"Precipitate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them the judge grinned his triumph at his enemy. He had known when Fentress entered the room that a word or a sign from him would precipitate a riot, but he knew now that neither this word nor this sign would be given. Then quite suddenly he strode down the aisle, and foot by foot Fentress yielded ground before his advance. A murderous light flashed from the judge's bloodshot ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... as well as one who saw it with his eyes. It is detached from its originator and from his age: lifeless itself, it has driven the life out of Moses and out of the people, nay, out of the very Deity. This precipitate of history, appearing as law at the beginning of the history, stifles and kills the history itself. Which of the two views is the more historical, we can accordingly be at no loss to decide. It may be added that in the older Hebrew ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... time of the guests in their newspapers aggravated her nervous sense of her utter helplessness. All her feminine reserve and modesty came over her; alone in this room among men, she felt overpowered, and she was about to make a precipitate retreat when the clock of the coffee-room sounded the half hour. In a paroxysm of nervous excitement she exclaimed, "Is there not one among you who ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Vicar of Birmingham desires me to state that, in consequence of the passing of a recent Act of Parliament, he is compelled to adopt measures which may by some be considered harsh or precipitate; but, in duty to what he owes to his successors, he feels bound to preserve the rights of the vicarage." —Letter from Mr. S. ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... an answer should have been forthcoming had there been good faith and honesty in the situation, she heard a rush of feet which had every likeness to a precipitate flight, and then a banging noise, like the slamming to ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... theologians have set their wits at the problem, it ends in a mystery which we can perceive but not finally decipher. At least, it is obvious that, like any doctrine, a slight excess or deviation to one side or the other will precipitate a heresy. The Pelagians, who were refuted by St. Augustine, emphasised the efficacy of human effort and belittled the importance of supernatural grace. The Calvinists emphasised the degradation of man through Original Sin, ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power if it wanted to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... would have consented, and we might have talked it out. We each thought a great deal more than we said, but after all, maybe it was well as it stood. What could he ever be to me more than an old friend—twice my age—and maybe I was too precipitate and presumptuous. How did I know he thought of me in any other light than the child he had always known me? I stood up with this impediment thrown voluntarily in the way, and took off my street apparel. In a quarter of an hour later dinner ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... has made her countrymen aware. Inasmuch as Colonel Hutchinson was a political soldier, moreover, she is something more than his biographer—his historian. And she convinces her reader that her Puritan principles kept abreast of her affections. There is no self-abandonment; she is not precipitate; keeps her own footing; wife of a soldier as she is, would not have armed him without her own previous indignation against the enemy. She is a soldier at his orders, but she had warily and freely chosen ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... his objections to the "enfranchising measure" was that, in breaking down the hedge of the law, it invaded Delicacy; and whatever invaded delicacy helped to precipitate gross though perhaps unforeseen evils. Unfortunately there are great masses—whole classes—of people to whom delicacy, whether in speech or act, means nothing. To eat, drink, sleep, buy and sell, marry and be given in marriage, is for those masses ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... by a lady, he had not before felt any suspicion as to his identity with the man who had swindled him. Now he felt convinced that it was Mr. Felix Montgomery, and that it was his own appearance which had led to the sudden sickness and the precipitate departure. ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... a complete protein and is very important for growth. It has a peculiar property; it precipitates when acid is added to milk. When milk sours, the sugar contained in the milk changes to an acid, and this acid causes the casein to precipitate. Casein is also clotted by an enzyme occurring in the digestive ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... calamity. And, whosoever, whether prince or republic, but prince more especially, behaves otherwise, and believes that after the event and when danger is upon him he will be able to win men over by benefits, deceives himself, and will not merely fail to maintain his place, but will even precipitate his downfall. ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... army is now stronger and better disciplined, and more full of determination to conquer, than any French army has ever been before. But no ruler of France can be anxious to precipitate a war with Germany; and judging from the present state of feeling among the French, there appear to be no serious political breakers ahead. Of course in France the unexpected is always to be expected, and what a day may ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... action and action on second thought, presented once more. Briefly, the experience of sixty years strongly inclines me to a preference of matured and considerate action over that immediate action which notoriously is in nine cases out of ten as ill-advised as it is precipitate. Only in the field of politics is the expediency of the latter assumed as of course; yet, as in science and literature and art so in politics, final, because satisfactory, results are at best but slowly thrashed out. As respects wisdom, the modern statute book does not loom, ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams
... head to foot, looked out through the window at the little garden, white with snow, where Sidonie's footsteps were already effaced by the fast-falling flakes, as if to bear witness that that precipitate departure was ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... suspended particles collect on the surface of the water in the boiler and render difficult the liberation of steam bubbles arising to that surface. It sometimes occurs with water containing carbonates in solution in which a light flocculent precipitate will be formed on the surface of the water. Again, it is the result of an excess of sodium carbonate used in treatment for some other difficulty where animal or vegetable oil finds its way ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... and entitled to the rank and reception which my ancestors obtained. I was, however, embarrassed with many difficulties at my first re-entrance into the world; for my haste to be a gentleman inclined me to precipitate measures; and every accident that forced me back towards my old station, was considered by me as ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... the boy, as I remember him, showed some rare combinations and counterpoises. With an exuberance of animal spirits he had, also, a natural balance of caution. He was ardent, but not hasty; he was self reliant and fearless, but never precipitate; frank and affable, though not easily won by a stranger; fond of experiment, but also intensely practical. He was prompt to decide, but always took time for detail, and pursued perseveringly to the end whatever engaged ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... the south. Those events have excited the strongest indignation throughout Europe. We have already discovered that the peace was but a truce; that the cessation of hostilities was but a breathing-time to the enemy; that the reduction of our armies was precipitate and premature; and that, unless the fears of the French government shall render it accessible to a sense of justice, the question must finally come to ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... thought at this time, Walpole says, to be the ablest man in the Gallican Church, and was pronounced by Hume to be the only man in France capable of restoring the greatness of the kingdom. When he obtained the opportunity he signally falsified Hume's prognostication, and did much to precipitate the Revolution by his incapacity. Smith must no doubt have met him occasionally during his protracted sojourn at Toulouse, though we have no evidence that he did, and the Archbishop was rather notorious for his absence from his see. If he did meet his Grace ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... by her and her aunt. Nay, I had a marked preference shown me over the younger son of a needy baronet, and a captain of dragoons on half pay. I did not absolutely take the field in form, for I was determined not to be precipitate; but I drove my equipage frequently through the street in which she lived, and was always sure to see her at the window, generally with a book in her hand. I resumed my knack at rhyming, and sent ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... her sister's death, had written to Sir Edward Carne, the English ambassador at Rome, to notify her accession to the pope; but the precipitate nature of Paul broke through all the cautious measures concerted by this young princess. He told Carne, that England was a fief of the holy see; and it was great temerity in Elizabeth to have assumed, without his participation, the title and authority of queen: that being illegitimate, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... saw their hated and still dreaded foe involved in a greater danger than any ever brought on that foe by the Roman wars, they began more and more to regret the conclusion of the peace of 513 —which, if it was not in reality precipitate, now at least appeared so to all—and to forget how exhausted at that time their own state had been and how powerful had then been the standing of their Carthaginian rival. Shame indeed forbade their entering into communication openly with the Carthaginian ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... were released by the partial burning of the box in which they were contained, crept along on the floor to the balcony of the Museum and dropped on the sidewalk, the crowd, seized with St. Patrick's aversion to the reptiles, fled with such precipitate haste that they knocked each other down and trampled on one another in the ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... Leslie, in "The Encyclopedia Britannica," says, "Supposing the vast canopy of air, by some sudden change of internal constitution, at once to discharge its whole watery store, this precipitate would form a sheet of scarcely five inches thick over the surface of the globe." But if the water that covered the earth above the tops of the highest mountains came by rain, it must have rained seven hundred feet a day for forty days! or there must have fallen each day, according ...
— The Deluge in the Light of Modern Science - A Discourse • William Denton
... The original of Waring was one of Browning's friends, Alfred Domett, the author of Ranolf and Amohia, then or afterwards Prime Minister in New Zealand.[18] The poem is written in a free and familiar style, which rises from time to time into a kind of precipitate brilliance; it is more personal in detail than Browning often allows himself to be; and its humour is blithe and friendly. In another poem, now known as Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, the humour ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... and close intercourse with the Hindoos, have given the author a lively desire to subserve their advancement. No one listens now to the precipitate ignorance which would set aside as "heathenish" the high civilization of this great race; but justice is not yet done to their past development and present capacities. If the wit, the morality, and the philosophy of these "beasts of ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... repulsed, and he determined to return the compliment on the following day, with the assistance of the soldiers. After a long march across many deep channels, the battle went against him, and in a precipitate retreat, the soldiers could not swim the deep channels like Niambore's people; they were accordingly overtaken and killed, with the loss of their arms and accoutrements, now in possession of ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... It has changed even within the last half century, as the work of tree destruction has been consummated. The great masses of arboreal vegetation on the mountains formerly absorbed the heat of the sun and sent up currents of cool air which brought the moisture-laden clouds lower and forced them to precipitate in rain a part of their burden of water. Now that there is no vegetation, the barren mountains, scorched by the sun, send up currents of heated air which drive away instead of attracting the rain clouds, and cause their moisture to be ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... must protest against continuing any longer these inexcusable delays, and insist on a battle. He could not consent to be responsible any further for allowing Italy to lie at the mercy of such a scourge. AEmilius replied, that if Varro did precipitate a battle, he himself protested against his rashness, and could not be, in any degree, responsible for the result. The various officers took sides, some with one consul and some with the other, but most with Varro. The dissension filled the camp with ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... a unique experience, as so many poets have, and very recently as the author of this volume has, arrives through his personality rather than his work at a precipitate sort of fame that may serve his talents well or serve them ill. To know that a man was sent to jail as the consequence of a passionate desire to go to college, and that that desire involved the tramping of ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones
... and, with an abrupt nod to myself, turned and marched off alone across the street. I heard afterwards that he was popularly supposed to be as much afraid of a woman as most people are of a mad dog, which accounted for his precipitate retreat. I cannot say, however, that young Vincey showed much aversion to feminine society on this occasion. Indeed I remember laughing, and remarking to my friend at the time that he was not the ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... to effect the conquest of it, as the whole militia of the state did not exceed twelve hundred men, and many of them disaffected. General Lincoln is assembling a force to dispossess them, and my only fear is, that he will precipitate the attempt before he is fully prepared for the execution. In New York and at Rhode Island, the enemy continued quiet till the 25th ultimo, when an attempt was made by them to surprise the post at Elizabethtown; but failing therein, and finding themselves closely pressed, and in danger ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... appeared to continue unabated. The Moderate party in Turkey—that is to say, the hoodwinking party—were reported to be daily gaining strength, and it was most important that the Allies should give them every assistance, and above all not precipitate matters. All was going well: all we had to do was to wait. So we waited, still blindly confident in the sincerity of Turkey's friendship for England, while the mobilisation of the Turkish forces proceeded ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... and I must save our money for the next year, then we will have an architect give our modifications the sanction of his approval. We must not be too precipitate with alterations; living in the old house as it is a year, will settle just what we desire. In the meantime we can find plenty to do in the yard ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... ordained priest by St. Eustathius himself, and had constantly attended his zealous flock. Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari, passing by Antioch in his return from exile, consecrated Paulinus bishop, and by this precipitate action, riveted the schism which divided this church near fourscore and five years, and in which the discussion of the facts upon which the right of the claimants was founded, was so intricate that the saints innocently took part on both ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... quit hold of the chain of natural fact, cease to pursue that as the clue to its work; let it propose to itself any other end than preaching this living word, and think first of showing its own skill or its own fancy, and from that hour its fall is precipitate—its destruction sure; nothing that it does or designs will ever have life or loveliness in it more; its hour has come, and there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... disband, disperse to their dwellings, or beware action of the rightful powers! Troubled in mind, some disbanded and dispersed, but threescore at least would by no means do so. Nor would the young man "of precipitate disposition" who headed the troop. He rode on into the forest after the Indians, and the others followed him. Here were the Falls of the Far West, and here on a hill the Indians had a "fort." This the Virginia planters attacked. The hills above the James echoed to the sound of the small, ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... "And precipitate a riot, George," put in the Doctor softly, "which is one of the things they desire. In the riot the murder of Grant could be easily handled and I don't believe they will do more than ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... mortal than I contemplated. Then what may I not have to fear? His dead body will be an incumbrance to me. It must be moved from the place where it lies. It must be buried. How is all this to be done by me? By one precipitate act, I have involved myself in a long train of ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... speeds up, it becomes precipitate and haggard. We are swept along by an impetuosity that we submit to without knowing whence it comes. We begin the ascent of the second hill which appears in the fallen night ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... house is at least a shelter from the weather, all sentiment apart. And our servants, too; how could they manage without us? The Yankees, on the river, and a band of guerrillas in the woods, are equally anxious to precipitate a fight. Between the two fires, what chance for us? It would take only a little while to burn the city over our heads. They say the women and children must be removed, these guerrillas. Where, please? Charlie says we must go to Greenwell. And have this house pillaged? ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... round Sturatzberg would have to be accomplished when the united band set out in earnest upon its expedition. The token was at last in his possession, his comrades awaited him, and Ellerey was anxious to be gone. But he was not the man to fail by being too precipitate. None knew better the value of deliberate caution, and with Lord Cloverton fully alive to the danger, there might be many obstacles to face which had not entered into his calculations. So Ellerey sat there waiting, while the candle burnt lower, casting, as the room darkened, ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... officers to put them into execution, which you can neither corrupt, intimidate, nor escape, and whose resolution to bring you to condign punishment you can only avoid by a speedy imitation of your brethren in Philadelphia. This people are still averse to precipitate your fate, but in case of much longer delay in complying with their indispensable demands, you will not fail to meet the just rewards of your avarice & insolence. Remember, gent^n, this is the last warning ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... you are a servant of his Majesty?" demanded the latter, determined to solve all doubts as to the other's claims on his confidence, before he committed himself by any precipitate disclosure. ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Shakespeare, not only in point of time, but in its central theme. It deals with the power of nature in awaking youth to full manhood and womanhood through the sudden coming of pure and supreme love; with the danger which always attends the precipitate call of this awakening; and with the sudden storm which overcasts the brilliant day of passion. The enmity of the rival houses of Montague and Capulet, to which Romeo and Juliet belong, is but a concrete form of this danger that ever waits when nature prompts. ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... Swiftness of pushing with precipitate or consecutive Thrusts, without considering that Precipitation is either when the Body moves before the Hand, or when an improper Motion is made; and the consecutive Thrusts, the pushing several Times ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... was eighty odd feet in length, and as Ben swung open the door at the east corner there was a flash of fire from the extreme west end, and a bullet splintered the wood just back of his head. His precipitate entry had been his salvation. He groped his way ahead, the groans of the horses in his ears—for now he detected more than one voice. A growing realization of what he would find was in his mind, and then a dark form shot through the west door, and he was alone. Impulse told him to follow, ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... listen! You see to it that the suit is filed and an attachment levied on Matt Peasley's bank account in the Marine National. That's where he keeps his little wad, because I took him over and introduced him there myself. Well, sir, in the meantime I'll call up Matt and precipitate a devil of a row with him over the phone. I'll tell him I've made up my mind to fight him to the last ditch and that those libels will not be lifted until he lifts them himself. Of course, he'll figure right away that he won't ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... discretion save Mr. Potts, who, being overcome by the novelty of the situation and the length of the sermon, falls fast asleep, and presently, at some denunciatory passage, pronounced in a rather distinct tone by the rector, rousing himself with a precipitate jerk, sends all the fire-irons with a fine clatter to the ground, he having been most unhappily placed nearest ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... subsides, he reviews the situation in his palace. He is safe for years from an accounting, yet it is coming on. If he brings the heiress to California, it will precipitate it. Secret plans for the Senate of the United States are now maturing. Marriage with Hortense. Impossible. His friends urge his giving his name to an ambitious lady of the "blue blood" of his Southern home. She is a relative of the head of the Democratic capitalists. This ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... looked longingly in the direction of the box in which Felicity sat. He would fain have leaped upon the stage and have gone to her before she could escape him; he was burning to speak to her, to hear her voice and touch her hand. But her departure with her friends was little less than precipitate. It did not now occur to her lover that she might wish to avoid her husband; as far as he was concerned, she had no husband. He only appreciated his own disappointment, and stood chafing before the stupid herd that blocked his way ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... consequence. The whole is couched in the most minute and regular manner, and is preferable to a thousand vague and interested histories. The concourse of nobility at that ceremony was extraordinarily great: there were present no fewer than three duchesses of Norfolk. Has this the air of a forced and precipitate election? Or does it not indicate a voluntary concurrence of the nobility? No mention being made in the roll of the young duke of York, no robes being ordered for him, it looks extremely as if he was not in Richard's ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... step reached Napoleon soon after the battle of Wagram, and he was inclined to disapprove of the conduct of Miollis as too precipitate. It was now, however, impossible to recede; the Pope was ordered to be conveyed across the Alps to Grenoble. But his reception there was more reverential than Napoleon had anticipated, and he was soon ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... his coming, the old sense of freedom came surging back to the escaped prisoner and he stretched out his strong muscles, which had been so long cramped in the cage, and shuffled up the side of the mountain at his best pace. Through thickets and brambles he crashed with a wild exultation; up precipitate crags he labored with feverish excitement and frenzy that grew with each moment. He sniffed at the rustling fronds and mosses as he passed, with wild delight. How fresh, how new, ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... matrimonial security possessed me. I felt as I imagine a husband may feel on a solitary holiday—if there are husbands unnatural enough to go holidaying without their wives—pleasantly conscious of a home tucked somewhere beneath the distant sunset, yet in no precipitate hurry to return there before ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... directly stating to the English government that Barneveld's purpose was to "cause a divorce between the King's realms and the Provinces, the more easily to precipitate them into the arms of Spain." He added that the negotiation with Count Maurice then on foot was to be followed, but with much secrecy, on account of the place he held ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... stocks, which would be neither formidable nor necessary when the war was at an end. For these reasons they resolved to disappoint all overtures of a peace, till they and their party should be so deeply rooted as to make it impossible to shake them. To this end, they began to precipitate matters so fast, as in a little time must have ruined the constitution, if the crown had not interposed, and rather ventured the accidental effects of their malice, than such dreadful consequences of their power. And indeed, had the former danger ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... won't. You leave me alone. I ain't stoppin' here. I ain't hungry. I just grubbed at the school. Sleepin' at Missouri Pete's to-night. Got to make the railroad tomorrow." The old man stopped his precipitate statements. He sat in his sledge deeply muffled, blinking at Drake and the buccaroos, who had strolled out to look at him, "Done a big business this trip," said he. "Told you I would. Now if you was ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... when equal weights of phenol and formaldehyde were mixed and warmed in the presence of an alkaline catalytic agent the solution separated into two layers, the upper aqueous and the lower a resinous precipitate. This resin was soft, viscous and soluble in alcohol or acetone. But if it was heated under pressure it changed into another and a new kind of resin that was hard, inelastic, unplastic, infusible and insoluble. The chemical name of this product is "polymerized oxybenzyl ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... investment was called in. He sold out his interests in a score of enterprises, and step by step, so as not to cause a slump in the market, he disposed of his large holdings in real estate. Toward the last he did precipitate a slump and sold at sacrifice. What caused this haste were the squalls he saw already rising above the horizon. By the time Lucille was married, echoes of bickerings and jealousies were already rumbling in his ears. The air was thick with schemes and ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... cares and the soft luxury of Asia, displayed the talents of an able and experienced general. The battle still raged with doubtful violence, and Macrinus might have obtained the victory, had he not betrayed his own cause by a shameful and precipitate flight. His cowardice served only to protract his life a few days, and to stamp deserved ignominy on his misfortunes. It is scarcely necessary to add, that his son Diadumenianus was involved in ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... home—in these latter days she was seldom anywhere else. Socially speaking, she had evaporated years ago; but there was no reason why she should not precipitate herself and appear once more in concrete form. Eudoxia had an intuitive sense that Almira ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... about the table. Lee pinned down a map with the small objects upon the board, then leaned back in his chair. "This is our first council with General Jackson. We wait but for the Army of the Valley to precipitate certainly one great battle, perhaps many battles. I think that the fighting about Richmond will be heavier than all that has gone before." An aide entered noiselessly with a paper in his hand. "From the President, sir," he said. Lee rose and took the note to the window. The four at table ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... General Botha, with Staff and Bodyguard, fell back two miles on the Husab-Riet Road and camped there for the night. Scarcely had the Headquarters party arrived before news came that the enemy was in precipitate flight, had evacuated Riet and had blown up his small ammunition and railway water-tanks at the Riet terminus of the narrow gauge railway line to Jakalswater. Bodies of the Union troops had occupied Riet on the ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... battle with want; a lonely battle, with no one to care or to comfort, and now it was meat, and drink, and health, and sunshine, to find herself of a sudden the most precious object on earth to one faithful heart! Although the General had given a promise not to be too precipitate in his wooing, it was easy to prophesy how things would end; but before the "two or three weeks" had come to an end, another event happened of such supreme importance to the Trevor household as to put in the background every other subject, ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... thoughts passed through my mind; not as I detail them here, but following each other like quick flashes of lightning. My first impulse was to urge my horse forward, trusting to his superior weight to precipitate the lighter animal from the ledge. Had I been worth a bridle and spurs, I should have adopted this plan; but I had neither, and the chances were too desperate without them. I abandoned it for another. ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... met, after the first effusions are over, a silence comes as if they had no more to tell each other, while it is in reality the abundance of things, their precipitate rush, that prevents them from finding utterance. The two chums had touched that condition; but Jansoulet kept a tight grasp on the banker's arm, fearing to see him escape and resist the kindly impulse he ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... was not insurmountable; but in order to cross it, one must have a sure foot and steady head, for the least false step would precipitate the unlucky one into the river, which was rapid as well as deep. From the rock, one could reach the top of the cliff by means of some natural stone steps, and then, descending on the other side, could resume the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... authority and sympathy influence almost all our opinions; but must have a peculiar influence, when we judge of our own worth and character. Such judgments are always attended with passion [Book I, Part III. Sect. 10.]; and nothing tends more to disturb our understanding, and precipitate us into any opinions, however unreasonable, than their connexion with passion; which diffuses itself over the imagination, and gives an additional force to every related idea. To which we may add, that being conscious of great partiality ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... murder; all vices disappear, all crimes: and this poor mother rears her child; and behold a whole country rich and honest! Ah! I was a fool! I was absurd! what was that I was saying about denouncing myself? I really must pay attention and not be precipitate about anything. What! because it would have pleased me to play the grand and generous; this is melodrama, after all; because I should have thought of no one but myself, the idea! for the sake of saving from a punishment, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... many a shimmer in the moonlight as it hung curling down on his blue jeans coat, his cheek laid softly on the violin, the bow glancing back and forth as if strung with moonbeams as he played. The men woke the solemn silences with their loud mirthful voices; they startled precipitate echoes; they fell into disputes and wrangled loudly, and would have turned back if sure of the way home, but Job Grinnell led steadily on, and they were fain to follow. They lagged to look at a spot where some man, unheeded even by tradition, had dug his heart's ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... was as nothing by comparison. I have said that it was not by act or speech that I added to the sum of my iniquities; and yet it was by both. First, in that fiercely echoed "We?" that I hurled at her to strike her from me; then in my precipitate flight alone. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... Ere I had begun, My thoughts moved toward thee with a gentle flow That bore a depth of waters: when I took My pen to write, they rushed into a gulf, Precipitate and foamy. Can it be That Death who humbles all hath ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... rational understanding, the puppet-strings would fall from his hands and the puppets turn independent agents. He represented to Talboys that Lucy was young and very innocent in some respects; that marriage did not seem to run in her head as in most girls'; that a precipitate avowal might startle her, and raise unnecessary difficulties by putting her on her guard too early in their acquaintance. "You have no rival," he concluded; "best win her quietly by degrees. Undermine the coy jade! she is worth it." Cool Talboys acquiesced. ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... Spartan guards at the Pass of Thermopylae, pushed on into Attica, and laid Athens in ruins. But there fortune forsook him. At the naval battle of Salamis, his fleet was cut to pieces by the Grecian ships; and the king, making a precipitate retreat into Asia, hastened to his capital, Susa. Here, in the pleasures of the harem, he sought solace for his wounded pride and broken hopes. He at last fell a victim to palace intrigue, being slain in his own ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... renewed, can afford no just criterion of the accuracy of such statements. Hasty observers have indeed pronounced that a hilly country destitute of great rivers, could not, even under the most skilful management, supply food for so many mouths. But this precipitate conclusion has been vigorously combated by the most competent judges, who have taken pains to estimate the produce of a soil under the fertilizing influence of a sun which may be regarded as almost tropical, and of a well-regulated irrigation which the Syrians ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... and anarchy, it is only the bayonet that prevents them. Such is the abyss that yawns beneath the feet of our country, and into which the advocates of education without religion—perhaps some of them unconsciously—seek to precipitate us, by continuing to force upon this Christian nation an anti-Christian, an anti-American system ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... of the King thence marched to Eulenburg. The Austrian troops that had encamped in that vicinity retired, through Mochrena to Torgau, with so much precipitate haste that they abandoned a part of their tents. The army encamped with the right at Thalwitz and the left at Eulenburg. Hulsen was obliged to pass the Mulde with some battalions. He took a position between Belzen and Gostevra, opposite the Prince de Deuxponts, whose army ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... interruption is threatened by armed force with hostile intent, either governmental or insurgent, at any point within fifty miles of Panama. Government forces reported approaching the Isthmus in vessels. Prevent their landing, if, in your judgment, the landing would precipitate a conflict." ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... explained on looking at the object from which he had made such a precipitate retreat. It was no longer Le Gros, nor even Le Gros's body; but only the upper half of it, cut off by the abdomen, as clean as if it had been severed by a ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... men whose mission in life it appears to be to go about the world creating crises in the lives of other people. When there is thunder in the air they precipitate the thunderbolt. ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... was to the continued machinations of the royalists and Levellers, both equally eager to precipitate him from the height to which he had attained, Cromwell made it his great object to secure to himself the attachment of the army. To it he owed the acquisition, through it alone could he insure the permanence, of his power. Now, fortunately for this ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... reached Paris that Louis had refused the assembly's demand for the withdrawal of the troops, the central committee of the sections took matters into its hands and voted the formation of a civic guard for the city of Paris. On the same day the King, now ready to precipitate the crisis, dismissed and exiled Necker, and called the reactionary Breteuil to power. On the 12th, Paris broke ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... Montani's agent in such manner as to shield them. I was thinking hard and in my perplexity even considered sending a messenger for Torrence; but he was already suspicious and would be very likely to summon Raynor immediately and precipitate a crisis I was not prepared to face. To invite the attention of the American State Department to the increasingly complex situation would not be giving my aunt the chance I meant she should ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... Paulins, Capt. Arbuckle's, and Capt. M'Clannahan's from Battertout. The enemy no longer able to maintain their ground was forced to give way till they were in a line with the troops left in action on branches of ohio by Col. Fleming. In this precipitate retreat Col. Field was killed; after which Capt. Shelby was ordered to take the command. During this time which was till after twelve of the clock, the action continued extremely hot, the close underwood, many steep ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... courier brought a letter to the castle. He came in the evening, and the letter was carried to Wogan while he was at table. He noticed at once that it was in his King's hand, and he slipped it quickly into his pocket. It may have been something precipitate in his manner, or it may have been merely that all were on the alert to mark his actions, but at once curiosity was aroused. No plain words were said; but here and there heads nodded together and whispered, and while some eyed Wogan suspiciously, ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... lovers in their venery Forgat a little while their stolen sweets, Deeming they heard dread Dian's bitter cry; And the grim watchmen on their lofty seats Ran to their shields in haste precipitate, Or strained black-bearded ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... this place of refuge when from the woods and rocks above him came the clear, echoing whistle of Howard Lawrence. It startled him as if it were the whoop of this Indians so close at hand. Of course he dare not reply to it, for it could only precipitate his capture. ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... on my shoulder. "I miss you," he said, simply. "I miss you all the time. You see, I love you." Then, with precipitate selfconsciousness, he closed the door of his New England heart, and from some remote corner of it sent out his cautious after-thought. "I love you," he repeated, primly, "as ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... sludge caused by lime as a precipitant contains nearly all the phosphoric acid, there is not a trace of the potash or ammonia removed. Sulphate of alumina has also been used, both alone and in conjunction with lime. The advantage claimed by it over lime is, that the resulting precipitate is much less bulky. In other respects, however, it does not seem to be any more efficient as a precipitant. In the well-known A, B, C process, a mixture of alum, clay, lime, charcoal, blood, and alkaline salts, in different ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... off to the barn without another word. His going was almost precipitate, but not from any fear of Jake. It was himself he feared. This merciless brute drove him to distraction every time he came into contact with him, and the only way he found it possible to keep the peace with him at all was by avoiding him, by ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... receive back Tamyra as his wife, though her sole motive in rejoining him is to precipitate vengeance on his head. Nor had anything in the earlier play prepared us for the spectacle of him as a poltroon, who has "barricado'd" himself in his house to avoid a challenge, and who shrieks "murther!" at the entrance of an unexpected visitor. In the light ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... makes that not more than sixty-seven wounded American officers and soldiers fell into his hands! Where were the twenty-two hundred other maimed and fallen rebels? Obviously, and as Howe must have well known, the Americans could carry few if any of their dead with them on their precipitate retreat, nor could any but the slightly hurt of the wounded make their escape. Full two thousand, by this calculation, must have been left upon the field. Who buried them? Were they the victims of the supposed ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... statement of Germany's position in the matter, a position which subsequent events showed to be entirely untenable, but to which Germany tenaciously adhered to the very end, and which did much to precipitate the war. Forgetful of the solidarity of European civilization and the fact that by policy and diplomatic intercourse continuing through many centuries a United European State exists, even though its organization be as yet inchoate, he took the ground that Austria should be permitted to proceed ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... all the wishes of those who, from a fugitive and an exile, had created him general of so great an army, and given him the command of such a fleet. But, as became a great captain, he opposed himself to the precipitate resolutions which their rage led them to, and, by restraining them from the great error they were about to commit, unequivocally saved the commonwealth. For if they then had sailed to Athens, all Ionia and the islands and the Hellespont would have fallen into the enemies' hands ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... refuge, or borne both the tree and him headlong down into the river. After a moment of horrible uncertainty, the power of gravitation determined a direct and forward descent. Down went the huge fragment, which must have weighed at least twenty tons, rending and splintering in its precipitate course the trees and bushes which it encountered, and settling at length in the channel of the torrent, with a din equal to the discharge of a hundred pieces of artillery. The sound was re-echoed from bank to bank, from precipice to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various
... names of Geber, Arnold, Lulli, or bombast of Hohenheim, to commit miracles in art, and treason against nature! As if the title of philosopher, that creature of glory, were to be fetched out of a furnace! I am their crude and their sublimate, their precipitate and their unctions; their male and their female, sometimes their hermaphrodite—what they list to style me! They will calcine you a grave matron, as it might be a mother of the maids, and spring up a young virgin out of her ashes, as fresh as a phoenix; lay you an old courtier on the coals, like ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... avert his face more entirely from, what he considered, a gaze of impertinent curiosity. The soldier, as he re-opened the door, again turned, and seemed on the point of speaking; but La Tour could endure no intrusion, and a glance of angry reproof from his eye, induced a precipitate retreat. He almost instantly repented this vehemence; for that parting look was familiar to him, and possibly he might ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... because they do not despair of reconquering Rome, or because they wait to treat in due season with the ultimate and real victor, whether King or Pope. And so Nani, who had long been one of Donna Serafina's intimates, had helped to precipitate the rupture with Prada as soon as Benedetta's mother was dead. Again, it was he who, to prevent any interference on the part of the patriotic Abbe Pisoni, the young woman's confessor and the artisan of her marriage, had urged her to take the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... 'How precipitate that was, and yet what an earnest and vigorous measure!' said Quilp, conferring with himself, in imitation of ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... persevere, and Mr. Bernard himself, accompanied by Mr. Gordon and me, presented ourselves before her. Was there ever a meeting under such circumstances? The husband clasped the unconscious wife to his bosom. I stood to watch the effect of an act which I considered precipitate, if not imprudent. The moment she felt herself in the arms of her husband she struggled to release herself, uttered the loudest scream I ever heard from her, and fell in a swoon upon the floor. That ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... fault. Believing that Kruger would always yield to a show of force, he had been responsible for putting troops near the border to exercise moral pressure. But neither then nor at any time had he given Jameson orders to invade the Transvaal, or to precipitate an armed conflict, which he believed to be unnecessary. Such was his consistent statement, and he was ready to face, when the time should come, the Parliamentary committees appointed by the British and South African Houses ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... precipitate; there is no need to apply before Tuesday, and I believe even Wednesday would do. Spend the intervening days in town; something suitable may be advertised in newspapers. You have not yet applied at any registry offices. ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... her great size and spreading pinions, could not venture among those ticklish quicksands, whose insecure foundations had just been so strikingly illustrated before us. Indeed, the slightest jar might precipitate another fall of snow, and bury the object of our solicitude five hundred feet deep in its bosom. The sagacity of Mr. Bonflon relieved us from our dilemma. He hoisted out the small car or tender, and, letting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Holland. Suddenly appeared the cornet at the fore—an unexpected signal, that compelled absent officers and men to repair on board. Steam was raised, and immediately after a departure made, when all hands being called, the nature of the precipitate movement became apparent. Captain Winslow, in a brief address, announced the welcome intelligence of the reception of a telegram from his Excellency, Mr. Dayton, Minister Resident at Paris, to the effect that the notorious ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne
... the head of the state machine; and A.B. Cornell, the naval officer, was chairman of the state and national Republican committees; It was evident that an attempt to change conditions in New York would precipitate a test of strength between the administration and the New ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... Doubtless many a marriage—and not in high life alone, either—has been put through, although the one party or the other or both have discovered that disaster was inevitable—solely because of the appalling muddle the sensible course would precipitate. In the case of the Norman-Burroughs fiasco, there were—to note only a few big items—such difficulties as several car loads of presents from all parts of the earth to be returned, a house furnished ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... Google, and learning that he was in an anteroom, started in search of him. She found herself in the supper room, hurrying across which, she pulled open a door on the other side with such a vigorous effort of elephantine strength, as to precipitate a waiter, who had just caught hold of the handle, headlong into the room. The unfortunate servitor, who was dressed in white cravat and black coat, landed under the supper table, where he lay motionless. Ann Harriet made her way back to the parlor ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... son. I dare not so pray for one self-willed and precipitate; nor, till you bring a humble and obedient mind, can I receive your confession. There can be no absolution where there is reservation. Consider, my dear son! I only desire ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... he heard this last word. He knew very well what his mother meant. He should buy three hunters, he should marry. These were the anodynes that were offered to him in and out of season. "Bad enough that I should exist! Why precipitate another into the gulf of being?" "Consort with men whose ideal hovers between a stable boy and a veterinary surgeon;" and then, amused by the paradox, John, to whom the chase was evocative of forests, pageantry, spears, would quote some stirring verses of an old ballad, and allude to certain ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... their future prosperity. On the other hand, this action had already been taken, and without any prospect of its revocation. Indeed, in the present frame of mind of the North, any steps toward recession seemed likely to precipitate the very evils which the secession of the states had been designed to anticipate. I believed slavery a disadvantage to the South, but no sin, and, in any event, an institution for which the Southerners ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... reaching upward, and figures 22, 27 and 28 show various modes of handling the boxes and of reaching from them. He was not at all particular as to the stability of his perch, and often mounted the boxes when it seemed to the experimenter inevitable that they should topple over and precipitate him to the floor. Only once, however, during the several days of ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... impious did not blush to call blind chance. Is it, therefore, a wonder that poets animated the whole universe, bestowed wings upon the winds, and arrows on the sun, and described great rivers impetuously running to precipitate themselves into the sea and trees shooting up to heaven to repel the rays of the sun by their thick shades? These images and figures have also been received in the language of the vulgar, so natural it is for men to be sensible of the wonderful ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... oxygen. A few plants near the springs were encrusted with sulphur. This deposit is scarcely visible when the water of Mariara is suffered to cool in an open vessel; no doubt because the quantity of disengaged gas is very small, and is not renewed. The water, when cold, gives no precipitate with a solution of nitrate of copper; it is destitute of flavour, and very drinkable. If it contain any saline substances, for example, the sulphates of soda or magnesia, their quantities must be very insignificant. Being almost destitute of chemical tests,* (* A small case, containing ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Francis Bacon writes, "that the Leucacians in ancient time did use to precipitate a man from a high cliffe into the sea; tying about him, with strings, at some distance, many great fowles; and fixing unto his body divers feathers, spread, to breake the fall. Certainly many birds of good wing (as Kites and the like) would beare up ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... into the cavern had been so precipitate, and both of them had been so intent upon the object of their coming, that they had forgotten their usual precaution and neglected to close the door giving ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... the steps into a snowstorm. Even during his precipitate retreat he had realized the advisability of telephoning for a taxi, but had been incapable of the anti-climax. He pulled his hat over his eyes, turned up the collar of his coat, and made his way hastily toward Park Avenue. There was not a cab in sight. ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... be frank with you,' said I. 'You must know that our fellows, and especially the Poles, are so incensed against the Cossacks that the mere sight of the uniform drives them mad. They precipitate themselves instantly upon the wearer and tear him limb from limb. Even their officers ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... showed no disposition to obey them. On the contrary, at a few words from their chief, they pushed closer yet, and some of them even began to jostle the soldiers of the Capuan guard. A light blow or a sharp word bade fair to precipitate a conflict that, despite the numerical equality, could hardly be doubtful in its outcome, when a sharp, commanding voice ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... time of the return from Egypt till 1814, when he abandoned his master. He slept at or near the door of Napoleon. See Remusat, tome i, p. 209, for an amusing description of the alarm of Josephine, and the precipitate flight of Madame de Remusat, at the idea of being met and killed by this man in one of Josephine's nocturnal attacks on the privacy of her husband when closeted ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the only means of checking precipitate degeneracy is heartily to concur with whatever is the best in our time; and to have some more correct standard of judging what that best is, than the transient and uncertain favour of a court. If ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... contemplated laws. I do not at all like the idea of being abridged of the power of hiring a farm for the longest time I can obtain it, which is one of the projects of some of the ultra reformers of free and equal New York. It is wonderful, Hugh, into what follies men precipitate themselves as soon as they begin to run into exaggerations, whether of politics, religion, or tastes. Here are half of the exquisite philanthropists who see a great evil affecting the rights of human nature in one man's hiring a farm from another for as long a term ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... force penetrated in August into Lorraine, an English army disembarked at Calais, and a body of Spaniards descended from the Pyrenees. But at the moment of its realization the discovery of the plot and an order for his arrest foiled Bourbon's designs; and his precipitate flight threw these skilful plans into confusion. Francis remained in his realm. Though the army which he sent over the Alps was driven back from the walls of Milan it still held to Piedmont, while the allied force in northern France under the command ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... coward, the rash, and the Brave man have exactly the same object-matter, but stand differently related to it: the two first-mentioned respectively exceed and are deficient, the last is in a mean state and as he ought to be. The rash again are precipitate, and, being eager before danger, when actually in it fall away, while the Brave are quick and sharp in action, but ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... puncture was accordingly performed, and the spinal fluid findings were as follows: Fluid clear, pressure moderately increased, Noguchi butyric acid reaction positive, a rather uncommonly heavy granular type of precipitate, cells per cubic millimeter 129. Differential cell count: Lymphocytes, 94 per cent; phagocytes 2.2 per cent; plasma cells, 0.25 per cent; unclassified cells, 2.25 per cent. Wassermann reaction with spinal fluid negative, ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... somewhere overhead in the great buildings sounded the whir of a lift, a footstep, the throwing up of a window. And to each sound he listened eagerly and intently, ignorant as to whether it might not mark the news of some fresh catastrophe, the tidings of some decision that would precipitate his ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... the curtain. This gives a portion of the audience a sight of me, and I hear some one exclaim, "There he is!" Horrible exposure! I dodge back out of view, as if to escape the discharge of a battery. A round of impatient applause rouses me. I count three, and precipitate myself forward to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... door with one hand while he hung up the receiver with the other, and by his precipitate exit nigh bowled his adjutant over; Mr. Lanigan, it was plain to be seen, was wound up tightly that evening and his mainspring was operating ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... fallen in love; fallen with the fatality of the Lemprieres, and with the fine precipitate sweep of her own genius. And she had let herself go, with the recklessness of a woman unaware of her genius for loving, with the superb innocence, too, of all spontaneous forces. Owen's nature had disarmed her of all subterfuges, all ordinary defences of ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... and to consist of undifferentiated protoplasm, the exhaustless fountain from which all other forms of life had been derived. Not long after Huxley had given it a formal scientific name in 1868, it was discovered to be merely a precipitate of gypsum thrown down from sea water by alcohol, and thus a product of clumsy manipulation in the laboratory, instead of a natural product of the deep sea. The disappointment of those opposing biogenesis was severe; ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... phullon geneae]), and not from any top-dressing capriciously scattered over the surface at some master's bidding.[277] England had long been growing more truly insular in language and political ideas when the Reformation came to precipitate her national consciousness by secluding her more completely from the rest of Europe. Hitherto there had been Englishmen of a distinct type enough, honestly hating foreigners, and reigned over by kings of whom ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... the strap of the window for a time. I prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his next remark. He leant forward almost as though he would ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... which is threatening the country, and take immediate steps to expose and bring it to light. The country may truly be said to be sleeping over a veritable volcano which the next general election may precipitate, unless steps are taken at once to bring this nightmare into the light of day and force it out ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... a long breath. That was enough! He would take his chance in the game with any other man as long as she was not promised. But there was no use in spoiling everything by being too precipitate. The captain of the Seamew might be simple, but he was not the man to ruin a thing through impulsiveness. That exhibition in the restaurant ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... thought to thought, a vast profound! Plunged for his sense, but found no bottom there; Yet wrote and floundered on in mere despair. Round him much embryo, much abortion lay, Much future ode, and abdicated play; Nonsense precipitate, like running lead, That slipped through cracks and zigzags of the head; All that on Folly Frenzy could beget, Fruits of dull heat, and sooterkins of wit. Next o'er his books his eyes began to roll, In pleasing memory of all he stole— How here he sipped, how there he plundered ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... met with the most resolute resistance by representative from the slave- holding States, who sought to deny them a hearing, and declared that the mere consideration of their propositions by Congress would not only justify, but would inevitably precipitate, a dissolution of the Union. Undaunted by any form of opposition, the Abolitionists stubbornly maintained their ground, and finally succeeded in creating a great popular excitement by insisting on the simple ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... at dusk. Doing fine. Fixed fence which M & P. broke down while tramping around. Prospected west of ranche. Found enormous ledge of black quartz, looks like sulphur stem during volcanic era but may be iron. Strong gold & heavy precipitate in test, silver test poor but on filtering showed like white of egg in tube (unusual). Clearing iron out showed for gold the highest yet made, being more pronounced with Fenosulphate than $1500 rock have seen. Immense ledge of it & slightest estimate from test at least $10. Did not tell ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... from what he had expected that he was obliged to precipitate matters. The next day was Sunday,—a day on which his employees, in turns, were allowed the recreation of being driven to Big Flume City, eight miles distant, to church, or for the day's holiday. In the morning Mary Ellen was astonished by Abner informing her ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... is given to the first of the digestive fluids, which is secreted in the glands of the mouth. It is a viscid, alkaline liquid, with a specific gravity of about 1005. If allowed to stand, a whitish precipitate is formed. Examinations with the microscope show it to be composed of minute, granular cells and oil globules, mingled with numerous scales of epithelium. According to Bidder and Schmidt, the composition of ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... a slip or a false step meant instant death; now crossing some ghastly chasm by means of a frail and dilapidated suspension bridge constructed of cables of maguey fibres and floored with rotten planking, which swung to the tread until the oscillation threatened to precipitate the entire party into the terrible abyss that yawned beneath them, and perhaps half an hour later forcing their way, slowly and with infinite labour and difficulty, up the boulder-strewn bed of some half-dry mountain ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... concurrence of Turkey and Sweden, Russia is less vulnerable. The assistance of these two powers was therefore requisite in order to surprise her, to strike her to the heart in her modern capital, and to turn at a distance, in the rear of its left, her grand army of the Niemen,—and not merely to precipitate attacks on a part of her front, in plains where the extent of space prevented confusion, and left a thousand roads open to the retreat ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... change as that in the Rehearsal, of King Usher and King Physician. It may well be so, when the disposition of the drama is in the hands of the Duke of Newcastle—those hands that are always groping and sprawling, and fluttering and hurrying on the rest of his precipitate person. But there is no describing him, but as M. Courcelle, a French prisoner, did t'other day: "Je ne scais pas," dit il, "je ne scaurois m'exprimer, mais il a un certain tatillonage." If one ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... we wavered. Then Jill gave a shriek of laughter, and we broke and scattered something after the manner of a mounted reconnoitring patrol that has unexpectedly "bumped into" a battalion of the enemy. Our retreat, however, was not exactly precipitate, and we endeavoured to invest it with a semblance of hypocrisy not usually thought necessary in warfare; but it was in no sense dignified, and only a child, too young to differentiate between right and wrong, could have failed to recognize the true motive ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... send like lightning o'er the dew, Bristles his crest, and points his ears, As if some stranger step he hears. 'T is not a mourner's muffled tread, Who comes to sorrow o'er the dead, But headlong haste or deadly fear Urge the precipitate career. All stand aghast:—unheeding all, The henchman bursts into the hall; Before the dead man's bier he stood, Held forth the Cross besmeared with blood; 'The muster-place is Lanrick mead; Speed forth the ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... are thriftless when you eagerly seize the first opportunity to fritter away your time over old clothes. You precipitate yourself unnecessarily against a disagreeable thing. For you are not going to put your stockings on. Perhaps you will not need your buttons for a week, and in a week you may have passed beyond the jurisdiction of buttons. But even if you should not, let the buttons and the holes alone all the same. ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... America. It gave the patriots supremacy in the north, as Maypo had done in the south. New Granada was freed from the Spaniards, and on August 9, two days after the battle, the viceroy, Samana, hastily evacuated Bogota, fleeing in such precipitate haste that in thirty hours he reached Honda, usually a journey of three days. On the 12th Bolivar triumphantly marched into the capital, and found in its coffers silver coin to the value of half a million dollars, which the viceroy had left ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... and, by his importunate and reckless propaganda, with inciting the Indians to rebellion. Granting that some abuses existed, they argued that his methods for redressing them were more pernicious than the evils themselves; prudent measures should be employed, not the radical and precipitate method of the fanatical friar, and time would gradually do the rest. Men who argued such as the Bishop of Burgos and Lope Conchillos, were large holders of encomienda properties, who objected to having their sources of income disturbed. ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... had possessed the slightest degree of leadership he would have seen that this was the worst of all moments to precipitate a crisis. The forces of his own party were neither armed nor ready. But here, as in all other important crises of his career, he was governed by the haughty and headstrong passion of ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... pity to be precipitate, Persis. An investment that pays ten per cent. isn't to be sneezed at nowadays. And this fellow's offer just now looks as if the stock wasn't in any ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... company. But another time, I trust. I—I feel presumptuous, but it is my earnest hope to be allowed to stand on the footing not only of a comrade in the cause, but of a neighbour; I live quite near. Forgive me if I seem a little precipitate. ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... ignorance, neglect and vice come to this. The young, the weak and the proud have to guard themselves against these dangers, hey work slowly, imperceptibly, but surely. Two things increase the peril and tend to precipitate matters; reading and companionship. The ignorant are often anxious to know the other side, when they do not know their own. The consequence is that they will not understand fully the question; and if they ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... holds in the Commonwealth of Literature. It is just to suppose that the clamour of the tribes in the forum had little to do with his elevation. Their elect are of another stamp. They are such as their need of precipitate action requires. He is the Elect of the Senate—the Senate of Letters—whose Conscript Fathers have recognised him as primus inter pares; a post of pure honour and of ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... followed in such quick succession that they paused, when but a moment more would have placed them within the inclosure. But several of them being wounded, and Boone and Glenn still doing execution with their pistols, the discomfited enemy made a precipitate retreat. An occasional flight of arrows continued to assail the besieged, but they came from a great distance, for the Indians were not long in scampering beyond the range of ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... against a volley from five times our number, at a rather greater distance; but they did not like having their mustaches singed by our powder; and after a moment's wavering and hesitation, they shouted out "Diabolos! Diabolos!" and throwing away their muskets, broke into precipitate flight. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... doubt that there are men to-day who are in official positions of power and influence in our national, state and city administrations throughout the United States and who are more or less openly using the present crisis of unusual and war conditions in order to precipitate the country into a complete Socialistic organization. It may be that we shall come to Socialism as a final political and economic development. Personally, I for one do not believe that we will, or that even a small part of the real thinking ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers
... Dominie, as if pursued by a demon, made a sudden and precipitate retreat down a flight of steps into ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... his ears at that. He saw that Redell was serious; he knew that once the latter passed his word of honor he never broke it. Still, Cappy did not wish to appear precipitate in his surrender; so ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Will be outrageous, in these troubled times Of strikes and lock-outs. Without any doubt, If he goes trying to harness up the Devil, It will precipitate a teamsters' strike. ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... shouted the postmaster, in a voice of authority. He was used to running these same boys out of his office when they became too boisterous during the distribution of the mails, making precipitate dashes from the inner sanctum of the United States government. They were accustomed to the sound of his important shout, and a few eyes rolled over shoulder at him. But they soon plunged again into their little ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to her sex. He had argued rather that, being only a lovelier product of the common mould, she would abound in the adaptabilities and pliancies which the lords of the earth have seen fit to cultivate in their companions. She would care for his aims because they were his. During their precipitate wooing, and through the first brief months of marriage, this profound and original theory had been gratifyingly confirmed; then its perfect surface had begun to show a flaw. Amherst had always conveniently supposed that the poet's line summed up the good woman's rule of ethics: ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... collected and measured, and gave the quantity of water decomposed. Then the whole of the charge used was mixed together, and a known part of it analyzed, by being precipitated and boiled with excess of carbonate of soda, and the precipitate well-washed, dried, ignited, and weighed. In this way the quantity of metal oxidized and dissolved by the acid was ascertained; and the part removed from each zinc plate, or from all the plates, could be estimated ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... the Jan Mayen ice rivers; but in this case so unaccountable did it seem that the over-hanging mass of ice should not continue to thunder down upon its course, that one's natural impulse was to shrink from crossing the path along which a breath—a sound—might precipitate the suspended avalanche into the valley. Though, perhaps, pretty exact in outline and general effect, the sketch I have made of this wonderful scene, will never convey to you a correct notion of the enormous scale of the distances, and size of its various features. ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... these two solutions, a precipitate of iodide of silver is formed. Place the bottle containing this mixture in a saucepan of hot water, keep it on the hob for about twelve hours, shake it occasionally, now and then removing the stopper. The bath is now perfectly saturated with iodide of silver; ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... remoteness, her unattainability. He was like a man who, in an hour of rashness and vanity, has boasted that he can attain a certain mountain peak, and finds himself stalled at its very base. He decided that he must assert himself; he tried to nerve himself to seize her in his old precipitate, boisterous fashion. He found that he had neither the desire to do so nor the ability. He had never thought her so full of the lady's charm. That was just the trouble—the lady's charm, not the human being's; not the charm ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... came down, formed into a grand dance, when, lo! fortune no longer favouring this brilliant festival, a sudden storm of rain came on, and all were glad to get off in the boats and make for town as fast as they could. The confusion in consequence of this precipitate retreat afforded as much matter to laugh at the next day as the splendour of the entertainment had excited admiration. In short, the festivity of this day was not, forgotten, on one account or the other, ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... in a week. Though he had now something tangible to rely on in case of accidents still he was not happy, for Gopal discontinued paying interest on the loan and he did not dare to press him, lest he should precipitate a crash. ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea |
