"Volatile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... somewhat chastened in spirit. But her volatile nature soon survived the shocks it had received. By the time the Kansas put her ashore at Tilbury, to be clasped in the arms of a timid and tearful aunt, she was ready as ever for the campaign of glory she had mapped out in London ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... variation of the formula with which we are familiar:— "Nature is the incarnation of a thought, and turns to a thought again, as ice becomes water and gas. The world is mind precipitated, and the volatile essence is forever escaping again into the state of ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... and Scotch half-breeds have already done this successfully; but very few of French descent have yet made any real attempt at it." Perry was right. These people had the blood of the nomad and the volatile in their veins. Perry continues, "As farming is the inevitable pursuit of the French half-breeds, all who are friendly to them should agree in urging and encouraging them to remain on their present holdings, ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... bladder or reins{152:1}: The juice decocted with honey and wine, Dr. Needham affirms he has often cur'd the scorbut with. This wine, exquisitely made, is so strong, that the common sort of stone-bottles cannot preserve the spirits, so subtile they are and volatile; and yet it is gentle, and very harmless in operation within the body, and exceedingly sharpens the appetite, being drunk ante pastum: I will present you a receipt, as it was sent me by a fair lady, and have ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... really thought of it all I do not know. I have a kind of suspicion that deep down in his heart every Scot entertains a contempt for the volatile and frivolous English which is only equalled by that of the English for the nation to whom I once heard a Highland minister refer as "the giddy and godless French"; but Robin was not given to the revelation of his private thoughts. He seldom spoke of the Twins to me—he was a discusser ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... alkali is required to soften water for coloured clothes or woollens. It also has a tendency to keep white clothes a good colour. (b) Ammonia.—This also is a mild alkali, but is apt to "yellow" white materials. As it is very volatile, it should not be used unless the washing can be done quickly. (c) Washing soda.—This is a cheap substance and stronger than borax or ammonia. It should be made into a solution before it is used, for fear ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education
... our party was a man of about thirty who wore a Cossack cap over his left ear, and had a Cossack forelock, rounded features, a large nose, a dark moustache, and a retrousse lip. When the volatile young engineering student first brought him to us and said, "Here is another man for you," the newcomer glanced at me through the lashes of his elusive eyes—then plunged his hands into the pockets of his Turkish overalls. Just as we were departing, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... tree as we pass along. When he, too, is heavy, his failure arises simply from his attempting to assume the style of his contemporaries. He is not made for their harness, however it may be plated and embroidered. He cannot move in their stately and measured pace. His genius is volatile and vivid; he moves by bounds: and his display is always the most effective when, abandoning the beaten tracks of authorship, he speeds his light way across the field, and exhibits at once the agility of his powers and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... In traveling through this country, the olfactory nerves are frequently excited by a strong disagreeable odor. This is caused by a large jet-black ant named "Leshonya". It is nearly an inch in length, and emits a pungent smell when alarmed, in the same manner as the skunk. The scent must be as volatile as ether, for, on irritating the insect with a stick six feet long, the odor ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... fair and delicate she looked in it. In a crowd of girls she would doubtless have been passed over by all but the most observant, but she was not one of a crowd at Sharapura. There were not many girls in that region, or Noel Wyndham's volatile fancy had ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... completely nonplussed by the good lady's offer to come and pray with her, and it must be allowed that Mrs. Whaling's visit of condolence had been productive of far more comfort to Mrs. Turner than was expected,—and in a far different way; for that volatile young matron rushed in upon Mrs. Stannard late in the afternoon, choking with laughter, to describe her sensations in striving to be proper and decorous until the venerable black silk had whisked itself off out of ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... give much instruction or delight, and why most accounts of particular persons are barren and useless. If a life be delayed till interest and envy are at an end, we may hope for impartiality, but must expect little intelligence; for the incidents which give excellence to biography are of a volatile and evanescent kind, such as soon escape the memory, and are transmitted[107] by tradition. We know how few can pourtray a living acquaintance, except by his most prominent and observable particularities, and the grosser features of his mind; and it may be easily imagined how much ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... sides, and are supposed to be established in our common nature. But there is not the same obvious concurrence in any uniform or settled principles which relate to taste. It is even commonly supposed that this delicate and aerial faculty, which seems too volatile to endure even the chains of a definition, cannot be properly tried by any test, nor regulated by any standard. There is so continual a call for the exercise of the reasoning facility; and it is so much strengthened by perpetual contention, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... making himself eminently agreeable to Rosamond, whom he had easily monopolized in a tete-a-tete, since Mrs. Vincy herself sat at the tea-table. She resigned no domestic function to her daughter; and the matron's blooming good-natured face, with the two volatile pink strings floating from her fine throat, and her cheery manners to husband and children, was certainly among the great attractions of the Vincy house—attractions which made it all the easier to fall in love with the daughter. The tinge of unpretentious, inoffensive vulgarity ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... What a mood they're in! Lord Evelyn looked at me to destroy me—and Lucy crying as if she'd never stop; I tried to make her take some sal volatile, but he wouldn't let her, but wisked her into her carriage and shut the door in my ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... Lizards make good paper-weights, and wide-mouthed frogs are converted into small jugs with perfect ease. There is evidently a peculiar charm possessed by the grotesque, which appeals to, and is gladly accepted by, our volatile neighbours. We are ashamed to laugh at a child-like absurdity, and take it to our hearts with the thorough delight which they do not scruple to display. In this we more resemble the Germans, and, like them, we have a sombre element even ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... worthy of observation, that of the four organic elements, carbon only is fixed, and the other three are gases; and likewise, when any two of them unite, their compound is either a gaseous or a volatile substance. The charring of organic substances, which is one of their most characteristic properties, and constantly made use of by chemists as a distinctive reaction, is due to this peculiarity; for when they are heated, a simpler arrangement of their ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... medium a magnetic lady with whom I had frequently sat before, though not for the "Higher" teachings. Her instruction had so far come in the shape of very vigorous raps, which ruined my knuckles to imitate them, and in levitation of a small and volatile chess table, which resisted all my efforts to keep it to the paths of propriety. This lady was not young; and I confess frankly this was, to my thinking, an advantage. When I once told a sceptical friend about Miss Florence Cook's seance, and added, triumphantly, ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... it cool, restful, and, in spite of the dust, absolutely clean, and, but for the scent of heliotrope, entirely inodorous. The dry air seemed to dissipate all noxious emanations and decay—the very dust itself in its fine impalpability was volatile with a spicelike piquancy, and ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... might even affect the happiness of the newly-married pair; but John did not wish to hint at these graver views of the subject; he was afraid to give them too much importance, and he confidently reckoned on Valentine's volatile disposition to stand his friend, and soon enable him to get over his attachment. All that seemed wanting was some degree ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... however, took very little part in the life of the house and left college at the end of the year. Katherine Kittredge, "of Kankakee," was the fly- away of the group, Rachel Morrison its steadiest, strongest member. Shy, sensitive Roberta Lewis found her complement in a volatile little sophomore, the only one in the house, named Mary Brooks. Mary had a talent for practical jokes and original methods of entertainment, and supplied much of the fun and frolic at the Chapin house. It was she who put ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... more idea of the reason of his fear than I had of the name of the man in the moon. My occupation was more reminiscent of revolutionary South America than of a civilised country, and the thought of it set me wondering whether Bryce had ever lived amongst the volatile Latins on the other side of the Pacific. Come to think of it the one man I had seen closely had been a dark type. It was just barely possible that Bryce had somehow tangled himself in something of the kind. But then that cipher business—I was fully convinced by now that it was some original kind ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... insisted, stubbornly, that Martha was a good name for a girl. Martha herself fixed all that by the simple process of signing herself Marcia in her twelfth year and forever after. Marcia was a throw-back to her grandmother Winter—quick-tongued, restless, volatile. The boy was an admirable mixture of the best qualities of his father and mother; slow-going, like Hermie Slocum, but arriving surely at his goal, like his mother. With something of her driving force mixed with ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... command and obedience. The subordination, regularity, silence, and serious deportment so remarkable on this ship, formed a system of social order rigid and free, in contrast with the city of Naples, so volatile, so passionate, and tumultuous. Oswald was occupied with Corinne and the impressions she received; but his attention was sometimes diverted from her by the pleasure he felt in finding himself in his native country. And indeed ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... to the Teuton, and its lighter portions, especially its poetry and romance, can be definitely traced in great measure to known Celtic elements. While the Teutonic blood differentiates our somewhat slow and steady character from the more logical but volatile and unstable Gaul, the Celtic blood differentiates it from the far slower, heavier, and less quick or less imaginative Teutons of Germany ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... pleased him greatly, while Cleta, the volatile, clapped her hands with delight. While Antonio prepared to go to his neighbour's after the saddle I went out to a solitary thorn-tree about fifty yards from the rancho, and, spreading my poncho in the shade, lay ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... are still those species which are unable to eat anything but flesh, if such there are, which I very much doubt.] Milk, although manufactured in the body of an animal, is a vegetable substance; this is shown by analysis; it readily turns acid, and far from showing traces of any volatile alkali like animal matter, it gives a ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... are a pungent odour, very much resembling that of bitter-almonds, with a hot but sweetish taste, and extremely volatile. It contains azote, with which no other vegetable acid is combined; it is largely used in the manufacture of Prussian blue. It is the most violent of all poisons, and destroys animals by being applied to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... never ben communicated to an individual from one infected by means of the perspirable matter; this, therefore, is a proof that the contagious part of the disease is not of a volatile nature. ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... laughter at his weaknesses, were alike just and genuine. He paints his character in wonderful pleasant traits of jocular satire. "I writ lately to Mr. Pope," Swift says, writing to Gay; "I wish you had a little villakin in his neighbourhood; but you are yet too volatile, and any lady with a coach and six horses would carry you to Japan." "If your ramble," says Swift, in another letter, "was on horseback, I am glad of it, on account of your health; but I know your ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... vitreous ether, and its upper surface with resinous ether. Beneath this pair of plates lay a cloth moistened with water, or with some better conductor, as salt and water, or a slight acid mixed with water, or volatile alcali of ammoniac mixed with water, and this vitreous electric ether on the lower surface of the zinc plate will be given to the second silver plate which lies beneath it; and thus this second silver plate will possess not only its own natural vitreous atmosphere, which was denser or in greater ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... as of separation, which a savage dreamer or seer would feel after a dream or vision in which he visited remote places, would satisfy him that his soul, at least, was volatile. But some experience of what he would take to be visits from the spirits of others, would be needed before he recognised that other men, as well as he, had the faculty of sending their ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... it? Ah! What's that game at forfeits? I love my love with an E, because she's enticing; I hate her with an E, because she's engaged. I took her to the sign of the exquisite, and treated her with an elopement, her name's Emily, and she lives in the east? Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Copperfield, ain't I volatile?' ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... correspondence with Rosa took on such a nature that his volatile, impulsive nature was stirred with a desire to see her again. It was not often that once out of sight he looked back to a victim, but Rosa had shown a daring and a spirit in her letters that sent a challenge to his sated senses. Moreover, the California heiress was going on a journey; besides, ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... aver, to see how little the place had changed, for it seemed that we had passed round the curves and contours of a good many centuries in those four or five years. In the open meadow the cow was still grazing; perhaps the same cow that was once pestered by a volatile Irish terrier who used to swing merrily at the end of that cow's tail; a merry and irresponsible little creature, she was, and her phantom still scampers the road where the sharp scream of the Freeport trolley brings back her last fatal venture ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... his head in his hands; then suddenly, he broke out into another paroxysm. "The feminine nature always the same, always, always; infinitely charming and infinitely volatile. Delicious, and oh ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... from the greater personage, his light-foot, volatile, graceful minister takes Alberich in hand and practising confidently upon his intoxicated conceit of power, his pride in the cleverness which had contrived ring and wishing-cap, uses him like a puppet of which all the strings should ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... to understand the nature of the Frenchman, volatile, moody, chivalrous, unreasonable, the slave of ideas, the victim of sentiment. Not understanding, when he began to see that he could not attain the object of his visit, which was to secure some relics of the late Seigneur's household, he chose to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... shoulders. Sigurd's death had shocked him considerably by its suddenness, but he was too much of a volatile Frenchman to be morbidly anxious about ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... drawing a fanciful picture? Not at all. I know it is so with many, I do not say all, but with many. They disregard evil thoughts because they are such trifling things—like flies, so easily brushed away; like flies, so light and volatile; like flies, so little. And yet they utterly degrade and corrupt the heart. "The land was corrupted by reason of ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... Glasgow, too, in 1759, he published his Theory of Moral Sentiments, written with sufficient power of style to obscure its inner poverty of thought. The book brought him immediately a distinguished reputation from a public which exalted elegance of diction beyond all literary virtues. The volatile Charles Townshend made him tutor to the Duke of Buccleuch, through whom Smith not only secured comparative affluence for the rest of his days, but also a French tour in which he met at its best the most brilliant society in Europe. The ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... say Jack Robinson; a saying to express a very short time, originating from a very volatile gentleman of that appellation, who would call on his neighbours, and be gone before his name could ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... days allowed her for preparation Kitty continued charmed with Hayden's idea of a butterfly dinner. It suited her volatile fancy. Her enthusiasm remained at high pitch, and she exerted herself to the utmost in behalf of her favorite cousin. As a consequence, although she made a pretense of consulting Hayden about the various arrangements, the final results ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... rig up a coiled bi-metallic strip. You're trying to boil off your various fractions, and unless you keep an even and controlled temperature you are going to have a mixed brew. The thing you want for your engines are the most volatile fractions, the liquids that boil off first like gasoline and benzene. After that you raise the temperature and collect kerosene for your lamps and so forth right on down the line until you ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... fear, that I met Aunt Carola in that unfitting spirit, that volatile mood, which, as I have said already, her remarks often ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... heard Uncle Brian calling loudly to some one to open the windows. Jill was hysterical as soon as she reached her room. She was quite unnerved, and clung to me, shaking with sobs, while Miss Gillespie mixed some sal-volatile. I could not help crying a little with her from joy and thankfulness; but we got her quiet after a time, and took off the poor gown, and Jill showed us her bruises, and cheered up when we told her how brave and quiet she had ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... M., aged 24, shows physical stigmata of degeneration. The heredity is also bad; the father is a man of reckless and irregular conduct; the mother was at one time in a lunatic asylum. The patient was brought up in an orphanage, and was a troublesome, volatile child; she treated household occupations with contempt, but was fond of study. Even at an early age her lively imagination attracted attention, and the pleasure which she took in building castles in the air. From the age of seven to ten she masturbated. At ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... over Juarez's face, but he said nothing. All the stolid Indian in his nature came to the surface. He merely grunted contemptuously at the Mexican's remark and this made the volatile Manuel uneasy in his turn, for he wanted to realize that his malice had struck home, but Juarez did not give him that satisfaction. There was a sort of hidden duel between these two, the subtle Mexican ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... solitary little diamond, as he laid down his hand, was greeted by a loud hiccough from the old salt, and the QUEEN herself was only saved from swooning by the timely administrations of a page with a flask of sal- volatile. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... lost. Annie felt it and stiffened, and the moment had gone never to come back. In after years, when Annie had magnified it to herself and him, accusing him of throwing her love back in her face when she had offered it, he was wont to reproach himself bitterly. But Annie was so volatile in emotion, except where Archelaus was concerned, that her new flow would, in all likelihood, not have held its course for more than a few weeks at the best. Ishmael knew this, but Annie, by dint of telling herself the ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... local application of dilute alkalies such as ammonia water, solutions of carbonate or bicarbonate of soda, or sal-volatile. Weak carbolic lotions, or lead and opium lotion, are useful in allaying the local irritation. One of the best means of neutralising the poison is to apply to the sting a drop of a mixture containing equal parts of pure carbolic acid and ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... for a while, the first and last product of its distillation is simple water; while, when the altered fluid is subjected to the same process, the matter which is first condensed in the receiver is found to be a clear, volatile substance, which is lighter than water, has a pungent taste and smell, possesses the intoxicating powers of the fluid in an eminent degree, and takes fire the moment it is brought in contact with a flame. The alchemists called this volatile liquid, which they obtained ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... like his friend's allusions, though they were much too subtle for his ready comprehension, for the intellect of the Swiss was a little frosted by constant residence among snows and in full view of glaciers, and it wanted the volatile play of the Genoese's fancy, which was apt to expand like air rarefied by the warmth of the sun. This difference of temperament, however, so far from lessening their mutual kindness, was, most probably, the real cause of its existence, since it is well known that friendship, like love, is more ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... other hand, there are the relatively volatile substances, such as phosgene, which can be used immediately before an attack. The chief sternutatory compound, diphenylchlorarsine, although not volatile, could also be used in this way, for, being a solid and in a very ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... me. She was very erratic, and before she left the room she had quite got over her depression. The sun shone out, and with the gleam of brightness her volatile spirits rose. ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... carry out a purpose that might further her own personal interests; but not the will to endure sacrifice for the sake of another. Her sister was larger and possessed a reserve that might have been mistaken for deepness. He felt that she was hardly in sympathy with the motives of the younger, more volatile woman. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... younger men of letters actively concerned with the present condition of literary criticism. This is a novel preoccupation for them and one which is, we believe, symptomatic of a general hesitancy and expectation. In the world of letters everything is a little up in the air, volatile and uncrystallised. It is a world of rejections and velleities; in spite of outward similarities, a strangely different world from that of half a dozen years ago. Then one had a tolerable certainty ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... Dark-haired, sharp-eyed, spectacled; diminutive, warm-blooded, he is about the most animated priest we know of. He has English and Italian blood in his veins, and that vascular mixture works him up beautifully. No man could stand such an amalgam without being determined, volatile, practical, and at times dreamy; and you have all these qualities developed in Father Papall. He is 40 years of age, and has seen more foreign life than many priests. He has been in Italy, where he resided for years, in Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, America, &c.; and he has been at ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... cause of the shortage, the tins of oil at the depot had been exposed to extreme conditions of heat and cold. The oil was specially volatile, and in the warmth of the sun (for the tins were regularly set in an accessible place on the top of the cairns) tended to become vapour and escape through the stoppers even without damage to the tins. This process was much ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... of English coal, this had more volatile matter than six. Of American coals, it had more of the burning principle than any, except one. The quality of this coal is unquestionably good, and its distance from Mackinaw is no objection, since access can be obtained both ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... indeed, the only part ever occupied by persons of rank. The situation of their majesties could be distinguished by the white umbrellas, which are the appropriate marks of royalty. The king, whose habits are volatile and restless, often walked up and down, and was easily known from the crowd of his courtiers by his being the only person in an erect position; the multitude sitting, crouching, or crawling all round him. Near the king's barge were a number of gold boats; and the side of the river, in this ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... inducing so volatile a people to persevere in so steady a system of conduct as that which you had laid down—a system attended with much inconvenience and loss to particulars, while it presented but little to strike ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... hostile to what he is so anxious to prove. The cardinal element of character is the speed at which its energies move; its rapidity or its steadiness, concentration or volatility; whether the thought and feeling travel as quickly as light or as slowly as sound. A rapid and volatile constitution like that of Madame de Warens is inconsistent with ardent and glowing warmth, which belongs to the other sort, but it is essentially bound up with sensibility, or readiness of sympathetic answer to every cry ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... have no more of this," said Dr. May, seeing that the discussion was injuring Margaret more and more. "Go away to my study, sir, and wait till I come to you. All of you out of the room. Flora, fetch the sal volatile." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... disgusted at the appearance, language, and manner of Mary Almira, and he was borne out in his impression of her character by the admission of one brother that she was "a giddy, inconsistent, unprincipled girl," and by that of another that "she was a volatile coquette, who did not know her own ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... sisters at their tasks, naturally and uncomplainingly, and he could never understand why all women should not feel in the same way. Then he was fond of solitude, and looked upon a visitor as an emissary of the devil; and he failed to see that a gay, pleasure-loving, volatile, sparkling girl could not share his feelings. So he shut her up remorselessly,—never dreaming that he was cruel. That she was fond of admiration was nothing to him, though he was fond of it himself in his own grim way; he was the central figure of this household, and ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... itself,) and ultimately leave a cement. When the rootlets were torn from the glass, atoms of yellowish matter were left on it, which were partly dissolved by a drop of bisulphide of carbon; and this extremely volatile fluid was rendered very much less volatile by what ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... to its air and water, has applied a vast amount of solar energy to geological work in the development and redevelopment of its geological features and to the processes of organic life. We thus see the fundamental importance of the volatile envelopes of our sphere, how absolutely ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... scandalous talk, was made to believe that his royal messenger and half-brother, Fadrique, had played the role of Sir Tristram as he brought the lady back, and that she had been a somewhat willing Isolde. There were others who said that Blanche, knowing the king's volatile disposition and of his relations with the notorious Maria, had endeavored upon the eve of her marriage to seek aid from the arts of magic in her effort to win the love of her husband, and had obtained from a Jewish sorcerer a belt which she was told would make Pedro faithful, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... the only true kindness, and left her, after all attempts at bathing her forehead, or giving her sal volatile, proved only to molest her. She lay on her bed, not able to think, and feeling nothing but the pain of her headache and a general ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from want or desires. No cruel enemy to dread; nothing to give them disquietude but the gradual encroachments of the white people. Thus contented and undisturbed, they appear as blithe and free as the birds of the air, and like them as volatile and active, tuneful and vociferous. The visage, action, and deportment of the Seminoles form the most striking picture of happiness in this life; joy, contentment, love, and friendship, without guile or affectation, seem inherent in them, or predominant in their vital ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... was oral, the volatile Mitchell made use of his voice in a manner of heathenish boisterousness, and presently reclined upon a lounge to laugh the better. His stricken comrade, meanwhile, recovered so far as to pace the floor. "I'm ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... eyed her sharply. Of what was she thinking? In those calm unwavering eyes of hers he saw a question, and he feared in his soul she might voice it. He could evade the questions of the volatile Winnie, but there was no getting by Kathlyn with evasions. Frowning, he replaced the order in the box, which he put away in a drawer. It was all arrant nonsense, anyhow; nothing could possibly happen; if there did, he would feel certain that he no longer dwelt in a real workaday world. ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... to blows. Stuart tucked Douglas' head under his arm and carried him around the square; meanwhile Douglas bit Stuart's thumb almost in two. As a debater and campaigner Douglas was his superior. He made friends by the hundreds everywhere. He went down among the gay and volatile Irishmen who were digging the Illinois and Michigan canal, and won them to his cause. I was with him, watching his methods, marveling at his physical resources, his exhaustless oratory, the aptness ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... yet in truth it is but one, to wit, Argent-vive. But of this Argent-vive a certain part is fixed and digested, Masculine, hot, dry and secretly informing. But the other, which is the Female, is volatile, crude, cold, and moyst."(2b) EDWARD KELLY (1555-1595), who is valuable because he summarises authoritative opinion, says somewhat the same thing, though in clearer words: "The active elements... these ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... to: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants, Air Pollution-Sulfur 85, Air Pollution-Sulphur 94, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the maid. "Go to my room, and bring me another bonnet and a veil. Stop!" She tried to rise, and sank back. "I must have something to strengthen me. Get the sal volatile." ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... state of mind did not last very long with the volatile youth; for, truth to say, the sudden dereliction of mortality on the part of his quarrelsome old father, did not come altogether amiss to him. What hindered him now from wedding the girl of his heart, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... Le Grande possessed in an eminent degree the peculiarities of his gay, volatile ancestry. Proud of his children, and ambitious for their future, in his lavish bounty he withheld nothing he deemed necessary for their advancement ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... in Dublin: here, by the progress he made in his studies, he acquired a considerable reputation[1], but it does not appear, that he there took his degree of bachelor of arts; for his disposition being volatile and giddy, he soon grew weary of a dull collegiate life; and his own opinion of it, in that sense, he afterwards freely enough displayed in several parts of his comedies, and other writings. Besides, the expence of it, without any immediate prospect of returns, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... the trail but they scanned it shrewdly with an eye for possible traps or pitfalls. They moved as noiselessly as shadows, and poured in and out among the scrub like liquid vegetation of some sort; a part of their environment, but volatile. When the three dingoes from the hills reached the edge of the clear patch in which the gunyah stood, they saw the almost black, smouldering remains of a camp-fire, and, stretched within a couple of yards of the ashes, Finn. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... Machines.—Take of deities, male and female, as many as you can use. Separate them into two equal parts, and keep Jupiter in the middle. Let Juno put him in a ferment, and Venus mollify him. Remember on all occasions to make use of volatile Mercury. If you have need of devils, draw them out of Milton's Paradise, and extract your spirits from Tasso. The use of these machines is evident; for since no epic poem can possibly subsist without them, the wisest way is to reserve them for your greatest necessities. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... lightly, and who had an eye for a pretty girl, and knew the language of flattery, was welcome everywhere in Hawkeye. Even Miss Laura Hawkins thought it worth while to use her fascinations upon him, and to endeavor to entangle the volatile fellow in the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... vain. For, sooner than expected, the volatile fluid— or whatever it may be—passes out of their veins, and their nervous strength returns; even Ludwig saying he is himself again, though he ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... time in the society of the volatile Dorothy. His heart was full of love, but his head was overloaded with affairs of state, and the pain in his arm filled the air with "phantoms" in black that blotted out the sweeter picture of a teasing "fairy" in white. The admiral, never so happy as when on the water, went back ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... steady nor consistent in the nice process of fixing his volatile opinions and those of his subjects. In his youth he was, offended by the slightest deviation from the orthodox line; in his old age he transgressed the measure of temperate heresy, and the Jacobites, not less than the Catholics, were scandalized by his declaration, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... young prince is a gallant man; he is indeed volatile, but always with great good-nature. There were two balls during his stay, and some of the old ladies were mortified that H. R. H. would not dance with them; but he says he is determined to enjoy the privilege of all other men, that of asking any ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... of Hengist and Horsa English history really begins, for Caesar's capture of the British Isles was of slight importance viewed in the light of fast-receding centuries. There is little to-day in the English character to remind one of Caesar, who was a volatile and epileptic emperor with massive ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... warm friends. Winifred saw beneath a light exterior a quantity of good, sound sense and a warm heart. She was a frequent guest at their house. Mrs. Gray liked her, though deploring her occasional indulgence in slang. Mr. Gray enjoyed her racy conversation, and Hubert professed a dislike of her volatile qualities. This last fact grieved Winifred, who liked her friend to ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... Thespian glare are one or two streets where a Spanish-American colony has huddled for a little tropical warmth in the nipping North. The centre of life in this precinct is "El Refugio," a cafe and restaurant that caters to the volatile exiles from the South. Up from Chili, Bolivia, Colombia, the rolling republics of Central America and the ireful islands of the Western Indies flit the cloaked and sombreroed senores, who are scattered like burning lava by the political eruptions of their several ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... appears in the paragraph. In such a case it is easily discovered; or at times it is too fragile to be compressed into any definite shape—a feeling, or a sentiment too delicate, too volatile for expression. A paragraph with no topic-sentence is most ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... common with philosophers as with other men. Aristotle had nothing of the austerity of the philosopher, though his works are so austere: he was open, pleasant, and even charming in his conversation; fiery and volatile in his pleasures; magnificent in his dress. He is described as fierce, disdainful, and sarcastic. He joined to a taste for profound erudition, that of an elegant dissipation. His passion for luxury occasioned him such expenses when he was young, that he consumed all his property. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... States during the war is likely to be in part continued in the future, although the great bulk of the United States production will in the future, as in the past, be absorbed locally. Most of the coal in the United States available for export is higher in volatile matter than the British and German export coal. This quality will in some degree be a limiting factor in exportation. On the other hand, it may result in wider introduction of briquetting, coking, and other processes, ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... though now in their decadence, have played an immense and still play a not wholly insignificant part in the complex drama of Asiatic politics. It is the picture of a people, light-hearted, nimble-witted, and volatile, but subtle, hypocritical, and insincere; metaphysicians and casuists, courtiers and rogues, gentlemen and liars, hommes d'esprit and yet incurable cowards. To explain the history and to elucidate the character of this composite people great tomes have been ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... water. It may be made by boiling one pound of good tobacco stems in two gallons of water for one-half-hour. Objections to it are that it evaporates very quickly, although it is supposed to be non-volatile, and that it is expensive, but it is very convenient to use, can be readily mixed with other summer sprays, and is very effective against ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... goes for steam purposes. Another part goes to the by-product coke ovens which we have established at the River Rouge plant. Coke moves on from the ovens by mechanical transmission to the blast furnaces. The low volatile gases from the blast furnaces are piped to the power plant boilers where they are joined by the sawdust and the shavings from the body plant—the making of all our bodies has been shifted to this plant—and ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... wildness. And in spirit they were what they seemed: such a wild, joyous, frolicsome spirit with such grace and fleetness one does not look for in human beings, but only in birds or in some small bird-like volatile mammal—a squirrel or a marmoset of the tropical forest, or the chinchilla of the desolate mountain slopes, the swiftest, wildest, loveliest, most airy and most vocal of small beasties. Occasionally to watch their wonderful motions more closely ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... instance that much less of what may be called artificial manures are required during growth. But without some skill in this matter it is not safe, for if much of the material is not thoroughly decayed (which, however, has then lost most of its volatile ingredients) it is, in the common vernacular of the gardener, too rank to give good growth and results, whether it be in fruits, flowers, or foliage. For example, in Henderson's horticulture he recommends, as the best soil for potting, loam and hops. He says, "Not the least simple of these ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... this concern is accurate as far as pesticide residues being translocated into the seed. However, the chemical process used to extract cottonseed oil is very efficient The ground seeds are mixed with a volatile solvent similar to ether and heated under pressure in giant retorts. I reason that when the solvent is squeezed from the seed, it takes with it all not only the oil, but, I believe, virtually all of the pesticide residues. Besides, ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... life that he has the respect and confidence of everybody. What if he can't preach? He can practice. However, I am willing to admit that the dear old man would be more edifying if he would study his lesson a little. Wasn't it funny to think of calling that 'teaching?'" And then this volatile young lady laughed. But her moralizing had ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... he administered a little sal volatile and nux vomica to the swooning patient; while Hilda set about remedying the damage. "That's better," Sebastian said, in a mollified tone, when she had brought another basin. There was a singular note of cloaked triumph in his voice. "Now, we'll begin again.... ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... suggested and verified by laborious experience and vigilant attention. In some cases the pure silver is separated by mechanical means; in others the ore is roasted, in order to throw off the sulphur, arsenic, and other volatile matters, which are separately collected and form no inconsiderable portion of the valuable produce of the mine. These roastings again are smelted with a variety of fluxes, and in different states of purification, until they are ready ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... water; I poured this solution into a bottle and closed it tightly. After 14 days the yellow colour had disappeared, and of 20 parts of air 4 parts had been lost. The solution contained no sulphur, but had allowed a precipitate to fall which was chiefly gypsum. (b.) Volatile liver of sulphur likewise diminishes the bulk of air. (c.) Sulphur, however, and volatile spirit of sulphur, undergo ...
— Discovery of Oxygen, Part 2 • Carl Wilhelm Scheele
... remained in the master's studio considerably longer than his more volatile companions, who had gladly availed themselves of the excuse which the dusk of evening afforded, to withdraw from their several tasks, in order to finish a day of labour in the jollity and ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... forth, to regale themselves withal, not forgetting punch and sangaree—quite forgetful, poor mercurial wretches, for the time being of Fetters and the Scourge and the Driver that would hurry them to their dire labour the morrow morn. Surely there never did exist so volatile, light-spirited, feather-brained a race as these same Negro Blacks. They will whistle and crack nuts, ay and dance and sing to the music of the Fiddle or the Banjar an hour after the skin has been half ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... of exile, the once gay, volatile Miss Milner lay dying with but one request to make—that her daughter should not suffer for her sin. Sandford was with her; by all the influence he ever had over Lord Elmwood, by his prayers, by his tears, he promised to implore him to own his child. She could only smile her thanks, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... approve of Chris, or indeed of any of the family, including her own brother, who was its head. She had not approved of his gay young wife, Irish and volatile, who had died at the birth of little Noel. She doubted the stability of each one of them in turn, and plainly told her brother that he must attend to the launching of his children for himself. She was ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... everything in haste, had in his seventeenth year eloped with Martha, daughter of Major-General Richard Holmes, and married her in the Fleet on March 2, 1715. As was only to be expected from a person so volatile he from the beginning neglected his wife; but, as is put quaintly in that unreliable work, Memoirs of a Certain Island adjacent to the Kingdom of Utopia, which was concocted by Mrs. Eliza Haywood, "after some years of continu'd extravagance, ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... deceased neighbor who was over-thrifty, 'he always saved his salt and lost his pork.' 'Yes,' replied a friend, 'and now the salt has lost its Saver.' The reader has doubtless heard of the lively young lady, named Sarah, whom her friends rechristened Sal Volatile. Apropos—a New Haven friend writes ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... tea, they infuse it slightly, and extract only the more volatile parts; but though this seems to require great quantities at a time, yet the author believes, perhaps, only because he has an inclination to believe it, that the English and Dutch use more than all ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... principal nobles, and harangued the populace. He set forth the necessity of complying with the capitulation, from the famine that reigned in the city, the futility of defence, and from the hostages having already been delivered into the hands of the besiegers. The volatile population agreed to adhere to the capitulation, and there was even a faint shout of "Long live Boabdil the unfortunate!" and they all returned to their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... like Lord Cornbury's refusing his pension, but I demur at his being elected for Oxford; which, I conceive, is wholly changed; and entirely devoted to new principles; so it appeared to me the two last times I was there. I find by the whole cast of your letter, that you are as giddy and as volatile as ever: just the reverse of Mr. Pope, who has always loved a domestic life from his youth. I was going to wish you had some little place that you could call your own, but, I profess I do not know you well enough to contrive ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... honoured guest at the houses of the citoyens Saint-Pierre and Florian. Not that, as an obedient daughter should, she held her father's consent to be an indispensable preliminary to her settlement in life. The latter, early left a widower, and a man of a self-indulgent, volatile temper, as enterprising with women as he was in business, had never paid much heed to her and had left her to develop at her own sweet will, untrammelled whether by parental advice or parental affection, more careful to ignore than to ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... prospered exceedingly, and Mr. Beale had grown knowing in thoroughbreeds and the prize bench, had learned all about distemper and doggy fits, and when you should give an ailing dog sal-volatile and when you should merely give it less to eat. And the money in the bank grew till it, so to speak, burst the bank-book, and had to be allowed to overflow into a vast ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... its developement, as well as the energy of matter, may be seen everywhere; more particularly in those unitions in which fire, air, and water, find themselves combined. These elements, or rather these mixed bodies, are the most volatile, the most fugitive of beings; nevertheless in the hands of Nature, they are the essential agents employed to produce the most striking phenomena. To these we must ascribe the effects of thunder, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... to stage rehearsals. It may be mentioned that, once the run of a piece had begun, he was sufficiently volatile, and in private life he was almost excessively so—a fact which had been noted at an early date by the keen-eyed authorities of his University, the discovery leading to his tearing himself away from Alma Mater by request with some suddenness. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Tricopherous was essential to her well-being: indeed, she often said she would rather give up coffee than Tricopherous, for her hair was black and wiry and curly, and caps she abhorred, so that of a winter's day her head presented the most irrelevant and volatile aspect, each particular hair taking a twist on its own responsibility, and improvising a wild halo about her unsaintly face, unless subdued into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... notions derived from the ancients, he depended upon bleeding and purging, at the commencement of the attack, for the purpose of purification; ordered the healthy to wash themselves frequently with vinegar or wine, to sprinkle their dwellings with vinegar, and to smell often to camphor, or other volatile substances. Hereupon he gave, after the Arabian fashion, detailed rules, with an abundance of different medicines, of whose healing powers wonderful things were believed. He had little stress upon super-lunar influences, so far as respected the malady itself; on which account, he did not enter ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... known as the beautiful Princess Pauline Borghese, a lady with an infinity of admirers, was far more subtle in her methods. Her presents to Lady Nugent took the irresistible form of dresses of the latest Parisian fashion, and were eagerly accepted by that volatile little lady. Indeed, for ten months she seems to have been entirely dressed by Madame Le Clerc, who even provided little George Nugent's christening robe of white muslin, heavily embroidered in gold. Ladies may be interested ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... the veteran English comedian, came over to act at Mr. Daly's. His was a graceful, polished, volatile style of acting, and he had a high opinion of his power as a maker of fun; so that he was considerably annoyed one night when he discovered that one of his auditors would not laugh. Laugh? would not even smile at ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... biography from thirty years of "Moniteurs," the author of Waverley, like Lord Chesterfield's diamond pencil, produced one miracle of dulness; it might well be feared that Kinglake's volatile pen, when linked with forceful feeling and bound to rigid task-work, might lose the charm of casual epigram, easy luxuriance, playful egotism, vagrant allusion, which established "Eothen" as a classic. On the other hand, he had been for twenty years conversant with Eastern history, ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... means the partage of the French—bating the 'etourderie of the mousquetaires and of a high-dried petit-maitre or two, they appear to me more lifeless than Germans. I cannot comprehend how they came by the character of a lively people. Charles Townshend has more sal volatile in him than the whole nation. Their King is taciturnity itself, Mirepoix was a walking mummy, Nivernois his about as much life as a sick favourite child, and M. Dusson is a good-humoured country gentleman, who has been drunk the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... has long since subsided, and much of what was then seething has gone off in vapor or other volatile products. But some very solid matters have also been precipitated, some crystals of poetry translucent, symmetrical, enduring. The immediate practical outcome was disappointing, and the external history of the agitation is a record of failed experiments, spurious sciences, Utopian philosophies, ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... the near future. The greatest illuminating effect from a given bulk of gas is obtained by mixing it with the requisite proportion of oxygen, and holding in the flame of the burning mixture a piece of some solid infusible and non-volatile substance, such as lime. This becomes heated to whiteness, and emits an intense light know as the Drummond light, used already for special purposes of illumination. By supplying oxygen in pipes laid by the side of the ordinary gas mains, it would be possible to fix ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... in manner of growth to the preceding, is another importation from Europe now thoroughly at home here in wet soil. The volatile oil obtained by distilling its leaves has long been an important item of trade in Wayne County, New York. One has only to crush the leaves in one's hand to ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... gains the moiety of a fortune by marrying the young, gay Miranda, but cannot rest without securing to himself the portion of the elder sister as well. Althea's thoughtful and less volatile nature has hitherto resisted the assaults of love, but her insidious brother-in-law undermines her virtue by giving her wanton books and tempting her with soft speeches until she yields to his wishes. ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... learn, for example, that a blonde is more volatile, more fond of change and variety, more inclined to pioneering and government, than the brunette, you have learned an important law. When you study carefully the history of the evolution of the blonde and brunette races, you know why the law is as it is. But when you have gone out and observed several ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... and odoriferous shrubs were planted along the margin, regaling the sense of the traveller with their perfumes, and refreshing him by their shades, so grateful under the burning sky of the tropics. In the strips of sandy waste, which occasionally intervened, where the light and volatile soil was incapable of sustaining a road, huge piles, many of them to be seen at this day, were driven into the ground to indicate the route to the traveller. ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... old coiffeur came out from town today. He is French and by far the most volatile person about the news of the moment that I have seen. It is like a play to hear him declaim on the situation, but, poor man, having endured the Siege of Paris for six months in 1870, he doubtless has recollections. And he makes the most of them as well as of his dramatic ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... village beauty and coquette, promised to Marcel, a young soldier, but attached to Pascal, a peasant, whose poverty and pride prevent his declaring the passion he feels for the volatile ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... returned to their council, and the boy who would not answer was quickly forgotten. Long they debated the morrow. Several have left accounts of what occurred. Johnston, although he had laid the remarkable ambush, and was expecting victory, was grave, even gloomy. But Beauregard, volatile and sanguine, rejoiced. For him the triumph was won already. After their great achievement in placing their army, unseen and unknown, within cannon shot of the Union force, failure ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... that pieces of raw meat stuck on needles were fixed as close as possible, without actual contact, to several leaves, but produced no effect whatever. On the other hand, as we shall hereafter see, the vapours of certain volatile substances and fluids, such as of carbonate of ammonia, chloroform, certain essential oils, &c., cause inflection. M. Ziegler makes still more extraordinary statements with respect to the power of animal substances, ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... much tenderness for their volatile offspring to subject her to either of the schemes of the equally unscrupulous philosophers. Indeed, the most complete knowledge of the laws of nature would have been unserviceable in her case; for it was impossible ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... at some length," said Constance, "upon the importance of young ladies having some attendance when they are out late in the evening, and that you in particular were one of those persons—he didn't say, but he intimated, of a slightly volatile disposition,—whom their friends ought not to lose ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... prudent Lord Dartmouth, the other Secretary of State, from whom Swift could never "work out a dinner." There is Marlborough, "covetous as Hell, and ambitious as the prince of it," yet a great general and unduly pressed by the Tories; and the volatile Earl of Peterborough, "above fifty, and as active as one of five-and-twenty"—"the ramblingest lying rogue on earth." We meet poor Congreve, nearly blind, and in fear of losing his commissionership; the kindly Arbuthnot, the Queen's physician; Addison, whom ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... Moreover, Maud has a passion for knowing all the village people, and takes the children with her, so that they really know the village-folk all round; they are certainly tremendously happy and interested in everything. Of course they are volatile in their tastes, but I rather encourage that. I know that in the little old moral books the idea was that nothing should be taken up by children, unless it was done thoroughly and perseveringly; but I had rather that they had a wide experience; ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... very centre of this prodigious mass, fourteen hundred thousand times as large as our globe, I was whirled round in space, and brought into close conjunction with the planets. My body was subtilized, or rather became volatile, and commingled in a state of atomic vapor, with the prodigious clouds, which rushed forward like a mighty comet ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... was, however, designated D3, and the unknown substance emitting it was named by Lockyer "helium." Its terrestrial discovery ensued after twenty-six years. In March, 1895, Professor Ramsay obtained from the rare mineral clevite a volatile gas, the spectrum of which was found to include the yellow prominence-ray. Helium was actually at hand, and available for examination. The identification cleared up many obscurities in chromospheric chemistry. ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... and redder than the wattles of a turkey-cock, exhausted himself in well-chosen expressions. Paul increased the use of these by fixing a day for his departure. The female Beecot retired to bed with the assistance of a maid, burnt feathers and sal volatile, and the male, as a last and clinching argument, ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... seclusion he saw practised by the English on such occasions. However consonant to our notions of happiness, and however conducive to our enjoyment this custom be—and I have strong doubts upon the subject —it certainly prospered ill with the volatile Frenchman, who pined for Paris, its cafes, its boulevards, its maisons de jeu, and its soirees. His days were passed in looking from the deep and narrow windows of some oak-framed room upon the bare and heath-clad moors, or watching the cloud's shadows as they passed across the dark ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... who was appeased by his submission; and, in testimony of her benevolence, presented to the other female, whom she had discomposed, an Hungary-water bottle filled with cherry-brandy, recommending it as a much more powerful remedy than the sal-volatile which the other held ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... progression; or sometimes the voice came sadly from among the shattered ruins of the past, but yet had a hopeful echo in the future. They were well adapted (better, at least, than any other intellectual products, the volatile essence of which had heretofore tinctured a printed page) to pilgrims like ourselves, whose present bivouac was considerably further into the waste of chaos than any mortal army of crusaders had ever marched before. ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hours after killing, even though the carcass is kept in an ice box or refrigerater, the whole mass is permeated with putrefactive bacteria. Refrigeration even to a point close to freezing delays but does not prevent the growth of putrefactive organisms although at lower temperatures the usual volatile products which give notice of the presence of putrefaction by an odor of decay are not produced. Persons whose stomachs manufacture a liberal amount of hydrochloric acid, an essential constituent of healthy gastric juice, are able to disinfect ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... had no difficulty in looking day in the face. The world was miraculously renewed. It rose, and received the newborn of Aurora in its arms. There were clouds of pearl above hills of chrysoprase. The sea ran in volatile flames. The shadows on the bright deck shot to and fro as we rolled. The breakfast bell rang not too soon. This was ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... serious things to do now. I have a living to give away. You know Mr. Tyke and all the—" But Dorothea's effort was too much for her; she broke off and burst into sobs. Lydgate made her drink a dose of sal volatile. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... in the Enjoyment of what he has. You know me so well, that I need not tell you, I mean, by the Enjoyment of my Possessions, the making of them useful to the Publick. As the greatest part of my Estate has been hitherto of an unsteady and volatile nature, either tost upon Seas or fluctuating in Funds; it is now fixed and settled in Substantial Acres and Tenements. I have removed it from the Uncertainty of Stocks, Winds and Waves, and disposed of it in a considerable Purchase. This will give me great Opportunity of being charitable ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... difficult part to play; that between Mr. Carlisle and her mother, she must walk very warily or she would yet find herself entangled before she was aware. And Mr. Carlisle too had a sober sense that Eleanor's religious character was not of a kind to exhale, like a volatile oil, under the sun of prosperity or the breezes of flattery. Nevertheless, the more hard to reach the prize, the more of a treasure when reached. He never wanted her more than now; and Mr. Carlisle had always, by skill and power, obtained what he wanted. He made no doubt he would find this ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... high prudence, And eke an officer out for to ride, To see their granges and their barnes wide); And unto Saint Denis he came anon. Who was so welcome as my lord Dan John, Our deare cousin, full of courtesy? With him he brought a jub* of malvesie, *jug And eke another full of fine vernage, And volatile,* as aye was his usage: *wild-fowl And thus I let them eat, and drink, and play, This merchant and this monk, a day or tway. The thirde day the merchant up ariseth, And on his needeis sadly him adviseth; And up into his countour-house* ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... his most sincere friend, she could not bring herself to contest his affections and his pastimes. But this sublime philosophy is at an end; the excellent heart of this Queen is at Val-de-Grace; it will beat no more, neither for her volatile husband, nor ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... healthful fragrance. He still kept his eyes on the star, and the star seemed gradually to fix and command his gaze. A sort of languor next seized his frame, but without, as he thought, communicating itself to the mind; and as this crept over him, he felt his temples sprinkled with some volatile and fiery essence. At the same moment a slight tremor shook his limbs and thrilled through his veins. The languor increased, still he kept his gaze upon the star, and now its luminous circumference seemed to expand and dilate. It became gradually softer and clearer in its light; spreading ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... he had received a twenty page letter from the Bluegrass region of Kentucky which threw him into a state of such volatile ineptitude that I was well satisfied to let him give what orders he would, sending us to the world's end for all I cared. In a very large measure Tommy's happiness was my own, as I knew that mine would always be ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris |
