"Caustic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Potash.—The solution of blood obtained in water is boiled, when a coagulum is formed soluble in hot caustic potash, the solution formed being greenish by transmitted ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... ironic thrust, Tessie would walk toward the screen door with a little flaunting sway of the hips. Her mother's eyes, following the slim figure, had a sort of grudging love in them. A spare, caustic, wiry little woman, Tessie's mother. Tessie resembled her as a water color may resemble a blurred charcoal sketch. Tessie's wide mouth curved into humor lines. She was the cutup of the escapement department at the watch factory; ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... all, it must be the content of the performances which is decisive of the incomparable triumph. We have no right to conclude from this that only the merits and excellences are the true causes of their success. A caustic critic would probably suggest that just the opposite traits are responsible. He would say that the average American is a mixture of business, ragtime, and sentimentality. He satisfies his business instinct by getting so much for his nickel, he enjoys his ragtime in the slapstick humor, ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... know him too well not to be on my guard." With that he joined Lord Lilburne's group, and accepted the invitation to the card-table. At supper, Vaudemont conversed more than was habitual to him; he especially addressed himself to his host, and listened, with great attention, to Lilburne's caustic comments upon every topic successively started. And whether it was the art of De Vaudemont, or from an interest that Lord Lilburne took in studying what was to him a new character,—or whether that, both men excelling peculiarly in all masculine accomplishments, their conversation was of a nature ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... land of the monkeys, that the dullness at all disappears. After the country of Leaphigh is reached the story is far less absurd and more entertaining; though (p. 135) Cooper's descriptions are of the nature of caricature rather than of satire. There are, however, many shrewd and caustic remarks scattered up and down the pages of the latter part of the work, but they will never be known to anybody, for nobody will read ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... they said, to draw it to a head, and at last thought it best to open it; so for a long time I had to suffer more from inconvenience than pain, although towards the end of the cure the continual touching with lunar caustic and other corrosive substances could not but give me very disagreeable prospects for every fresh day. The physician and surgeon both belonged to the Pious Separatists, although both were of highly different natural characters. The surgeon, a slender, well-built man, of easy and skilful ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... dry, caustic, with keen, quiet eyes that any subtle, clever man would have feared. But Nash's ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... Abbe Arnaud, Gluck's devoted defender, arose in his box and replied: "Yes! fallen from heaven." While Mademoiselle Levasseur was singing one of the great airs, a voice was heard to say, "Ah! you tear out my ears;" to which the caustic rejoinder was: "How fortunate, if it is to give ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... Fred, for all he may sparkle bright In caustic column, in clever quip, Of a truth must still be hiding his light Beneath ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... those of the sloe, and the seeds are used as coffee or eaten as beans. Kanembe- embe: the pounded leaves used as an extemporaneous glue for mending broken vessels. Katunguru is used for killing fish. Mutavea Nyerere: an active caustic. Mudiacoro: also an external caustic, and used internally. Kapande: another ordeal plant, but used to produce 'diaphoresis'. Karumgasura: also diaphoretic. Munyazi yields an oil, and is one of the ingredients for curing the wounds of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... meeting the same faces at the boarding house table, hearing the same stale jokes or caustic remarks about Mrs. Atterson's food from Fred Crackit and the young men boarders of his class, or the grumbling of Mr. Peebles, the dyspeptic invalid, or the inane ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... from Valencia, named Priotarete, whose unguents, it was reported, had achieved many miraculous cures. The unguent, however, to the horror of the doctors, burned the skull till the bone was as black as the colour of ink; and Olivarez declares he believes it to have been a preparation of pure caustic. On the morning of the 9th of May, the Moor and his unguents were sent away, "and went to Madrid, to send to heaven Hernando de Vega, while the prince went back ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... "Called 'caustic-creeper' in Queensland. Called 'milk-plant' and 'pox-plant' about Bourke. This weed is unquestionably poisonous to sheep, and has recently (Oct. 1887) been reported as having been fatal to a flock ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... mountains as Ireland is by the sea, is like a lost island, fabled, remote, its speech Provencal, its soul purely Celt. Laughter loving, warlike and brave in the idyllic years of their prime, the Gruyeriens of to-day are still gay, caustic of wit as they are kindly at heart; and, in a changed world, as tenacious of their new republican rights as they were erstwhile valiant vassals to their pastoral kings. The source of innumerable songs and legends in the rich and melodious Gruyere speech, ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... a good deal to say about the danger there was from the teeth of animals or of human beings when enraged, and he emphasised his remarks by the application of a pencil of lunar caustic to each of the marks left ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... substance sui generis [peculiar in kind], which he calls melania. "The melania is a tasteless, black powder, insoluble in alcohol, ether, and water, while cold, but soluble in hot water: the solution is black. Caustic alkalies form with it a solution even in the cold, from which the mineral acids precipitate it unchanged. It contains much azote: it dissolves in, and decomposes, sulphuric acid: it easily kindles at the flame of a candle: it has been found to succeed, as a pigment, in some respects ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... by a sneer. How many a girl has had her society life ruined by the cruelty of a society leader! how many a young man has had his blood frozen by a contemptuous smile at his awkwardness! How much of the native good-will of an impulsive person has been frozen into a caustic and sardonic temper by the lack of a little optional civility? The servant who comes for a place, and seats herself while the lady who speaks to her is standing, is wanting in optional civility. She sins from ignorance, and should be kindly told of her offence, and taught better manners. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... water, to which add the gold, and it is ready to use. Clear the article to be plated from all dirt and grease with whiting and a good brush; if there are cracks it may be necessary to put the article in a solution of caustic potash. At all events every particle of dirt and grease must be removed; then suspend the article in the cyanuret of gold solution, with a small strip of zinc cut about the width of a common knitting needle, hooking the top over a stick which will reach across the top of the vessel or bottle ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... the village of Ecclefechan Carlyle was born in 1795, the year before Burns's death. His father was a stone-mason, an honest man of caustic tongue; his mother, judged by her son's account, was one of nature's noblewomen. The love of his mother and a proud respect for his father were the two sentiments in Carlyle that went with him unchanged through a troubled and ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... Then, here and there, appeared the signed critiques of the men whose opinion counted—and Bertram knew that he had failed. Neither as a work of art, nor as a likeness, was the portrait the success that Henshaw's former work would seem to indicate that it should have been. Indeed, as one caustic pen put it, if this were to be taken as a sample of what was to follow—then the famous originator of "The Face of a Girl" had "a most distinguished ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... connect it with the moon, and to call it Diana and Luna, names previously given to the satellite. For Artemis, the Greek Diana, the Ephesian craftsmen made silver shrines. The moon became the symbol of silver; and to this day fused nitrate of silver is called lunar caustic. It was natural and easy for superstition to suppose that silver was the moon's own metal; and to imagine that upon the reappearance of the lunar deity or demon, its beams should be propitiated by some argentine possession. We find that silver was exclusively used in the worship of ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... the properties of, acids, producing salts by the combination. Alkalies change most of the vegetable blues and purples to green, red to purple, and yellow to brown. Caustic alkali, an alkali deprived of all impurities, being thereby rendered more caustic and violent in its operation. This term is usually applied to pure potash. Fixed alkali, an alkali that emits no characteristic smell, and cannot be volatilized or evaporated without great difficulty. Potash and soda are ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... fortunate," said Austen, resolved not to be the necessary second in a quarrel. He knew his father, and perceived that these preliminary and caustic openings of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... I am giving a little dinner-party—just a few unusual people—to meet an American author who has recently come to England. Do come; but, you brilliant man, don't be too caustic, will you? ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... dotted with men trying to get the maximum amount of water from the sea in a small bucket let down on a line from the moving ship. First efforts in this direction would have been amusing had it not been for the caustic eye of the 'Mate' on the bridge. If the reader ever gets the chance to try the experiment, especially in a swell, he will soon find himself with neither bucket nor water. The poor Mate was annoyed by the ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... by any pleasant trips through picturesque scenery. It is either in you or it is not in you. You either have the slow, tenacious, humorous, patient, imaginative instincts of the country-born; or you have the smart, quick, clever, witty, fanciful, lively, receptive, caustic turn of mind of those bred in ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... employed for the manufacture of soft soap. As a chemical reagent its action is almost precisely like that of caustic soda, though it is usually considered a stronger base, as K is a more electro-positive ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... specific gravity. It already threatened the poor dog's life, though not yet endangering that of her masters. The Captain, seeing this state of things, hastily laid on the floor one or two cups containing caustic potash and water, and stirred the mixture gently: this substance, having a powerful affinity for carbonic acid, greedily absorbed it, and after a few moments the air ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... fifty years or so—but there will come a writer of genius, and precisely a Russian one, who will absorb within himself all the burdens and all the abominations of this life and will cast them forth to us in the form of simple, fine, and deathlessly—caustic images. And we shall all say: 'Why, now, we ourselves have seen and known all this, but we could not even suppose that this is so horrible! In this coming artist I believe ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... last year, and it has recently assumed the form of extreme relaxation and irritation in the uvula, which is that pendulous appendage which hangs over the orifice of the throat. Mine has become so seriously elongated that, after submitting for four days last week to its being burnt with caustic every morning in the hopes that it might thus crimp and contract itself, I have been obliged to have it amputated. This has left a great soreness, which militates against talking and deglutition, and would render our charming chats after the Madeira over la cheminea ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... asking for a process of purifying which will be long and hard. 'I am ready,' says he, in effect, 'to submit to any sort of discipline, if only I may be clean. Wash me, beat me, tread me down, hammer me with mallets, dash me against stones, rub me with smarting soap and caustic nitre—do anything, anything with me, if only those foul spots melt away from the texture of my soul!' A solemn prayer, my brethren! if we pray it aright, which will be answered by many a sharp application of God's Spirit, by many a sorrow, by much very painful work, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... is a favorable wind to carry it along; or, the gas may be carried in cylinders or other containers and liberated at the desired points. Hand grenades or bombs are also employed which, upon bursting, liberate the gas or in some cases scatter acids or caustic soda. Some of these bombs contain a chemical which when liberated affects the eyes, causing impaired vision. The Germans employ several kinds of shell containing gases of different densities, one of heavy gas fired as a curtain to the rear ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... many of the finest players the colleges have ever seen. In a real football family there isn't much bluffing as to what you can do nor are there many excuses for a fumble or a missed tackle. With your big brothers' ears open and their tongues ready with a caustic remark, it doesn't need "Pop's" keen eye to keep you within the realms of truth as to the length of your run or why you missed ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... The caustic bodie would dander away with a grin, leaving a poor writhing soul. When he reached the Cross he would tell the Deacon blithely of the "fine one he had given him," and the Deacon would lie in wait to ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... be touched with a stick of lunar caustic. You had better get a doctor to do it if they be very bad. The 8th July, 1867, ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... statements that cannot be disproved, or arguments that cannot be upset by reason. That which duty bids him do, practice enables him to do with terrible precision and completeness; and in many a case the caustic tone, assumed at the outset as a professional weapon, becomes habitual, and, without the speaker's knowledge, gives more pain within his home than ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... but to the whole race that came after them. Nor is it material that they differ in the mode, since they all agree in the kind. Calvus is close and nervous; Asinius more open and harmonious; Caesar is distinguished [b] by the splendour of his diction; Caelius by a caustic severity; and gravity is the characteristic of Brutus. Cicero is more luxuriant in amplification, and he has strength and vehemence. They all, however, agree in this: their eloquence is manly, sound, and vigorous. Examine their works, and you will see ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... grizzly locks wild staring, thatch'd A head for thought profound and clear, unmatch'd: Yet tho' his caustic wit was biting, rude, His heart was warm, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... again at Cap'n Amazon. That hardy mariner seemed to be quite as self-possessed as usual. His grim lips opened and in caustic ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... stories of London literary society—at least two of them, I think, new ones; and Charles was moved by generous emulation to contribute his own share to the amusement of the company. He was in excellent cue. He is not often brilliant; but when he chooses, he has a certain dry vein of caustic humour which is decidedly funny, though not perhaps strictly without being vulgar. On this particular night, then, warmed with the admirable Wrengold champagne—the best made in America—he launched out into a full and embroidered description of the various ways in which Colonel Clay ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... well-opened blue eyes, chesnut-tinted fair hair in great abundance, a well-formed neck, with the loveliest bust possible, and throughout her entire person a piquant blending of delicacy, grace, vivacity, and passion. The following summary of her character by the clever, caustic, but little scrupulous De Retz, graphic as it is, and based on a certain amount of truth, must not be unhesitatingly accepted, it being over-coloured by wilful exaggeration:—"I have never seen anyone else," ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the smaller parasitic fungi (rusts, mildews, etc.) may be kept dry for any length of time, and on moistening with a weak solution of caustic potash will serve nearly as well as freshly gathered specimens for ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... fourth and most malicious personage, his name will be enough—it was Bixiou! Not (alas!) the Bixiou of 1825, but the Bixiou of 1836, a misanthropic buffoon, acknowledged supreme, by reason of his energetic and caustic wit; a very fiend let loose now that he saw how he had squandered his intellect in pure waste; a Bixiou vexed by the thought that he had not come by his share of the wreckage in the last Revolution; a Bixiou with a kick for every one, like Pierrot at the Funambules. ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... side and "Fraser's Magazine" on the other; the London "Critic" has kept up a galling fire on Mr. Collier, his folio, and his friends, to which the "Athenaeum" has replied by an occasional shot, red-hot; the author of "Literary Cookery," (said to be Mr. Arthur Edmund Brae,) a well-read, ingenious, caustic, and remorseless writer, whose first book was suppressed as libellous, has returned to the charge, and not less effectively because more temperately; and finally an LL.D., Mansfield Ingleby, of Trinity College, Cambridge, comes forward with a "Complete View of the Controversy," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... he is an Anglais of dignity,"—Irish in reality, and a thought blusterous. "He has a condensed (SERRE) caustic way of talk; and I know not what of frank which one finds in the English, and does not usually find in persons of his trade. French Tragedies played at Berlin, I myself taking part; an Englishman Envoy ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... first heated to a temperature of about 600 deg. C. or faint redness, then the air pumps, C C, are started. Air is drawn by them through the purifier, D, where it is freed from carbon dioxide and moisture by the layers of quicklime and caustic soda with which the purifier is charged. The air is then forced along the pipe, E, into the small air vessel, F, which acts as a sort of cushion to prevent the baryta in the retorts being disturbed by the pulsation of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... most dunder-headed boy had plenty on the tip of his tongue. A small and indignant knot of townspeople, headed by a stout and severe middle-aged woman, with two big boys, her sons, followed the keeper, endeavouring by caustic remarks and withering glances to stop the flood of chaff, and restore the legitimate authority and the reign ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... true, cannot well flourish in any assemblage of young men, whose plain interest it is to undeceive all self-deception and quell every insurrection of individual vanity, and who soon understand the art of burning the nonsense out of an offending brother by caustic ridicule and slow-roasting sarcasm. But there is danger of mutual deception, springing from a common belief in a false, but attractive principle of culture. The mischief of intellectual conceit in our day consists in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... spook is possessed not only of humor but of a caustic satire as well. His jest is likely to have more than one point to it, and he can haunt so insidiously, can make himself so at home in his host's study or bedroom that a man actually welcomes a chat with him—only to find out too late that his human foibles have been mercilessly ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... was on the point of letting fly some caustic remark on his father's dress at the present moment; but he contented himself with saying, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... slightest coolness. We were in daily, I can truly say, almost hourly, intercourse in the year 1831 in Paris. I never met with a more sincere, warm-hearted, constant friend. No man came nearer to the ideal I had formed of a truly high-minded man. If he was at times severe or caustic in his remarks on others, it was when excited by the exhibition of the little arts of little minds. His own frank, open, generous nature instinctively recoiled from contact with them. His liberalities, obedient to his generous sympathies, were ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... familiar word. There is a great deal of false sentiment in the world, as there is of bad logic and erroneous doctrine; but—it is very much less disagreeable to hear a young poet overdo his emotions, or even deceive himself about them, than to hear a caustic-epithet flinger repeating such words as "sentimentality" and "entusymusy,"—one of the least admirable of Lord Byron's bequests to our language,—for the purpose of ridiculing him into silence. An overdressed woman is not so pleasing as she might be, but at any rate she is ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... with slightly consolidated ashes. The concretions contain a small proportion of carbonate of lime: a fragment placed under the blowpipe decrepitates, then whitens and fuses into a blebby enamel, but does not become caustic. The surrounding ashes do not contain any carbonate of lime; hence the concretions have probably been formed, as is so often the case, by the aggregation of this substance. I have not met with any ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... power to write would mean to her. Her religion had gone, that dear companion of many years; she had practised faithfully until six months ago, when she had asked her teacher to tell her father that she could never become even a third-rate musician; and Don Roberto had, after a caustic hour, concluded that he would "throw no more good money after bad;" she had had long and meaning conferences with her mirror, conjuring up phantasms of the beautiful dead women of her race, and decided sadly that the worship of man was not for her. She had never ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... into Garangula, under which high-sounding appellation Big Mouth has descended to posterity. He was an astute old savage, well trained in the arts of Iroquois rhetoric, and gifted with the power of strong and caustic sarcasm, which has marked more than one of the chief orators of the confederacy. He shared with most of his countrymen the conviction that the earth had nothing so great as the league of the Iroquois; but, if he could be proud and patriotic, so too he could be selfish and mean. ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... watched Lily. She knew the contrast the girl must be drawing, between the bright little meal, with its simple service and clever talk, and those dreary formal dinners at home when old Anthony sometimes never spoke at all, or again used his caustic tongue like a scourge. Elinor did not hate her father; he was simply no longer her father. As for Howard, she had had a childish affection for him, but he had gone away early to school, and she hardly knew him. But she did not want his ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was something more than a caustic critic. For the terrible ills of his age and country he had one plain and homely remedy, and that for all true Christians to leave the Church of Rome and return to the simple teaching of Christ and His Apostles. If the reader goes to Peter for systematic theology, he will be grievously ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... having been written at the period referred to. This was entitled, "Terrible Tractoration!! A Poetical Petition against Galvanizing Trumpery and the Perkinistic Institution. Most respectfully addressed to the Royal College of Physicians, by Christopher Caustic, M. D., LL. D., A. S. S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Aberdeen, and Honorary Member of no less than nineteen very learned Societies." Two editions of this work were published in London ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and attractive, the absence of dogmatism, or superciliousness, or self-assertion,—the mingled deference and independence, the clear and sustained thought, the ready insight, the quick apprehension of proprieties, the intelligent, dexterous, but never caustic reply, the sure appreciation of the feelings of others, and the power of making them, even the lowliest, feel that what they said was listened to with interest,—the sense of the droll and ludicrous, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... Saunders what Tom said about mad bulls; and Mrs. Whiffler relating the anecdote, a discussion ensues upon the different character of Tom's wit and Dick's wit, from which it appears that Dick's humour is of a lively turn, while Tom's style is the dry and caustic. This discussion being enlivened by various illustrations, lasts a long time, and is only stopped by Mrs. Whiffler instructing the footman to ring the nursery bell, as the children were promised that they should come ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... remarkably rapid. Nothing is more striking than the alteration of the tone in Frederick's correspondence during the few months which followed his accession: the voice of the raw and inexperienced youth is heard no more, and its place is taken—at once and for ever—by the self-contained caustic utterance of an embittered man of the world. In this transformation it was only natural that the wondrous figure of Voltaire should lose some of its glitter—especially since Frederick now began to have the opportunity of inspecting that figure in the flesh with his ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... The caustic comments of the English press on French affairs, together with the free utterances of Victor Hugo and other French exiles on English soil, gave great offence to Louis Napoleon. Count Valevski's diplomatic protests found support in the British ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... when physical courage sits so high, the reader—if he is swept off in the general opinion—will expect under such a title something caustic. He will think that I am about to loose against all cowards a plague of frogs and locusts as if old Egypt had come again. But cowardice is its own punishment. It needs no frog to nip it. Even the sharp-toothed locust—for in the days that bordered so close upon the mastodon, the locust could ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... family circle, particularly of the smaller Jackson sisters, were so breezy and unrestrained that Mrs. Jackson generally felt it necessary to apply the closure. Indeed, Marjory Jackson, aged fourteen, had on three several occasions been fined pudding at lunch for her caustic comments on the batting of her brother Reggie in important fixtures. Cricket was a tradition in the family, and the ladies, unable to their sorrow to play the game themselves, were resolved that it should not be their fault if the standard was not ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... cunningly framed by Dartrey, Tallente rose in the House to defend his position, and acting on the soundest axiom of military tactics, that the best defence is attack, he turned upon Miller, and with caustic deliberation exposed the plot framed for his undoing. He threw caution to the winds, and though repeatedly and gravely called to order, he poured out his scorn upon his enemy till the latter, white as a sheet, rose to demand the protection of the Speaker. ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... barrister to study morals, or even to consider them," was the somewhat caustic reply. "When once a brief is in my mind, it is a matter of brain, cunning and resource. The guiltier a man, the greater the success if you can get ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... severe criticism when they appeared in 1891, and are considered so far beneath Mr. Kipling's real work that they have been nearly suppressed and are rarely found in a list of his writings. Their very caustic style is of interest to a student and lover of Kipling, and for this reason the publishers believe them worthy of a ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... benevolent use hereafter. Mediaeval barons left money for masses. Plenty of Protestants do exactly the same thing. Brewers will build cathedrals, and found picture galleries, and men that have made their money foully will fancy that they atone for that by leaving it for some charitable purpose. The caustic but true wit of a Scottish judge said about a great bequest which was supposed to be—whether rightly or wrongly, I know not—of that sort, that it was 'the heaviest fire insurance premium that had been paid in the memory of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Scheele's green, arsenate of lead, etc. The first two are used at the rate of one-half pound to 50 gallons of water. The milk of lime made from 2 to 3 pounds of stone lime should be added to neutralize any caustic effect of the arsenical on the foliage. Arsenate of lead is used at the rate of 2 pounds to each 50 gallons ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... President criticized in his proclamation. They united over their own signatures in a public "Protest" against the action of Mr. Lincoln. The paper was prepared by Mr. Davis, which of itself was guaranty that it would be able, caustic, and unqualified. Mr. Wade was known to be a man of extraordinary courage, both physical and moral. To these qualities Mr. Davis added a highly cultivated mind and a style of writing which in political controversy has rarely been surpassed—a style ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... it possible that the mere fact of being engaged to a sweet-natured youth like Theo Joyselle could cause such a miracle as this before his eyes? What was the boy to change Brigit from a sullen, caustic woman into a charming, lovely ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... except his mother and uncle. He, however, sent for Dr Livingstone, who gladly went to him. He and Dr Kirk at once told him that the disease was most difficult to cure, and that he might rest assured he had not been bewitched. They applied lunar caustic externally and hydrate of potash internally, with satisfactory results; so that in the course of a short time the poor chief's appearance ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... or iron plate, P, the corrugated zinc plates, b, b', b", are placed one above the other, each alternating with a flat one, a, a', a". These plates have previously been scoured, first with a weak solution of caustic soda in order to remove every trace of fatty matter derived from rolling, and then with very dilute hydrochloric acid, and finally are washed with common water. In order to facilitate the disengagement of hydrogen during the reaction, care must ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... an escort to be despised, as Ruth soon discovered. She very quickly felt a sort of family pride in his cool, quizzical manner and caustic repartee, that was wholly distinct from the more girlish admiration of his distinguished person. He and Ruth were great friends in a ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... near Wilmerding, Pa., a mortar was made as follows: A stock solution of 2 lbs. caustic potash and 5 lbs. alum to 10 quarts of water was made in barrel lots, from which 3 quarts were taken for each batch of 2 bags of cement and 4 bags of sand. A batch of mortar covered an area 68 ft. with a 1-in. coat. The extra cost of ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... with which to manufacture the supplies are mild carbon steel for the barrels, bayonets, bolt, and locks; well-seasoned ash or maple, straight-grained, for the stocks; brass, iron, powder, antimony, benzol or phenol, sulphuric acid, nitric acid, and caustic soda, &c. Of these various materials the most difficult to secure are those used in ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... brother, Hiley, who subsequently figured so often in the caustic rhymes of Canning, and who, under his brother's auspices, was successively secretary of the treasury, paymaster of the forces, and under-secretary of state. In his twelfth year, Henry, followed by Hiley, was sent to Winchester, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... congenial bird of prey in this region. On the contrary, she had to drag her unwilling friend down into it; and as Miss Tippet was too conscientious and kind-hearted to agree with her in her sweeping censures and caustic observations and wilful misconstructions, it is difficult to conceive wherein she (the Eagle) found pleasure in her society. Probably it was because she found in her one who would submit meekly to any amount of contradiction, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... 1908 were followed by the provincial elections in the ensuing month, and thus a favourable opportunity was presented of contrasting the working of the two systems. The grossly unfair results of the provincial elections drew forth from many journals most caustic criticism. Le Peuple expressed the hope that these provincial elections would be the last instance of the use of the majority system in Belgium. "Is it not," it proceeded, "absurd, stupid, detestable that the provincial councils are alone excluded from the system of proportional ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... it is not only witnesses that he bullies, but his very brethren of the gown. The barristers themselves who are opposed to him, at any rate, the juniors, are doomed to bear the withering force of his caustic remarks. ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... condition, the parent birds, with tender assiduity, carry out what comes away from their young. Was it not for this affectionate cleanliness the nestlings would soon be burnt up, and destroyed in so deep and hollow a nest, by their own caustic excrement. In the quadruped creation the same neat precaution is made use of; particularly among dogs and cats, where the dams lick away what proceeds from their young. But in birds there seems to be a particular provision, that the dung of nestlings ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... bare the skeleton of the human mind, to tear away all the charming little sentiments and hypocrisies which in the course of time become a part and parcel of human life. A man influenced by such motives, and possessing a frank and caustic tongue, was not likely to attain any very large share of popular favour or to be esteemed a companionable sort of person. The fabric of social life is interwoven with a multitude of delicate evasions, of small hypocrisies, ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... agitated Assistant District Attorneys jumped to their feet and barked out an objection to the presence of the accused's wife and family on the inside of the fence, and the court promptly sustained them. He also said some very sharp and caustic things to Smilk's lawyer. Mrs. Smilk and her bewildered seven patiently resumed their seats in the front row of spectators, but not until after a four year old girl, surreptitiously pinched, had caused a mild sensation by piping: "I want my ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... Baylis. Now Miss Baylis at her very best was not a restful individual with whom to come in touch, and after a long morning of hard work and the growing hunger of healthy appetites for food for the body rather than for the mind, the girls did not find "a barbed tongue" and a caustic disposition soothing. ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Lincoln not only did it grudgingly, but afterwards lampooned the man so severely in satiric verse that he was ashamed to show himself at neighborhood gatherings. All the people about Gentryville feared Lincoln's caustic wit, and disliked him for it, although they were greatly impressed with his ability exhibited thereby. Lincoln recognized his moral obliquity, and curbed his propensity for satire, which was a case of that "exercise of natural faculty" which affects all gifted ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... at him strengthened the impression. He did not approach the circle in which the Contessa sat all the evening, but stood apart, silent, taking little notice of anybody until Mr. Derwentwater secured his ear, when Sir Tom, instead of his usual genial laugh at MTutor's solemnities, discharged little caustic criticisms which astonished his companion. Mr. Derwentwater was going away next day, and he, too, was preoccupied. After that conversation with Sir Tom, he betook himself to Lucy, who was very silent too, and doing little for the ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... chief physician, Grossi, to Chambery, on the demise of King Victor, seemed to favor this idea, or perhaps, first suggest it; however this may be, by flattery and attention she set about managing Grossi, who, in fact, was not very manageable, being the most caustic and brutal, for a man who had any pretensions to the quality of a gentleman, that ever I knew. The reader may judge for himself by two or three traits of character, which I shall add by way ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... as, miserable and apathetic, they sat thinking of the food they had sent back to Mr. Cone's kitchen with caustic comments, of the various dishes for which the chef of The ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... an illustration of the days of chivalry, was written in a spirit of caustic contempt for the fair sex, which suggests the bitterness of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... is for novelty, a characteristic usually preferred to originality, which is often much more slowly recognized. Mrs. Gore's fashionable novels, correct in portraiture and upholstery, clever but monotonous, had had their day; Mrs. Trollope's coarse and caustic delineations; G.P.R. James's combats, adventures, skirmishes, disguises, trials, and escapes, and Bulwer's sentimental and grandiloquent romances, had begun to pall upon the public taste. Miss Braddon perceived that the time had come ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... they sigh for an historical atmosphere, and then, when they come to Europe and get it, they do not like it, and think Schenectady, New York, "a better place." It is not easy to understand what ailed Hawthorne with Europe; he was extremely caustic in his writings about that continent, and discontented. Our matrons were so stout and placid that they irritated him. Indeed, they are a little heavy in hand, still there are examples of agreeable slimness, even in this poor old country. Fond as he was of the historical past, ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... our witty clubbist in every page; George in his full expansion, "in his armour as he lived;" George, every inch a wit, glittering before us in his full court suit, in his letters, his anecdotes, his whims, his odd views of mankind, his caustic sneerings at the glittering world round him; an epistolary HB., turning every thing into the pleasant food of his pen and pungency. But we cannot discover any letters from him, excepting a few very trifling ones of his youth. We have letters from all sorts of persons, great ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... leisure for him; and Sir Charles Moreton, who was argus-eyed where Lady Mabel was concerned, ventured to ask: "What pleasure can you find in talking to this austere soldier? His smile is a sneer; he warms only to grow caustic, and his cynical air betrays how little he cares even ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... asceticism were in the habit of making periodic trips to this pornographic Mecca for the reason that they could there be accommodated with the simultaneous ministrations of two or even three soiled doves of the stripe of her of whom Martial (ix, 69) makes caustic mention: ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... sugar are inorganic matter, water, molasses, farina, and grape, or starch sugar. The latter substance is occasionally, for adulterating purposes, added in Europe to cane sugar; it may be detected by the action of concentrated sulphuric acid and of a solution of caustic potassa; the former blackens cane sugar, but does not affect the starch sugar, while potassa darkens the color of starch sugar, but does not alter that of cane sugar. But the copper test is far more delicate. Add to the solution to be tested, a few drops of blue vitriol, and then a quantity of potassa ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... to break the news." But each day found it harder to begin, and only the announcement of her intended departure one morning brought him to the hazard. He was beginning to feel less secure of her, and less indifferent to the gibes of the town jokers, who found in his enslavement much material for caustic remark. They called him the "tired cowboy" and ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... step to be taken in the 'laicisation' of the schools has been already revealed in the famous 'Article 7' of M. Ferry. M. Ferry is the true, though more or less occult, head of the present Administration in France. 'M. Ferry,' said a caustic French Radical to me in Paris, 'ought to be the mask of M. Carnot. Nature gave him a Carnival nose for that purpose. Everything is topsy-turvy now in France, and so M. Carnot is the mask of M. Ferry. But the nose ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... Haye looked angry at the rather caustic irony with which I had sprinkled the dialogue; but he was still more vexed when, taking some gold out of my pocket, I returned to him the sum he had lent me in Vienna. A man never argues well except when his purse is well filled; then his spirits are pitched in a high key, unless he ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... for such he became, thus got an early footing at Court, which another would have improved and maintained. But, when he grew too big to be whipped, he had no other means of rendering himself acceptable. A bitter, caustic, and backbiting humour, a malicious wit, and an envy of others more prosperous than the possessor of such amiable qualities, have not, indeed, always been found obstacles to a courtier's rise; but ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... rather overbearing individuality made an impression not altogether agreeable upon many of her contemporaries. Lowell introduced a caricature of her as "Miranda" into his Fable for Critics, and Hawthorne's caustic sketch of her, preserved in the biography written by his son, has given great offence to her admirers. "Such a determination to eat this huge universe!" was Carlyle's characteristic comment on her appetite for ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... maintain any kind of peaceful relationship between them. Barret, as Hemmingwell's chief assistant and supervisor of the project, was naturally superior in rank to Troy, and made the most of it. A placid, easy-going man, Troy took Barret's gibes and caustic comments in silence, doing his work and getting it finished on time. But occasionally he had difficulty in ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... place, I do not propose to open the chest with the bistoury. The operation, even though aided by chloroform, would cause too violent a shock to the nervous system. But I intend to burn through gradually, by successive applications of caustic, as in the procedure for opening hepatic cysts. Deep-seated adhesions would form and shut out the lungs securely, and thus probably obviate the necessity for artificial respiration. The pericardium ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... feeling &c. v.; sentient; sensuous; sensorial, sensory; emotive, emotional; of feeling, with feeling &c. n. warm, quick, lively, smart, strong, sharp, acute, cutting, piercing, incisive; keen, keen as a razor; trenchant, pungent, racy, piquant, poignant, caustic. impressive, deep, profound, indelible; deep felt, home felt, heartfelt; swelling, soul-stirring, deep-mouthed, heart-expanding, electric, thrilling, rapturous, ecstatic. earnest, wistful, eager, breathless; fervent; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... furnish the supply. Some dealers in fresh burned lime have asserted that it was folly to expect any appreciable result from the use of unburned limestone. The manufacturer of ground limestone has pointed out the possibility of injuring a soil by the use of caustic lime, and oftentimes has so emphasized his point that farmers have become unwilling to apply fresh or water-slaked lime to their land. Manufacturers of hydrated lime in some instances have made a confused situation ...
— Right Use of Lime in Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... and womanly. But toward the end of their journeying together, she felt more hopeful. Reticent as she was, Priscilla Gower was a very charming young person. She talked well, and with much clear, calm sense; she laughed musically when she laughed at all, and could make very telling, caustic speeches when occasion required; but still it was singular what a wide difference the difference of six years made in the two girls. As Lady Throckmorton had said, it was not a matter of age. At twenty-two Theodora North would overflow with ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to but one reply to the other's caustic taunts. Bending low to catch Chandler's fast crystallizing gaze, he pointed to the sleeping lady's door with a gesture so stern and significant that the prostrate man half-lifted his head, with his remaining strength, ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... pocket and read, with much sarcastic comment, the scenes they were later to enact. He would incite the Happy Family to poking fun at such lurid performances as Bently Brown described in all seriousness and in detail. He would encourage comment and argument and the play of their caustic imaginations upon the action of the story. He would gradually make them see the whole thing in the light of a huge joke; he would, without saying much himself, bring the Happy Family into the mood of wanting to make Bently Brown appear ridiculous to ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... A caustic was applied to this as soon as the tiny wound had been freely lanced and set bleeding, and then with the proper instrument a strong application of ammonia was forced into one of the mule's larger veins, ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... hostess nursing a weird-looking black cat; the other young lady continually harking back to "conjugal" subjects, which seemed to interest her; the mamma slightly flabbergastered at the rather revolutionary nature of the communications; and our host every now and then throwing in a rude or caustic remark. I dreaded to think what might have been the result of a domiciliary visit paid by a Commissioner in Lunacy to that ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... Operation for Artificial Anus denied to have been performed. 42, Gangrenous Sore Mouth of Children. 43, Operation for Phymosis. 44, Lunar Caustic on Wounds and Ulcers. 45, Haemorrhage from Lithotomy. 46, Extirpation of the Parotid Gland. 47, Aneurism from a Wound, cured by Valsaiva's method. 48, Protrusion and Wound of the Stomach. 49, Oesophagotomy. 50, Retention of ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... the last of that particular line of Georges. I say that he handsomely complied with the requirements of the will; but my statement appears to be subject to qualification, for on the day of his obsequies it was remarked of him by a caustic contemporary: "Well, yes, Mr. Jaffrey was a gentleman by profession, but not eminent ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... manifested itself in Hazlitt precociously in the study of human nature. He characterized some of his schoolmates disdainfully as "fit only for fighting like stupid dogs and cats," and at the age of twelve, while on a visit, he communicated to his father a caustic sketch of some English ladies who "require an Horace or a Shakespeare to describe them," and whose "ceremonial unsociality" made him wish he were back in America. His metaphysical studies determined ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin |
