment should come, months ahead. He was not, in 1915, looking to 1916; he was ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... the purpose of this junta," Nestor went on, not noticing the interruption, "in marching this ragged army across the border to precipitate war between the United States and Mexico. With an invader on their soil, the members of the junta reasoned, all Mexicans would flock to the standard of their country, and the war with the United States would be fought ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... confusion. Most of the Belgians were reservists who were waiting to secure uniforms and arms. They crowded all the hotels, cafes and inns and seemed as merry and light-hearted as if no news of their king's defeat and precipitate retreat had arrived. Not until questioned would they discuss the war at all, yet every man was on the qui vive, expecting hourly to hear the roar of guns announcing the arrival of the fragment of the Belgian army ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... be scrutinized. Then there was the recent deception with Erskine, which, if it increased the doubts of some concerning the soundness of Madison's judgment, made it the more incumbent on others to show that on this occasion at least he had not been precipitate. Certainly, as regards the competency of the foreign official in either case, there was no comparison. A simple Minister Resident should produce particular powers or definite instructions, to guarantee his authority for concluding so important a modification of national policy ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... 1798) Priestley wrote Mitchill that he had replaced zinc by red precipitate and did not get water on decomposing inflammable air with the precipitate. Again, August 23, ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... of going up all her life, and another said that she had gone up thirty years ago. There is an iron railing, or rather a cage, round the top, through which it would be impossible for people to force their way, in order to precipitate themselves, as six persons have heretofore done. There was a mist over London, so that we did not gain a very clear view, except of the swarms of people running about, like ants, in the streets at the foot of ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his cups that night he had thought in some dim way to precipitate matters by affronting Mr. Wilding, secure, as I have shown, in his belief that Wilding would perish sooner than raise a finger against Ruth's brother. And his drunken astuteness, it seemed, had been to his mind as a piece of bottle glass to the sight, distorting ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... The solution is filtered off, boiled till free of sulphuretted hydrogen, and ammonium chloride and ammonia added. If phosphoric acid is absent, aluminium, chromium and ferric hydrates are precipitated. If, however, phosphoric acid is present in the original substance, we may here obtain a precipitate of the phosphates of the remaining metals, together with aluminium, chromium and ferric hydrates. In this case, the precipitate is dissolved in as little as possible hydrochloric acid and boiled with ammonium acetate, acetic acid and ferric chloride. The phosphates ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... who appeared to me more excited than the rest, and who by his proceedings seemed to menace the safety of a small group of children who were taking their walks abroad with their nurse. Not to be precipitate, I watched him for some time, to make quite sure I was right. Then, when one of the children uttered a scream, I felt my hour was come. So I drew my life-preserver and advanced boldly to the rescue. At the sight of me in this ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was made through a clammy stone that became oozier and wetter as I went down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me time to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which he ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... party. He dismissed the thought at once. All his preparations were governed by the hope that the pirates might abandon their quest after hours of fruitless search. It would be most unwise, he told himself, to precipitate hostilities. Far better avoid a conflict altogether, if that were possible, than risk the immediate discovery of his ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... and to her eye the Sphinx long ago seemed to plunge herself headlong into precipitate destruction. But this strange lady is ever reappearing with her awful alternative: they who cannot solve her riddle must die. It is no trifling account, reader, which we have with this lady. For now her riddle has grown ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... that might precipitate the upheaval that loomed always before her like a threatening cloud. For sooner or later the unrest that filled him would have to be satisfied. The curse of Craven would claim him again and he would leave ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... while to observe, that Milton has represented this violent impetuous Spirit, who is hurried only by such precipitate Passions, as the first that rises in that Assembly, to give his Opinion upon their present Posture of Affairs. Accordingly he declares himself abruptly for War, and appears incensed at his Companions, for losing ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... barn without another word. His going was almost precipitate, but not from any fear of Jake. It was himself he feared. This merciless brute drove him to distraction every time he came into contact with him, and the only way he found it possible to keep the peace with him at all ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... in a hurry," Daisy assured him, "either before your marriage or after. She has had a very bad shock, and she is only just getting over it. You will throw everything back if you try to precipitate matters. She is asleep, you know, Nick, and it is for you to waken her, but gradually—oh, very gradually—or she will start up in the old nightmare terror again. If she doesn't love you yet, she is very near it. ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... to tell no man what had been done." The three disciples would be competent witnesses of the miracle but a widespread report by the parents and their friends might arouse such an outburst of excitement as to interrupt his work and precipitate a crisis before the earthly ministry ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... the plumping afternoon showers came down, refreshing leaf and root of every plant, Tom shrank from the precipitate inundation. ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... no sufficient evidence of it to justify his taking any action against the men that he suspected. He did not even dare to express his suspicions, for he knew that if he were to do so, or even to intimate that he felt suspicion, the only effect would be to precipitate the consummation of the treachery that he feared, and perhaps drive some to abandon him who had not yet fully resolved on doing so. He was obliged, therefore, though suffering the greatest anxiety and alarm, to suppress all indications of his ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... so plainly,' returned the colonel, with alarming coolness, 'that I should already have blown out the brains of your horse, but for the fear lest mine, in a moment of terror, should precipitate me with yourself, to the bottom of ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... the radicals to precipitate the issue received interesting criticism from the Governor of Texas, old Sam Houston. To a commissioner from Alabama who was sent out to preach the cause in Texas the Governor wrote, in substance, that since Alabama would not wait to consult ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... she had no wish to precipitate Anne into an act which she believed must be fatal to her happiness, and she trusted to further argument to persuade her to return to London if only for the trousseau. With her niece and the poet on different sides of the equator she ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... will the strongest, his brain one of the most capacious of his time; above all he had the gift of popular speech to stamp his ideas into the fibre of his countrymen. If we may borrow a figure from chemistry, he found public opinion a solution supersaturated with revolt; all that was needed to precipitate it was a pebble thrown in, but instead of a pebble he added the most powerful ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... following had large amounts of money in the same securities. The market was booming on what I had proclaimed was to happen, and here an absolutely new condition was being imposed, a condition which gave all my assertions the lie, which discredited me, and would, I felt sure, precipitate a terrible disaster. Inevitably the copper public would be dazed, would be shaken; a reaction would follow which would bring on a panic and a destruction of values impossible to measure. In it all, I should be left alone to bear ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... without speaking to those around him, made a hurried statement to the officer of the watch, and had a quarter-boat in the water in a surprisingly short time. His astonished companions below were less precipitate, though the material fact was soon known to them. Griffin gave a hasty order, and the canvas bulkhead came down, as it might be, at a single jerk, leaving the two disputants in full view, utterly unconscious of the escape of their late companion, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... descent to North Bloomfield was very steep, and was made with grinding of brakes and precipitate speed. Arrived at the post-office, Dr. Mason and the two gamblers left the coach; and a store-keeper and two surveyors employed by the great Malakoff Mining Company took passage to Nevada City. In those halcyon ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... brilliant excursions to the sea, winter, in its dampest, muddiest, most languid form, had fallen upon us and shut us in. It was a dreary winter for the wifeless man and the motherless boy. We had come into the house, in precipitate abandonment to that supposed answer to prayer, a great deal too soon. In order to rake together the lump sum for buying it, my Father had denuded himself of almost everything, and our sticks of chairs and tables ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... Lynda were both so precipitate about attacking the situation that they nearly ran into each other at the dining-room door. They both had the grace to laugh. Then they talked of the work at hand ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... inconceivable but that, in their present temper, ignorant as they are of the real resources of the whites, and conscious that they can still bring eight thousand warriors into the field, they would precipitate a contest which, though it would involve untold misery to our border population, must inevitably end ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... precipitate retreat from Scarborough, owing to the excessive delicacy of our 'squire, who cannot bear the thoughts of being proetereuntium ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... was necessary, but did not dare show it. Above everything we must not be precipitate; not startle the Robot. At worst, if Tugh should return, I could seize this weapon at my feet and ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... messenger, brought me here in person. Some members of the British Government, and several important officials of Scotland Yard know that I am in your house and discussing this matter with you. If any accident interferes with my future movements, you will simply precipitate a crisis quite lamentable in its results to yourself, to your association, and to your cause. You will see, therefore, Hussein, that to kill me cannot really be thought of. A man of your penetration and undoubted sagacity must surely admit this at once, and we can then proceed to discuss ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... ready, and we repaired to the dining-room, where a meal was served, simply, but most tastefully. "Now," said Mr. Gault, as we rose from the table, "perhaps you have in mind the promised explanation of my rather precipitate departure from this attractive region some time ago; and, if Mrs. Gault will excuse us, we will take ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... days, when a small boy, playing in an Irish street-gutter, he, Bonaparte, had been familiarly known among his comrades under the title of Tripping Ben; this, from the rare ease and dexterity with which, by merely projecting his foot, he could precipitate any unfortunate companion on to the crown of his head. Years had elapsed, and Tripping Ben had become Bonaparte; but the old gift was in him still. He came close to the pigsty. All the defunct memories of his boyhood returned on him in a flood, as, with an adroit movement, ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... no longer observing. His distress was pitiful. It was there in his kindly eyes, in the purposeless fashion in which he fingered his pipe. He was torn between two desires. One was to continue talking at all costs. The other was precipitate, ignominious flight from the sight of the other's voiceless despair. He knew Steve, and well enough he realized what the strong wall the man had set up in defence concealed. But he was held there silent by ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... tents of these North Russian nomad homes, while we Americans looked on in wonder. Here was the very counterpart of the American Indian buck and squaw home that our grandads had seen in Michigan. The women at last appeared and rebuked the ragged half-dressed children for their precipitate rushing out to see the strangers. For a little tobacco they became somewhat talkative and willingly enough gave our guide information about the location of the hidden still we were going to visit, where pine pitch was baked out ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... admirably handled, fought with tenacity, and all but succeeded in foiling the attack before Wellington could bring up his reserves. The conscripts, however, were not equally steady, and when Hill, advancing from the extreme right, pressed upon the French left, Soult's orderly retreat became a precipitate flight. The French loss greatly exceeded the British, and was soon afterwards swelled by wholesale desertions; the road to Bordeaux was thrown open, and the royalist reaction against Napoleon, stimulated by the depredation of the French troops, ripened into ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... well, but like most men with great conceit. Kazuma looked out towards the beautiful garden. He took the chance to smile, for he had soon ascertained that Kondo[u] knew little about his agent; was in fact a precipitate, testy man. However, he was a little put out at not seeing the would-be bride. At an opportunity he stepped out, to see more of the house and its surroundings. Cho[u]bei came up to him as he stood on the ro[u]ka. His voice was coaxing and pleading. "Is it not a fine prospect—for Kazuma Dono?" ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... franchise the street railway is so nearly concluding," he answered. "O, we'll be enough for them yet. When are you going to appoint a new street commissioner? Perhaps that might precipitate things a little." ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... value that he cares nothing for that. Though atoms and a void are in their nature imperceptible to the senses, he acknowledges their existence, asserting the occurrence of an infinite number of atoms of different kinds in the infinite void, which, because of their weight, precipitate themselves perpendicularly downward with an equable motion; but some of them, through an unaccountable internal force, have deviated from their perpendicular path, and, sticking together after their collision, have given ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... iron by precipitation with water of ammonia, from a pure dilute solution of sulphate of iron; the precipitate is washed, pressed in a screw press till nearly dry, and exposed to a heat which in the dark appears a dull, low red. The only points of importance are, that the sulphate of iron should be pure, that the water of ammonia should be decidedly in excess, ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... was mainly due to the influence of the Church. The spiritual unity went deep on one side of man's nature, and when a man like Erasmus surveyed the prospect at the beginning of the sixteenth century we can well understand his horror, and his determined abstention from any step which would precipitate the break-up of the one organized body which represents the old united culture of Christendom and might check the new forces which were threatening selfishness and disorder in ever-widening circles on the globe. For it must be noted that new forces of expansion were making themselves ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... this involved delay during which his boy might fall into the Indian's power and be dispatched, as he would be sure to do when he found that the father was close at hand; and from the proximity of the two men, it could hardly fail to precipitate a collision between them. The Indian, finding himself at bay, could not fail to prove a most troublesome and dangerous customer, unarmed, as Richter was, with weapons ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... tort," was true in more senses than one, and that the Frenchman occasionally lost ground by being fifty miles off. Once or twice it seemed to me that the little "betrothed" was evidently thinking of the error of precipitate vows, and was beginning to change her mind. But her last letter was a complete extinguisher of all my vanity, if it had ever been awakened. It was a curious mingling of poignancy and penitence; an acknowledgment of the pain which she felt in ever having given pain, and almost an ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... Shirley as he took his hat preparing to leave. "My visit might precipitate an incident. Anyhow, I'm on ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... scepticism, antecedent to all study and philosophy, which is much inculcated by Des Cartes and others, as a sovereign preservative against error and precipitate judgement. It recommends an universal doubt, not only of all our former opinions and principles, but also of our very faculties; of whose veracity, say they, we must assure ourselves, by a chain of reasoning, deduced from some original principle, which cannot ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... remarkably salt in this district, because the mountains that hem it in, prevent its communication with the circumambient atmosphere, in which the saline particles would otherwise be diffused; and there is no rain, nor dew, to precipitate or dissolve them. Such an air as I have described, should have no bad effect upon a moist, phlegmatic constitution, such as mine; and yet it must be owned, I have been visibly wasting since I came hither, though this ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... shall soon see as silent a change as that in the Rehearsal, of King Usher and King Physician. It may well be so, when the disposition of the drama is in the hands of the Duke of Newcastle—those hands that are always groping and sprawling, and fluttering and hurrying on the rest of his precipitate person. But there is no describing him, but as M. Courcelle, a French prisoner, did t'other day: "Je ne scais pas," dit il, "je ne scaurois m'exprimer, mais il a un certain tatillonage." If one could conceive a dead body hung in chains, always wanting to be hung somewhere ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... but otherwise it would always be in the position of being compelled to vindicate its courage. Our notions of honor and valor being what they are, no situation could be created more likely to bring about deadlocks and precipitate fights. All the elements are there for bringing about that position in which the only course left is "to fight ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... kind of inconsistency in one who had taken for his philosophic ideal the monochronos hedone of Aristippus—the pleasure of the ideal present, of the mystic now—there would come, together with that precipitate sinking of things into the past, a desire, after all, [155] to retain "what was so transitive." Could he but arrest, for others also, certain clauses of experience, as the imaginative memory presented them to himself! In those grand, hot summers, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... The person in whom she had been interested and who had caused her precipitate retirement, if not to a nunnery, to what answered the same purpose, had been very fond of that song. He used to sing it, leaning over the piano ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart |
