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Tonic   /tˈɑnɪk/   Listen
Tonic

noun
1.
Lime- or lemon-flavored carbonated water containing quinine.  Synonyms: quinine water, tonic water.
2.
A sweet drink containing carbonated water and flavoring.  Synonyms: pop, soda, soda pop, soda water.
3.
(music) the first note of a diatonic scale.  Synonym: keynote.
4.
A medicine that strengthens and invigorates.  Synonym: restorative.



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"Tonic" Quotes from Famous Books



... see the doctor he will, of course, order you a tonic, and perhaps tell us to take you to the seaside. If that is the case, we must do so, Iris—we must do our duty by you, whatever happens. It would never do for you ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade

... I have said, had acted like a tonic on the colonel, bracing him up to renewed efforts, and reacting on his guests, who in return did their best to make the breakfast a ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... is significant of Edwards' unique position. The doctrine of Calvinism, by whatever name it may be called, is a mental tonic of tremendous potency. Whether in its theological dress, as attributing all events to the absolute decrees of the Almighty, or in its metaphysical dress, as declaring that some abstract necessity governs ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... has successfully adopted, illustrating his views with very good wood-cuts derived from the atlases of Wilson, Neligan, and Dendy. In many cases he believes constitutional debility to be the primary difficulty, and recommends a tonic regimen as the best preliminary to a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... or Irritate the Eye, but is Soothing in its action. Tonic, Astringent and an Antiseptic Lotion, and while it is used by Physicians it is in every sense a Domestic Remedy and can be used by every one with Perfect Safety for the Prevention of Eye Troubles and for Affections and ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... agreeable in the misfortunes of others, as the philosopher has told us. Remark what a good breakfast you eat after an execution; how pleasant it is to cut jokes after it, and upon it. This merry, pleasant mood is brought on by the blood tonic. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... met porters carrying baskets of armadillos, leopard skins, leopard and tiger bones. The skins were for wear, but the armadillos and bones were being taken to Suifu to be converted into medicine. From the bones of leopards an admirable tonic may be distilled; while it is well known that the infusion prepared from tiger bones is the greatest of the tonics, conferring something of the courage, agility, and strength of the tiger upon ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... air seemed to act like a tonic on Page; in a short time he showed such improvement that his recovery seemed not impossible. So far as his spirits and his mind were concerned, he became his old familiar self. He was able to see several of ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... for although I suffer no more pain, Dr. Grayson told me the truth—my strength is going every hour. Your mother had been in poor health, and I had ridden down to the village to see the doctor, for a tonic for her. On the way out again, I passed Henley's poolroom, where the cheap gamblers are still running their crooked betting on the Louisville and Lexington races. Jim Marcum crossed from the front ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... partners, Crisp and Cartwright (Dick deemed it wise to alter his name), kept no assistants, so there was no leakage from the till. They understood that this liquor traffic was a shameful trade, but they pronounced themselves unable to follow any other. Curiously enough the work proved a tonic to the 'Bishop.' He allowed himself so many drinks a day, and observed faithfully other rules to his physical and financial betterment. He started a reading- room in connection with the bar, for he had had experience in such matters when a curate at home; and the illustrated ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... laugh. It is a tonic. It braces me up—makes me feel fine!—and keeps me in prime mental condition. Laughter is a physiological necessity. The nerve system requires it. The deep, forceful chest movement in itself sets the blood to racing thereby livening up the circulation—which is good for ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks

... in to deal with all this trouble, had no success with his fatherly manners, the pretty phrases that issued from his compressed lips. The Levantine would have nothing to do at any price with the arsenic pearls as a tonic. The Nabob was in consternation. What was to be done? Send her back to Tunis with the children? It was scarcely possible. He was decidedly in disgrace in that quarter. The Hemerlingues were triumphant. A last affront had filled up the measure. At Jansoulet's departure, the Bey had commissioned ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... When the stomach, for instance, is debilitated by want of exercise, I would ask, is there an article in the whole materia medica, that can cure the complaints of sedentary people, unless proper exercise at the same time be taken? With exercise tonic remedies will undoubtedly accelerate the cure, but without it, they ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... Jacobites, Sir Walter Scott and his fellows, had dropped nothing in the pool that could break the ripples started by that stone, that precious stone, flung there from France so long ago. The town had settled down into something that the tonic magic of the place prevented being decay, but it was though time still turned the hour-glass, but did it dreamingly, infatuated with the marvellous thing she had brought forth that now was not. So greatly ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... graceful plant, each one having a single calyx enclosing the seeds, somewhat in the shape of a button or seal of a bright yellow color; hence its name. "The root of this plant," said he, "is an excellent alterative and tonic." We dug up the yellow roots with zest; but being by this time very hungry, I began to fear that we might come across a "patch" of something else that might still longer delay our return. But he seemed satisfied with his success, and ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... dining in the intermediate space, and stopping the chinks and crevices of the few vacant moments that remain with a little easy reading. And that amiable discontent and antisociality which you reprobate in our present drawing-room-table literature, I find, I do assure you, a very fine mental tonic, which reconciles me to my favourite pursuit of doing nothing, by showing me that nobody is ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock

... up to the ledge where the playful Tiberius (see guide-books) tipped over his whilom favorites, bought a marine daub; and then back to Naples and the friendly smells. His constant enthusiasm and refreshing observations were a tonic to Hillard. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... thermometer in the eighties or worse, sends heavenward great columns of heated air. To take the place of this the lower strata draws in from the sea, filled with the coolness and sparkle of the brine and informed with that mysterious tonic which seems born of wind-tossed salt water. At such times the east wind brings the breath of life to our nostrils and sets the jaded motor centres of our ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... cultivation of manners becoming a gentleman. Beyond the tide-water, men for the most part earned their bread by the sweat of their brows, lived the life and esteemed the virtues of a primitive society, and braced their minds with the tonic of Calvin's theology—a tonic somewhat tempered in these late enlightened days by a more humane philosophy and the friendly emotionalism of simple folk ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... as from a dash of cold water in the face, the rough tonic effectually bringing him out of his ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... recalled as being down for that day. No matter that her head ached woefully. Thought maddened her. She required distraction, craved change. The chatter over the tea-cups, the cheerful nonsense of that pleasure-seeking crowd might be a tonic. Anything was better than to sit at home ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... perspective of columns constructed of the same materials, and between the columns were green bushes in ornamental flower-pots—all very pretty and gay—"molto bellissimo," as the buffo said. The orchestra struck up a jigging tune in six-eight time in a minor key with a refrain in the tonic major, and a washed-out youth in evening dress with a receding forehead, a long, bony nose, an eye-glass, prominent upper-teeth, no chin, a hat on the back of his head, a brown greatcoat over his arm, shiny boots, a cigarette and a ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... recently. It seems to be a custom with the common people to make a concoction of these "giants' bones" as a strengthening medicine; we heard of a woman who, being weak after childbirth, used it as an invigorating tonic. ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... inefficient, without being aware of it. There may be other professions which call for a fiercer display of energy, but for the man with a private income who has loitered through life at his own pace, a little school-mastering is brisk enough to be a wonderful tonic. ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... to have an effect on Her Majesty, like a tonic. For a second her face wore an expression of Royal anger and indignance, and the accustomed strength flowed back into her aged voice. "You're quite correct, Sir Thomas!" she said. "The security of the Throne and the Crown are ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett

... experiences violent pains in the eyes and headache. Sight may be seriously impaired, and it may take years to recover. Often prolonged exposure results in blindness, though a moderate exposure acts like a tonic. The rays may be compared in this double effect to drugs, such as strychnine. Too much of them may be destructive ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... old. Again the invalid has to lie aside from life and its wholesome duties; again he has to be an idler among idlers; but this time at a great altitude, far among the mountains, with the snow piled before his door and the frost flowers every morning on his window. The mere fact is tonic to his nerves. His choice of a place of wintering has somehow to his own eyes the air of an act of bold contract; and, since he has wilfully sought low temperatures, he is not so apt to shudder at a touch of chill. ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... indoors and on the centre of the dinner table the mirror was edged by a border of sea-sand, glistening pebbles and little shells were arranged as a background instead of mosses and lichens, and rich brown seaweeds still moist with the astringent tonic sea breath edged this frame, and the more delicate rose-coloured and pale green weeds seemed floating upon the glass, that held a giant periwinkle shell filled with the pink star-shaped sabbatia, or sea ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... his wife's room between ten and eleven o'clock, and found her still in bed, but with her half-finished breakfast on a tray before her. As soon as he opened the door she said, "I do wish you would take some of that heat-tonic of mine, Albe't, that the docta left for me in Boston. You'll find it in the upper right bureau box, the'a; and I know it'll be the very thing for you. It'll relieve you of that suffocatin' feeling ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... certainly lets you have nothing off your account. But New Year's Day, except in Scotland, where, I believe, you are expected to go out and get drunk—always an easy obligation!—brings with it nothing but another year, and possesses all the "tonic" quality of novelty, besides the promise of a much happier and luckier one than the Old Year which has just been scratched off the calendar. It is like an annual Beginning Again, and beginning again much better. Besides, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... swiftly in the next half-hour. Storm had washed the air until it was like tonic; a salty perfume rose from the sea; and Olaf stood up and stretched himself and shook the wet from his body as he drank the sweetness into his lungs. Shoreward Alan saw the mountains taking form, and one after another they rose up like living things, their ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... Lucinda, is passed by her alone in a taxicab going in an opposite direction, the interest of the intrigue never slackens. Into an epoch of rather "over-ripe" and messy fiction this essentially clean and well-ordered tale comes with an effect very refreshing and tonic. ANTHONY HOPE'S characters as ever are vigorously alive; in Lucinda herself he has drawn a heroine as charming as any in that long gallery that now stretches between her and the immortal Dolly. In short, those novel-readers who are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various

... to be, however. The Medical College refused, indeed, to accept his resignation, granting him, at the same time, a year of absence. But it soon became evident that his health was seriously shaken, and that he needed the tonic of the northern winter. He was, indeed, never afterward as strong as he ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... it difficult to take raw eggs when recommended by their doctor. This difficulty is removed by breaking the egg into a glass of Armour's Grape Juice. The egg is swallowed easily and in addition to the nourishment obtained there is the tonic value of the rich fruit from which ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various

... her gloves without a pang. To another there is a memory and a sorrow in the flirt of a fan, the rustle of a dress, the grinding of a barrel-organ, or the slang of a street song. The stinging-nettle crops up in every bed of flowers we raise; the bitter tonic flavours all we eat and drink. I dare say Werther could not munch his bread-and-butter for years in common comfort because of Charlotte. Would it not be wiser for us to ignore the Charlottes of life altogether, and ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... consist of troughs in the cement floor, on the edge of which the children sit in a row while they receive a shower bath over their heads and bodies. The feet get well washed in the trough, and the smart douche of water on head and shoulders acts as an admirable tonic. ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly

... began to fast on January 11 by taking in the morning a portion of Henzel's preparation of salts in a glass of water and the juice of two oranges, and in the evening a hot lemonade. For twenty-five days he also drank a teaspoonful of a tonic consisting chiefly of iron, but the rest of the diet he continued until two weeks ago, when he discontinued the salts and orange juice and confined himself to a hot lemonade at morning and evening. This was his ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... tonic of the soul. Affliction at once humbles us and gives us a relish for spiritual food. Those providences which teach us the insufficiency of earth, make us lean ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston

... of a woman beloved is a splendid heart tonic. Mr. Grimm straightened up suddenly on the couch, himself again. He touched the slip of paper which she had pinned to his coat to make sure it was not all a dream, after which he recalled the fact that while he had heard the door creak before she went out he had not heard it creak afterward. Therefore, ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle

... hoped that the talk of one of spirit, and of his own age, might have roused him to make some exertions to overcome his disinclination for anything like active exercise. I think now, however, that we were wrong; that the tonic was too strong; that he could not but feel that your abundance of spirits, and life, were too much for him; and that the companion he needs is one who could, to some extent, sympathize with him, and who could, perhaps, make more allowance for the ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty

... their path, the Banner contained only a five-line item referring to the plague and calling it a "most curious and unusual visitation." But that summer the Banner was filled with Brownwell's editorials on "The Tonic Effect of the Prairie Ozone," "Turn the Rascals Out," "Our Duty to the South," and "The Kingdom of Corn." As a writer Brownwell was what is called "fluent" and "genial." And he was fond of copying articles from the Topeka and ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... morning I was curious to know your idea of 'the best woman in the world.' Then, too, I thought I could find my needed tonic in your hills and better accommodations than I could obtain at a hotel. So I continued to play my part. When I saw Mrs. Kingdon, I realized she was the best woman in the world. She, like Jo, recognized me at once, having seen me rehearsing in San Francisco. ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... meditation. A vast epicurean, a consummate egotist, ripe with feeling and rich with energy, he could not believe that when he spoke the heavens would not fall. The stinging sweetness of the morning was a tonic to all his energies, an elation to his mind; he swaggered through the lush grasses and boskage as ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... face of a servant in livery, at the giggles of an over-dressed girl who hung on the arm of an anemic and exhausted admirer. Never before had she encountered such vitality, such careless, pure, and uncalculating joy of life. There was a tonic quality in his physical presence, and while she walked at his side down Fifth Avenue she felt as if she were swept onward by one of the health-giving, pine-scented winds of Colorado. And she told herself reassuringly that only a man who had lived decently ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... Dinant, at Anseremme, a beautiful little village at the mouth of a tiny river, where artists used to come to paint pictures and sick folks to breathe the tonic balsam of the hills, we got rooms for the night in a smart, clean tavern. Here was quartered a captain of cavalry, who found time—so brisk was he and so high-spirited—to welcome us to the best the place afforded, to help set the table for our belated supper, and to keep on ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... of this for a misanthropical man, Mr. Olmney? there's a better tonic to be found in the woods than in any remedies of ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... they had a concert, accompanied by Hussey on his "indispensable banjo." This banjo was the last thing to be saved off the ship before she sank, and I took it with us as a mental tonic. It was carried all the way through with us, and landed on Elephant Island practically unharmed, and did much to keep the men cheerful. Nearly every Saturday night such a concert was held, when each one ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... change your whole career and accomplish miracles. We can be completely controlled by our concentrated thought. How can you make an "opportunity". One man's opportunity is usually another man's loss. A very beneficial practice. Why we get back what we give out. A wonderful encouraging tonic. Every man that is willing to put forth the necessary effort can be a success. The man that is best prepared to do things. How to make your services always in demand. How to reach the top. The man selected to manage is not usually a genius. He does not ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont

... from indigestion, All the drastic drugs decline. What you need, beyond all question, Is that remedy Saline TARRANT'S wonderful APERIENT, Duplicate of Seltzer Spring— Tonic, Alterative, ...
— The Nursery, Number 164 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... his tones, like some bitter tonic. Not a word of praise—always finding fault; and as for sympathy—you might as well have looked for it from an Indian ready to use his scalping knife. And yet—that is what made the Yale team ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes

... a certain answer given him by Madame Steynlin, to whom he had once spoken of the "tonic" effects of ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... she showed them was good to eat; and she would crush the leaves, draw forth their fine aromatic flavour in her hands, and then inhale their fragrance with delight. She made an infusion of the leaves, and drank it as a tonic. The inner bark of the wild black cherry she said was good to cure ague and fever. The root of the bitter-sweet she scraped down and boiled in the deer-fat, or the fat of any other animal, and made an ointment that possessed very healing qualities, ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill

... he mused, I often wanted to see the Mourne mountains. Must be a great tonic in the air down there. But a long threatening comes at last, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... see Appendix B.] (678 ft.), on the River Tech, in the Eastern Pyrenees. A winter resort, with a dry, clear air, tonic and slightly irritant, and a mean temperature during the months of January, February, and March (taken collectively) of 48-1/3 deg. Fahr. The average number of fine days in the year is 210. The baths are naturally ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough

... dogs, already alluded to, seems to have been based chiefly upon their noisiness at night. Charles Reade had a habit of hitting the nail on the head, and never showed it more pithily than when he answered "Ouida's" application for a name for her new pet poodle: "Call it Tonic, for it is sure to be a mixture of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... staff her example acted like a tonic. Her tireless energy, her courage, her enthusiasm, were infectious and stimulating, to the highest degree, and stirred many to action. Such an inspiring force is a valuable asset in a tropical land, where everything tends ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... The tonic of near danger gave him strength, even gave him at first a certain subtlety. From the terrace he could see far over the mountain flanks. As one on a tower he watched for the approach of his enemy from the sea, but he did not neglect his two companions. For he was fighting already. When he seemed ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... still she looked out on the ghastly dilapidated flat facades of Islington, and still she smiled brightly, as if there were some charm in it all. Perhaps for her there was a charm in it all. Perhaps it acted like a tonic on the little devil in her breast. Perhaps if she had seen tufts of snowdrops—it was February—and yew-hedges and cottage windows, she would have broken down. As it was, she just enjoyed it. She enjoyed glimpsing in through uncurtained windows, into sordid rooms where human beings moved as ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... scene was enhanced by the mantle of snow that often garbed it during the winter mouths. To see a city of 40,000 in such uniformity as marked the cantonment construction; with its buildings covered with snow; the large drill fields spread with a blanket of snow; and, a snow storm raging—is a tonic ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman

... along with the tonic and stomachic qualities of a bitter, Centaury frequently proves cathartic; but it is possible that this seldom happens, unless it be taken in very large doses. The use of this, as well as of the other bitters, was formerly ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... It was a tonic as effective as it was necessary. It startled them into remembrance of their circumstances, and under the spur of it they went at once ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... other side of a subject, or of a man, when the spirit of the age is averse to it, and candor is in danger of being looked upon as a time-serving thing. Neither Paul nor James, however, had felt the tonic, bracing effect of good anti-slavery principles, or they would not have written, the one such a letter to a slave-holder, and the other such a back-oar argument against "faith alone." However, I am disposed to think well of Paul and James, notwithstanding these the great errors ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... Independent clergyman, born in Yorkshire; the founder of the Tonic Sol-fa system in music; from 1864 gave himself up to the advocacy and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... pestilence. He is kindly, charitable, sympathetic, and sincere. Exaggeration, insinuation, and caricature are altogether foreign to his spirit. In his society we feel inspired and ennobled. His very presence is a tonic, and his tongue distills only purity. His example is the lodestar of our aspirations, and we fain would be his disciples. We feel him to be something worshipful in that his life constantly beckons to our better selves. To be reverent is to be liberally educated, ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... acknowledge that it was so, even to himself, but tried to banish the thought by indulging more freely in what he considered pleasure. You see—poor, giddy flutterer—he did not like to hear the plain truth spoken; flattery would have pleased him better, yet truth, though sometimes bitter, is a wholesome tonic when taken properly. ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer

... given you a tonic that will clear that notion from your head. Give the train a chance, and don't begin the journey by bucking yourself up with tabloids. Take them along, but hold them in ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... you been doing to yourself?" he exclaimed. "Is the fresh air so wonderful a tonic, or have you been asleep and ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... since the first time I went to the circus, and if there's anything better for the insides than laughing, I've never took it. Seems to me it clears out low-downness and sour spirits better than any tonic you can buy, and for plum wore-outness a good laugh's more resting than sleep. When you're ready to have the hot things brought up, let me know, Miss Dandridge. Martha's down-stairs and everything's ready and just ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher

... sheet of note-paper, glanced at him with a pathetic little smile. Although they had never been anything to each other, these two people had passed through many of the trials to which humanity is heir almost side by side. But neither had ever broken down. Each acted as a sort of mental tonic on the other. They had tacitly agreed, years before, to laugh at most things. She saw, more distinctly than any, the singular emptiness of his clothes, as if the man was shrinking, and she knew that the ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... use—should he have occasion to reply—a darker quality of voice (voix sombre). Such phenomena are physiological. The vocal organs are the most sensitive of any in the human economy: they betray at once the mental condition of the individual. Joy is a great tonic, and acts on the vocal cords and mucous membrane as does an astringent; a brilliant and clear quality of voice is the result. Grief or Fear, on the other hand, being depressing emotions, lower the vitality, and the debilitating influence communicates ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam

... early abroad: in the time of the first chorus of birds, of the pure and quiet air, of the slanting sunlight and the mile-long shadows. To one who had passed a miserable night, the freshness of that hour was tonic and reviving; to steal a march upon his slumbering fellows, to be the Adam of the coming day, composed and fortified his spirits; and the Prince, breathing deep and pausing as he went, walked in the wet fields beside his shadow, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... all of these except the last two; some of the springs being saline, some chalybeate, some sulphur, and nearly all carbonated; and in the list may be found cathartic, alterative, diuretic and tonic waters of varied shade and differing strength. The cathartic waters are the most numerous and the most extensively used. The curative agents prepared in the vast and mysterious laboratories of Nature are very complex in constitution ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn

... from England—she a bride, and quite a new element of youth and beauty for Sarawak. A lady friend and her child and nurse also came on a long visit to us, the air of Sarawak being considered quite a tonic compared to the sea-breeze at Singapore, which was at times visited by a hot wind from Java. Very pleasant days followed our return home. Mrs. Harvey and I, with our children, went for a month to "See-afar" Cottage on the hill of Serambo. I have already mentioned this little house, built ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... been compelled some years earlier to request the Court to sever her marital relations with Vincent Jopp on the ground of calculated and inhuman brutality, in that he had callously refused, in spite of her pleadings, to take old Dr. Bennett's Tonic Swamp-Juice three times a day, her voice, as she spoke, was kind and even anxious. Badly as this man had treated her—and I remember hearing that several of the jury had been unable to restrain their tears when she was in the witness-box giving ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... benefiting I wish you would urge them to try some other springs, for I have it greatly to heart that they should receive all possible advantage from their summer trip. I hope Markie will be benefited by the Red Sweet. The water is considered a great tonic, but I fear none will be warm enough for her but the HOT. If I cannot get over to see her, I will notify her of our departure from here, which will be in about two weeks. I have received a letter from Fitz. Lee, saying ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... lapel of his closely-buttoned-up frock coat, and passed his hand over his cheeks, moustache, and square chin. It felt very hollow there under the cheekbones. He had not been eating much lately—he had better get that little whippersnapper who attended Holly to give him a tonic. But she had come back and when they were in the carriage, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... little to do. It was a typical May night in Virginia, clear and beautiful with an air that would have been a tonic to the nerves, had it not been for the bitter smoke and odors that yet lingered from the battle of ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... may be a carved choir-screen or bench ends, in the other a fireplace or table. The first sight of such things in the places and among the surroundings for which they were designed, is always an eventful moment in the training of a carver, because the element of surprise acts like a tonic to the mind by arousing its emulative instincts. It is by seeing such things in their proper home and associations that the best lessons are learned. One sees in that way, for instance, why the tool marks left by the old carvers on their work look ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack

... a-barkin' This morning on the hill, And taken him his rifle-gun And tonic fer his chill. Menfolks ain't got no larnin' And have no time to fill; Paw spends his days in huntin' Or putterin' ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... never bleed, or leech, or blister, or apply any counter-irritants in cases of inflammation. They give powdered rhinoceros' horns, sun-dried tiger's blood, powdered tiger's liver, spiders' eyes, and many other queer things, and for a tonic and febrifuge, where we should use quinine, they rely mainly on the ginseng (Panax quinquefolia?) of which I saw so much in Japan. They judge much by the pulse and tongue. The mortality in this hospital is very large, not only from the ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... first the wound healed rapidly, for Vic's blood was perfectly pure, the mountain air a tonic which strengthened him, and his food and care of the best. The high-powered rifle bullet whipped cleanly through his shoulder, breaking no bone and tearing no ligament, and the flesh closed swiftly. Even Vic's mind carried no burden to oppress him in care for the future or regret for the past, ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... think of it. She was a sea-child, living inland for the first time, and there came upon her a great yearning for the sight and sound of moving waters. She sniffed the land-breeze, and found it sweet but insipid in her nostrils after the tonic freshness of the sea-air. She heard the voice of her beloved in the sough of the wind among the trees, and it made her inexpressibly melancholy. Her energy began to ebb. She did not care to move about much, but would sit silently sewing by ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... the start at dawn. This done, the British predilection for "letting off steam" resulted in a night of uproarious hilarity, incomprehensible to those ignorant of the conditions which gave it birth, and unable to realise its tonic effect on men who are setting out to face danger, hardship, and possibly ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... continued to drive nails into the impossible hull, knowing full well—poor misguided heroes—that we were only fashioning a death trap! There could be no doubt about it. The free information bureau was unanimous. It was all very pathetic. Nothing but the tonic of an habitual morning swim in the clear cold river kept us game in the ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... brown, trout-abounding rills across open flats that are in reality filled lake basins. These are the displaying grounds of the gentians—blue—blue—eye-blue, perhaps, virtuous and likable flowers. One is not surprised to learn that they have tonic properties. But if your meadow should be outside the forest reserve, and the sheep have been there, you will find little but the shorter, paler G. Newberryii, and in the matted sods of the little tongues of greenness that lick up among the pines along the ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin

... John rode slowly down the hill. Somehow he had missed the usual tonic of his mother's company, and Harry's unexpected expenses troubled him, for it is the petty details of life rather than its great sorrows which fret and irritate the soul. Indeed, to face simple daily duties and trials bravely ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... the Tonic Sol-fa College I carefully tested the breathing capacity of ten students, and found that there was an average excess of midriff and rib breathing over collar-bone breathing to the extent of 25 cubic inches: ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke

... as yet in American literature that shows much advance beyond the merely conventional and scholastic,—little, I mean, in which one gets a whiff of the strong, unbreathed air of mountain or prairie, or a taste of rude, new power that is like the tonic of the sea. Thoreau occupies a niche by himself. Thoreau was not a great personality, yet his writings have a strong characteristic flavor. He is anti-scorbutic, like leeks and onions. He has reference, also, ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... the prevailing cold acts as a universal sedative and tonic, soothing the nervous excitement and sensibility, allaying the activity of the circulation, moderating the functions of the skin, and diminishing ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various

... beautiful woman with a strange rose-scarlet dress, in whose eyes sorrow struggled with mocking laughter, once again assailed him. Who she might be, and what her history, he most emphatically knew not; yet that she breathed a keener and more tonic air than that to which he was habituated, that feelings in her case did not stand for actions, or suppositions for fact, he ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... Musical sound and rhythmic motion. Average child. Frequent blunders. Appeal to intellect. Teacher with strong personality. Experimenting with beginners. Legal protection. Vienna musician. Class instruction. French solfege. English tonic sol-fa. Mrs. John Spencer Curwen. Rev. John Curwen. Time a mental science. Musical perception of the blind. Music in public schools. Phillips Brooks on school song. Compulsory study. Socrates. Mirabeau. Schumann on brilliancy. Unrighteous mammon ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore

... highball which he held in both hands. Across the aisle, an elderly man, who could have been a lawyer or a banker, was smoking a cigar over a glass of port, and beside him sat a plump and slightly too well groomed individual who had a tall colorless drink, probably gin-and-tonic. The fifth man, separated from him by a vacant chair, seemed to be dividing his attention between a book on his lap and the conversation, in which he was taking no part. I sat down beside the sandy-haired ...
— Crossroads of Destiny • Henry Beam Piper

... said. But the sharp tone acted as a tonic, and she settled herself comfortably in her corner and ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... watch it, facing the tonic wind, until with a clearing of his mind, a gasp of joyful recognition, he knew that it was the ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer

... dead," he answered good-naturedly. "Didn't you have to dig an awful long grave for him?" asked the boy; but the man said he reckoned they curled him up some, and smiled as he turned to his lions, who looked as if they needed a tonic. Everybody lingered longest before the monkeys, who seemed to be the only lively creatures in the whole collection; and finally we made our way into the other tent, and perched ourselves on a high seat, from whence ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... action. It is only when a man has time to understand and appreciate the impending catastrophe, and can do absolutely nothing to avert it, that he fully realises the possibility of death. Action of any kind is tonic, and when a man can fight danger with his muscles or his brain, he is roused and excited by the struggle; but when he can do nothing except wait, watch the suspended sword of Damocles, and wonder how soon the stroke will come, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... perhaps not very wisely offered. They must fight, he said, for they could not fly. The enemy was much quicker afoot than they, and there were the Athole men waiting to pounce on all runaways. Such thoughts would hardly furnish the best tonic to a doubtful spirit. Nevertheless the troops answered cheerfully that they would stand by their general to the last; which, adds the brave old fellow ruefully in his despatch, "most of ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... educational and social reform. I cannot but think that the tennis and tramping and skating habits and the bicycle-craze which are so rapidly extending among our dear sisters and daughters in this country are going also; to lead to a sounder and heartier moral tone, which will send its tonic breath ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... primary current had been once established, was not in its natural condition, its return to that condition being declared by the current observed at breaking the circuit. He called this hypothetical state of the wire the electro-tonic state: he afterwards abandoned this hypothesis, but seemed to return to it in after life. The term electro-tonic is also preserved by Professor Du Bois Reymond to express a certain electric condition ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... boyish air about the "Reminiscences" of our great Baritone, CHARLES SANTLEY, which is as a tonic—a tonic sol-fa—to the reader a-weary of the many Reminiscences of these latter days. SANTLEY, who seems to have made his way by stolid pluck, and without very much luck, may be considered as the musical Mark Tapley, ready to look always on the sunny side. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various

... spur of nervous excitement, change of society, influx of ever-fresh objects, which makes London, after all, the best place in the world for hard working; and which makes even a walk along the streets an intellectual tonic. In the soft and luxurious West Country Nature invited him to look at her, and dream; and dream he did, more and more, day by day. He was tired, too—as who would not be?—of the drudgery of writing for his daily bread; ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... shipwreck and dissolution not the absolutely final things. This need of an eternal moral order is one of the deepest needs of our breast. And those poets, like Dante and Wordsworth, who live on the conviction of such an order, owe to that fact the extraordinary tonic and consoling power of their verse. Here then, in these different emotional and practical appeals, in these adjustments of our concrete attitudes of hope and expectation, and all the delicate consequences which their differences entail, lie the real meanings of materialism and spiritualism—not ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... companionship of Godwin Peak; he forsook his studies, and fell into a state of complete idleness which naturally fostered his tendency to find solace in the decanter. With Earwaker, he could not talk as unreservedly as with Peak, but on the other hand there was a tonic influence in the journalist's personality which he recognised as beneficial. Earwaker was steadily making his way in the world, lived a life of dignified independence. What was the secret of these strong, calm natures? Might it not be learnt by ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... returning to her room. He spoke pleasantly enough, asked her how she felt, and showed much concern that she had refused to eat any supper. "You must eat, mademoiselle," he told her. "Have you taken regularly the tonic I prescribed?" She nodded, not considering it necessary to inform him that she had carefully poured it, dose by dose, into the sink. For a moment she thought of asking him what had become of Mr. ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks

... Teynt wine would recommend it for children, to whom a stronger wine is generally distasteful; but Port is generally prescribed as a tonic for adults. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various

... make his statements as firm and unswerving as the horizon-line,—his continuity of thought as marked, yet as unbroken, as yonder soft gradations by which the eye is lured upward from lake to wood, from wood to hill, from hill to heavens,—what more bracing tonic could literary culture demand? As it is, Art misses the parts, yet does not grasp ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... air was ineffably sweet and keen—penetrant, tonic, with moist, racy smells, the smell of the good brown earth, the smell of green things and growing things. The dew was spread over the grass like a veil of silver gossamer, spangled with crystals. The friendly country westward, vineyards and white villas, ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... like, but tonic. This view will suit our mood. For we shall be making and the makers of history will become more real to us. Instead of urging that issues are inevitable, instead of being swamped by problems that are unavoidable, we may stand up and affirm the issues we propose to handle. Perhaps ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... the coating of the stomach, and then drench the animal with the expressed juice of potatoes. A decoction made by boiling the parings of potatoes in a small quantity of water is often used as a wash to kill vermin on cattle. Raw potatoes, fed occasionally and in small quantities, are a good tonic for stock of any kind which is kept principally on hay; but all experiments show that when the potato is used for fattening purposes, the tubers should in some way be cooked, that the animal to which they are fed may derive from them the greatest possible amount of nutriment. Repeated experiments ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot

... streaming past. The fragrance of the woods was less marked than that produced during warm rain, when so many balsamic buds and leaves are steeped like tea; but from the chafing of resiny branches against each other, and the incessant attrition of myriads of needles, the gale was spiced to a very tonic degree. And besides the fragrance from these local sources, there were traces of scents brought from afar. For this wind came first from the sea, rubbing against its fresh, briny waves, then distilled through the redwoods, threading rich ferny ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... subject-matter, the absence of all possibility of a revision in party interests, the probable straightforward honesty of the purpose, act like a tonic to the ordinary student of history. Nowhere can he find more reliable material for his purpose, if only he can understand it. The history he may reconstruct will be that of real men, whose character and circumstances have ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... natural progression of sound consequent upon the division and subdivision of a single string. It ought to be familiar to every student of acoustics. The sound produced by the striking or twanging of a single string (on a monochord) is called the tonic, and also, from its position as the lowest note, the bass. If we divide this string in half, we will obtain a series of vibrations producing a sound the same in character, but, so to speak, doubly high in pitch. This sound is named the octave, because it is the eighth note in our common ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... was the best possible tonic for the depression which had settled upon us. I could not help think what a blessing it was that we had picked up at Los Angeles this competent frontiersman whose strong, brown hands could make or dress ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... pot of gold. I had always loved beautiful things, and here I was in the midst of their creating! Heaven had been kind. The joy of waking in the morning to a day of congenial work, setting forth to labor that was constructing for me a trade of my own, was like a daily tonic. I was very happy, full of ambition. I used to lie awake nights planning how I could make myself able and efficient. I discovered a course I could take evenings in Design and Interior Architecture, and I took advantage ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty

... city-bred, I fancy, in the clean salt air and simple living of our coast—and, surely, for every one, everywhere, a tonic in the performance of good deeds. Hard practice in fair and foul weather worked a vast change in the doctor. Toil and fresh air are eminent physicians. The wonder of salty wind and the hand-to-hand conflict with a northern sea! They gave him health, a clear-eyed, ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan

... it made for Jean Dalziel in the first place?" I asked this, thinking she needed some sort of tonic in ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... major and minor modes: the typical, or representative chords of the dominant seventh, and of the tonic (the two chords into which Schopenhauer says all music can be resolved): a partial dissonance, and a consonance: a chord of suspense, and a chord of satisfaction. In speech the two are vowel, and consonant ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... means of some tonic, some catalytic drug, your rate of metabolism and also your rate of expenditure of energy has been increased six fold. You would eat a meal and in one hour you would be hungry again. Having no timepiece, and assuming that you were in a light-proof room, you would judge that some five hours ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... America and also in some parts of England, a game which is solely determined by chance together with a certain histrionic bluffing on the part of the players, and the stakes were rather high. It was mostly played by the younger gentlemen, who could not do without their nerve-tonic in the evenings, in the monotony of camp life. The older men sat apart at tables, talking and drinking whisky-and-soda, and smoking their short pipes. Amongst them there was also a gentleman in civilian dress. The hospitality with which he was treated ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... then paused and looked again into the sky. The Moon was up, a round, white will-o'-the-wisp in the clear blue afternoon sky. He stared at it and the old feeling of affinity swept over him, stronger than ever. The Moon was, for him, both a goal and a tonic. Sight of its illusive form could always sweep away ...
— The Big Tomorrow • Paul Lohrman



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