"Brittle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Slayback crying. On the contrary, she was inclined to laughter. A little too inclined to a high and brittle sort of dissonance over which she seemed ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... and abundant supplies. On these great wastes and wilds, however, each season has its peculiar hardships. The travellers had not proceeded far, before they found themselves among naked and arid hills, with a soil composed of sand and clay, baked and brittle, that to all appearance had never been visited by ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... what we be— A moment, where are we? As brittle as frail glass, As fading as the grass, By a ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... of the mate, and was grinding the wheel down with all his might, when the Willi-Waw struck. At the same instant her mainmast crashed over the bow. Five wild minutes followed. All hands held on while the hull upheaved and smashed down on the brittle coral and the warm seas swept over them. Grinding and crunching, the Willi-Waw worked itself clear over the shoal patch and came solidly to rest in the comparatively smooth and ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... great wonder; and everyone said, if the Devil had not assisted him, it was impossible the thing could have been done; for, in general, these ropes are so brittle, being made of green hay, that they will scarcely bear to be bound over the rick. And, the more to horrify the good people of this neighbourhood, the driver said, when he first came in view, he could almost give his ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... the smoke from the burning forest was swirling about the open space in front of the station and he knew that before long he would be seeing flame instead of smoke. The fire fighters had been working ceaselessly, fighting gallantly, but the elements were against them. The air was almost as dry and brittle as the wood which the flames lapped up and there was a steady wind that drove ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... the bear was marked by a swath of broken brush. It dashed headlong through the forest regardless of obstruction. Small trees in his way meant nothing to him; he ran over them, or if old and brittle, smashed them down. Into the densest portion of the woods he made his way. Not more than three hundred yards from the spot he started, he treed again. In an almost impenetrable thicket of small cedars, the dogs sent up their chorus of barks. ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... many years ago, but that's just why it's worth while to hear the story before it is forgotten. The Emperor's palace was the most splendid in the world; it was made entirely of porcelain, very costly, but so delicate and brittle that one had to take care how one touched it. In the garden were to be seen the most wonderful flowers, and to the costliest of them silver bells were tied, which sounded, so that nobody should pass by without noticing ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... the soil a reddish hue in its immediate vicinity. Wherever this rock abounds, the soil is durable and the crops are usually heavy. It is sometimes met with having a fine grain, and so very hard as to be almost brittle, though generally very difficult to break, and when broken strongly resembling cast-iron, and will sometimes ring, on being struck, almost as clearly. It was used very much formerly for making journals to run ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... circumspectly lest he should injure the walls of the ancient palaces which he is disinterring; as he watches every corner-stone lest he mistake their dark passages and galleries, and as he removes with awe and trembling the dust and clay from the brittle monuments lest he destroy their outlines, and obliterate their inscriptions, so it behoves the student of the history of religion to set to work carefully, lest he should miss the track, and lose himself in an inextricable maze. The relics which he handles are more precious than the ruins of ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... Mr. Giles, nodding his head, approvingly; 'from a woman, nothing else was to be expected. We, being men, took a dark lantern that was standing on Brittle's hob, and groped our way downstairs in the pitch dark,—as ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... some of the narrow, brittle, fragrant leaves. Winsome carefully kept half for herself, and as carefully inserted a spray in each ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... surface to be variously raz'd or scratched, and to consist of an infinite of small broken surfaces, which reflect the light of very various and differing colours. And indeed it seems impossible by Art to cut the surface of any hard and brittle body smooth, since Putte, or even the most curious Powder that can be made use of, to polish such a body, must consist of little hard rough particles, and each of them must cut its way, and consequently leave some kind of gutter ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... in preparing the fruit, when ripe, for use, it is first baked in hot ashes, then soaked in water to obtain the sweet substance contained between its fibres, after which it is put on the coals and roasted to render it brittle when it is broken to ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... building, etc., is not a matter in which men of other times should be too ready to throw stones, for taste in all such matters at almost all times, however sure a stronghold it may seem to those who occupy it, is the most brittle of glass-houses to others. He had also a considerable touch of almost original genius in important kinds of literature, as The Mysterious Mother and The Castle of Otranto showed—a touch which undoubtedly helped him in his letters. But of ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... opposite attack warily with his shield. That of Sir Tarquin was framed of a bull's hide, stoutly held together with thongs, and, in truth, seemed well-nigh impenetrable; whilst the shield of his opponent, being of more brittle stuff, did seem as though it would have cloven asunder with the desperate strokes of Sir Tarquin's sword. Nothing daunted, Sir Lancelot brake ofttimes through his adversary's guard, and smote him once until the blood trickled down amain. At this sight, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... material, light in weight, brittle, and very expensive, used in blocking; frames are also made ...
— Make Your Own Hats • Gene Allen Martin
... at Bromoe, which fabricates window-glass exclusively. We stopped a short time, and took a considerable cargo of the brittle material ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... and it was to be the finest hen in all the country round. She was an old lady of infinite spirit, and daily, dragging the boy with her lest he again went a-fishing, she trudged to farms near and far to examine and feel their hens. She was a brittle old lady who creaked as she walked, and cracked like a whin-pod in the heat, but she did her dozen miles or more a day, and passed all the fowls in review, and could not be deceived by the craftiest of farmers' wives; and in the tail of the day she became ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... brittle web of that rich sword he thought, Was broke through hardness of the County's shield; And so thought Raymond, who discovered naught What succor Heaven did for his safety yield: But when he saw the man gainst whom he fought Unweaponed, still ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... Bud gave a short, brittle laugh. "I'll tell yuh. He says the sheriff's a crook! What do you know about that? I heard him tellin' it to Miss Mary the other day when he come in from Paloma about dinner-time. She was askin' him the same question, an' he up an' tells her it wouldn't ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... body which had decayed in a very dry atmosphere (in which no adipocere would be formed), and which had been pulled or broken apart. Also that the ligaments which held the body—or rather skeleton—together were brittle and friable, as suggested by the detached hand, which had probably broken off accidentally. But the only kind of body that completely answers this description is an Egyptian mummy. A mummy, it is true, has been more or less preserved; but on exposure to the air of such a climate as ours it perishes ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... captain and the engineer were not so brittle of temper. They discussed the matter, calling on the fireman, who had heard nothing, being busy in ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... risk than is necessary in making the Paris experiment. We shall let the old dear rooms, and make money by them, and keep them to fall back upon, in case we fail at Paris. 'But we'll not fail.' Well, I hope not, though I am very brittle still and susceptible to climate. Dearest Sarianna, it will do you infinite good to come over to us every now and then—you want change, absolute change of scene and air and climate, I am confident; and you never will be right ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... emerald and silver. Along the eaves, like a row of inverted spears of unequal lengths, hung the argent icicles. No; not spun silver all this, but glass; all things buried, not under a tide of liquid silver, but of flowing and then cooling glass: Nature for once turned into a glass house, fixed in a brittle mass, nowhere bending or swaying; but if handled roughly, sure ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... the forest present distinct variations of quality, depending on the texture of the wood. The hickory is hard, the ash is brittle, the pine is soft, etc. An examination of the texture of the human organization will disclose variations, different, it is true, but some times strikingly analogous, and no less important in determining the fitness of the individual ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... packet of notes and extracted the piece of rag, which he locked carefully away in a dispatch-box. He then cleared a little space on the floor, and put the papers lightly over one another. Setting a match to them, he watched them light up and curl into brittle tinder, and dissolve from that stage into a heap of charred ashes, which he gathered up with a careful hand and put into the soft earth of a fern-box outside his veranda door. This being done, he sat ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... on the tables of the South, which, with coffee, I like very much. The wheat dough is rolled very thin, cut in strips the width of a table-knife, and about as long, baked until well done; if browned, all the better. They become crisp and brittle, and better than the ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... felt the necessity of vindicating her character) Miss Minerva began a dissertation on cranes, suggested by the birds with the brittle-looking legs hopping up to her in expectation of something to eat. Ovid was absorbed in attending to his cousin; he had provided himself with some bread, and was helping Carmina to feed the birds. But one person ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... through the sphere will conduct an electrical current, which is pretty definite proof that the metal isn't within the sphere at all. Glass can be forced through it without breaking. Not flexible glass, but rods of plain old brittle glass. It turns without breaking, and it also loses some of its length. Water can be forced through a tube inserted in the sphere, but only when terrific pressure is applied. What that proves I can't even begin ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... The kail grows brittle from the snow in my dank and cheerless garden. A crust of bread gathers timid pheasants round me. The robins, I see, have made the coal-house their home. Waster Lunny's dog never barks without rousing my sluggish ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... gluten may be obtained by kneading the dough of flour in a muslin bag under a small current of water; the starch, or fecula, and the gum, are carried away by the water, and the gluten in an impure form remains as an elastic viscous substance, which on drying becomes hard and brittle. It is to the gluten of flour that its property of panification, or bread-making, is due. On the addition of a ferment, a portion of the starch is converted into sugar and carbonic acid gas, and the latter causes the gluten to expand ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... ringworm sycosis, the history of the case is different. The parts are distinctly lumpy and nodular; the hairs are soon involved and become dry, brittle, loose, and fall out, or they may be readily extracted. The superficial type of ringworm sycosis is readily distinguished by the ring-like character of the patches. In doubtful cases, microscopic examination of the hairs may ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... said a brittle, harsh voice from above me. I looked up and saw a helmeted figure above us. He wasn't wearing the customary skin-tight pliable oxysuits we had. He wore an outmoded, bulky spacesuit and a fishbowl helmet, all but the face area opaque. The oxygen cannisters weren't attached to his ...
— The Hunted Heroes • Robert Silverberg
... pretty woman still, though she was nearly fifty; her hair was russet red, and blew about her forehead in little curls; her eyes, brown like a brook in shady places, and kind. It was a mild face, but not weak. Below them the valley shimmered in the heat; the grass was hot and brittle underfoot; popples bent and twisted in a scorching wind, and a soft, dark glitter of movement ran through the ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... these the small bellows raised the ends of the drills to a white heat, when of course they were easily worked. At first they had some difficulty in tempering them. Sometimes, when cooled, the points were too soft, at other times too brittle; but at the end of a week they had arrived at the proper medium. But one of the party had to work steadily to keep the ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... the roof and touched her lips. The elements roared and shrieked and whistled in a colossal orchestra, and above them she could hear that most uncanny of all sounds in a West Indian storm, the rattling of the hard seeds of the giant tree in their brittle pods. ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... potato fertilizer is ammonium nitrate; that such a substance is rather ineffective as an explosive unless you mix it with a good oxidizable material, such as Diesel fuel; that a four-square mile chunk of rock is 'brittle'—" ...
— Unspecialist • Murray F. Yaco
... in him. For those were the only of his characteristics that his hour could understand. All others it ignored. And so Berlioz remained for half a century simply the composer of the extravagant "Symphonic Fantastique" and the brilliant "Harold in Italy," and, for the rest, a composer of brittle and arid works, barren of authentic ideas, "a better litterateur than musician." However, with the departure of the world from out the romantic house, Berlioz has rapidly recovered. Music of his that before seemed ugly has gradually come ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... had been from the bitter, raw crudity of the Vermont life. She tried to fill the empty hours of Neale's daily absences from the house with some of the fastidious, delicate occupations of which she had so many, but they seemed brittle in her hot hands, and broke when she tried to lean on them. A dozen times a day she interrupted herself to glance with apprehension at her reflection in the mirror, the Florentine mirror with the frame of brown wood carved, with the light, ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... her way to the end of the sand stretch. Miss Drexel and Juanita joined Charley in spreading the coats and robes on the sand and in gathering and spreading small branches, brush, and armfuls of a dry, brittle shrub. But all three ceased from their exertions to watch Wemple as he shot the car backward down the V and up. The car seemed first to stand on one end, then on the other, and to reel drunkenly and to threaten to turn over into the sump-hole when its right front wheel fell into the ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... spot, and picked it up where it lay, half-concealed among the brittle, dry scrub of milk-bushes. I examined the bearings carefully; though there were hoof-marks close by, it had received no hurt. I blew up the tire, which was somewhat flabby, and went on to untie my sturdy pony. The moment I looked at her I saw the poor little brute was wearied out with her ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... off as large pieces as he thought he could conveniently handle. The ice was exceedingly hard and brittle. It had frozen centuries before, under the extremely low temperatures of the Arctic regions. It had its beginning, perhaps, in snow deposited in some far-off Greenland valley. Other snows had come upon it, and still other snows, ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... brittle glass that bound the captive beside her grew stronger. A wife who could bewitch the hours away with such music as this would be no undesirable possession for a blase man. He stooped over her as she arose from ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... frail and earthly bark, by reason's guide, Which holds the helm, whilst will doth wield the sail, By my desires, the winds of bad betide, Hath sailed these worldly seas with small avail, Vain objects serve for dreadful rocks to quail My brittle boat from haven of life that flies To haunt the sea of mundane miseries. My soul that draws impressions from above, And views my course, and sees the winds aspire, Bids reason watch to scape the shoals of love; But lawless will enflamed with endless ire Doth steer ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... us to the sub-kingdom containing the star-fishes—the sub-kingdom ECHINODERMA, which includes, besides the star-fishes (or Asteridea), all sea-eggs or sea-urchins (Echinidea), the brittle-stars Ophiuridea, as well as the elongated soft animals called sea-cucumbers, or Holothuridea, some of which latter are known as the Japanese ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... as indicated by healthy, dark green foliage, is more important than vigor as indicated by the length of current season's growth. In Morgantown this has been one of the driest seasons on record. Cuttings from trees with pale or brown foliage, or with foliage tending to be brittle from lack of water soon lost their leaves. Whether this was caused by the condition of the parent tree or of the individual cutting is not apparent. It is too early to determine whether or not the drought will cause a general lowering of rooting ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... course of a few hours to the very center of the endosperm, but if water charged or saturated with sea salt be used, it will be seen that the liquid immediately passes through the teguments Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5, and stops abruptly before the embryo membrane No. 6, which will remain quite dry and brittle for several days, the berry remaining all the time in the water. Should the water penetrate further after several days, it can be ascertained that the entrance was gained through the part No 10 free of this tissue, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... as it were, individualized by having special organs appropriated to them, animals rise in the scale of structure. The next class of Mollusks, the Gasteropods, or Univalves, with spiral shells, were numerous, but, from their brittle character, are seldom found in a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... insure a permanent reputation, Henry. It is, so to say, merely a 'demand' reputation—one that men reserve the right to recall at any moment. And the worst of it is, if they ever do recall it, you are worse off than when before they extended the brittle bauble ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... the most splendid in the world, all made of priceless porcelain, but so brittle and delicate that you had to take great care how you touched it. In the garden were the most beautiful flowers, and on the loveliest of them were tied silver bells which tinkled, so that if you passed you could not help looking at the flowers. ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... curious, brittle hissing. The ends of the rods began to dissolve into dazzling, diamond rain, atomically minute, that passing through the egg-shaped lights poured upon the periphery of the pedestal. Rapidly the bars melted. Heat there ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... she knew so blindingly much more than the most penetrating critical intellect—caused her to leave the reviews unread. No one else living had understood Pleydon; and when descriptions of his life spoke of the austerity in his later years, his fanatical aversion to women, Linda thought of the brittle ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... in sand, sea-iris, brittle flower, one petal like a shell is broken, and you print a shadow like a ...
— Sea Garden • Hilda Doolittle
... in. tall. Calyx of 2 to 4 early-falling white sepals; 4 or 5 oblong, scale-like petals; 8 or 10 tawny, hairy stamens; a 5-celled, egg-shaped ovary, narrowed into the short, thick style. Leaves: None. Roots: A mass of brittle fibres, from which usually a cluster of several white scapes arises. Fruit: A 5-valved, ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... spin well and they do not dye well. On examination under the microscope it is seen that these fibres have not the flattened, twisted appearance of the ripe fibres, but are flatter, and the central canal is almost obliterated and the fibres are but little twisted. Dead fibres are thin, brittle and weak. ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... if we add to this the fact that the corruption of the blood, even apart from disease, is very great owing to their peculiar laws of marriage, it is not surprising that the services of dentists are everywhere required. The teeth of Tibetans are generally of such a brittle nature that the dentist of Tibet—usually a Lama and a blacksmith as well—has devised an ingenious way of protecting them from further destruction by means of a silver cap encasing the broken tooth. I once saw a man with all his front teeth covered in this ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... trivial occurrences? Not, Heaven knows, from the interest I can now attach to them; but because, like a drowning man who catches at a brittle twig, I seize every apology for delaying the subsequent and dreadful part of my narrative. But it must be communicated: I must have the sympathy of at least one ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... how to regulate her feelings better than this poor little creature. Miss B. would never have committed herself as that imprudent Amelia had done; pledged her love irretrievably; confessed her heart away, and got back nothing—only a brittle promise which was snapt and worthless in a moment. A long engagement is a partnership which one party is free to keep or to break, but which involves all ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... through the door to where his daughters sat shivering. His coat was powdered with ashes, and there were ashes in his beard and in his tangled hair. He stood straight up, and held his costly treasure on high, in the brittle glass. 'Found, found!—Gold, gold!' he shouted, and again held aloft the glass to let it flash in the sunshine; but his hand trembled, and the alchymic glass fell clattering to the ground, and broke into a thousand pieces; and the last bubble of his happiness had burst! Hu-uh-ush! ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... manufacturers in this country, whose extensive plant was located in Philadelphia. Made under Whitney's patent of 1866, these wheels may well have been added to the Pioneer during the 1871 rebuilding. Railroad wheels were not cast from ordinary cast iron, which was too weak and brittle to stand the severe service for which they were intended, but from a high-quality cast iron similar to that used for cannons. Its tensile strength, which ranged from 31,000 to 36,000 psi, was remarkably ...
— The 'Pioneer': Light Passenger Locomotive of 1851 • John H. White
... drowned man as he tumbled in the swirl of the lagoon where the Brenta meets the tide, a dozen voices corrected us, and we were warned to be careful. A reputation so sudden and tremendous is, at its beginning, somewhat brittle. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... to her group, Carol snatched up the conversation. She laughed and was frivolous and rather brittle. She could not distinguish their eyes. They were a blurry theater-audience before which she self-consciously enacted the comedy of being the Clever Little Bride ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... considerable heights, Mr. Kent found only a few shells; but from the summit of one hill, 625 feet high, he brought me specimens of the Concholepas, Mytilus Chiloensis, and a Turbo. These shells were softer and more brittle than those from the height of 164 feet; and these latter had obviously a much more ancient appearance than the same species from the height ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... stiffener. It makes each hair brittle enough to break off right at the surface of ...
— Junior Achievement • William Lee
... miracle," they cried, "is seen! There goes the flying tortoise queen!" "The queen!" ('twas thus the tortoise spoke;) "I'm truly that, without a joke." Much better had she held her tongue, For, opening that whereby she clung, Before the gazing crowd she fell, And dash'd to bits her brittle shell. ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... of a fish as a proof of sorcery. If you had read your Vergil, you would certainly have known that very different things are sought for this purpose. He, as far as I recollect, mentions 'soft garlands' and 'rich herbs and 'male incense' and 'threads of diverse hues', and, in addition to these, 'brittle laurel,' 'clay to be hardened,' and 'wax to be melted in the fire'. There are also the objects mentioned by him ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... three pounds of refined sugar; boil it to the degree of cracked (which may be ascertained by dipping a spoon into the sugar, and then instantly into cold water, and if it appears brittle, it is boiled enough); squeeze in a small tea-spoonful of the juice, and four drops of essence of lemon, and let it boil up once or twice, and set it by a few minutes: have ready a marble slab, or smooth stone, rubbed over with sweet oil; pour over the sugar; cut it into long ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... Manu, which dated from the fifth century before Christ. Professional scribes were kept constantly employed in re-copying and restoring these precious tomes, as the palm leaves only last about a hundred years, after which they become brittle and difficult to decipher, and the copyists have ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... few miles from the town over the grass brittle and hot, from which the clapping grasshoppers rose in swarms, and dropping down on the point of a mesa I relived again in drowse the joys of other days. It was plain to me that goldseeking in the ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... the best seasoned wood—wood that has been dried for years and years—crack and split and go to pieces in the dry atmosphere of the interior of Australia. Leather becomes brittle, and cracks and breaks when the slightest pressure is put upon it. One exploring expedition was obliged to turn back in consequence of the drying up and cracking of the wood contained in its instruments and their cases. The evaporation from one's skin is very rapid under such circumstances, ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... compact blue ice of its lower track seems to me evidence direct that at times the whole mass must assume the rigidity imparted to it by a temperature inferior to the freezing-point. We know that at 32 deg. Fahrenheit, regelation renders the mass continuous, and that it becomes brittle only at a temperature below this. In other words, the ice can break up into a mass of disconnected fragments, such as the capillary fissures and the infiltration-experiments described in my "Systeme Glaciaire," show to exist, only when it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... strange, lonely river-bed, the cottonwoods began, and, above them, the pine forests massed themselves and strode up the foothills of the gigantic range, that range of iron rocks, sharp, thin, and brittle where they ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... this had ever before visited our country. Houses that stood unmoved through many fierce convulsions went down like brittle reeds, and old Corporations which were thought to be as immovable as the hills tottered and fell, crushing hundreds ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... is my fate, Both void of state; And yet the threshold of my door Is worn by th' poor, Who thither come, and freely get Good words or meat; Like as my parlour, so my hall And kitchen's small; A little buttery, and therein A little bin Which keeps my little loaf of bread Unclipt, unflead. Some brittle sticks of thorn or briar Make me a fire, Close by whose living coal I sit, And glow like it. Lord, I confess, too, when I dine, The pulse is Thine, And all those other bits, that be There placed by Thee; The worts, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... plunge with him into the dark waters that were bubbling around us, but he held me back as if I were a child; and in impotent rage I wept at my weakness. Slowly our perilous situation again forced itself upon my mind. I became conscious that a platform, brittle as the thread of life, was all that separated me from a watery grave; and I fancied the wind was murmuring our requiem as it passed. Hope died within me; but not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... of Powers both high and low, Whose sounding fame all creatures serve to blow; My soul shall with the rest strike up thy praise, And carol of thy works, and wondrous ways. But who can blaze thy beauties, Lord, aright? They turn the brittle beams of mortal sight. Upon thy head thou wear'st a glorious crown, All set with virtues, polished with renown: Thence round about a silver veil doth fall Of crystal light, mother of colours all. The compass, heaven, smooth without grain or fold, All set with spangs ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... the thousands in the higher latitudes. New York became, after awhile, the furthest habitable city north, an arctic city, where warmth seldom penetrated. And great fields of ice began to make their way southward, grinding before them the brittle remains of civilizations, covering over relentlessly ...
— The Coming of the Ice • G. Peyton Wertenbaker
... Apples Arabskoe, Alexander, Albion, Amasias, Aucuba-leaved Reinette, Ballarat Seedling, Bismarck, Black Detroit, Black Gilliflower, Belle de Boskopp, Baldwin, Bohanan, Blanche de Bournay, Blanche d'Espagne, Beauty of Kent, Ben Davis, Belle d'Angers, Brittle Sweet, Brownlee's Russet, Barry, Buckingham, Christiana, Cox's Pomona, Court Penduplat, Coe's Scarlet Perfume, Canada Reinette, Danford, Duke of Devonshire, Dr. Oppel's French Pippin, Dumclow's Seedling, Downing's Paragon, English Royal Russet, Evening Party, Equimetely, Excelsior, Esopus Spitzenberg, ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... and then dipped behind the dim blue of the distant hills. As at a signal, a bird in a thicket somewhere over beyond them began a long throaty warble. Another answered over to the left. Faint, liquid trip-hammerings, they were, upon brittle anvils. ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... take your first tumble immediately after dinner, when, being well filled, you will not be so brittle and apt to break ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... water, a long reef of gold, Or what seem'd gold: and I was glad at first To think that in our often-ransack'd world Still so much gold was left; and then I fear'd Lest the gay navy there should splinter on it, And fearing waved my arm to warn them off; An idle signal, for the brittle fleet (I thought I could have died to save it) near'd, Touch'd, clink'd, and clash'd, and vanish'd, and I woke, I heard the clash so clearly. Now I see My dream was Life; the woman honest Work; And my poor venture but ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... plant which cannot be intelligibly described to those who have never seen it. The stem consists of a tough pithy substance, round which the leaves are formed. These, long and tapering like the rush, are four-sided, and extremely brittle; the base from which they shoot is broad and flat, about the size of a thumb-nail, and very resinous in substance. As the leaves decay annually, others are put forth above the bases of the old ones, which are thus pressed down by the new shoots, and a fresh circle is added every year to ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... almonds are not considered sufficiently good for such men as Lowney to use in the manufacture of their almond candies was a surprise to me. And the reason? In the first place the skin of the kernel itself is too thick, the nut is too brittle and it has not the flavor of the imported nut. I was shocked the other day to read from cover to cover a bulletin on the subject of Almonds, and to find that not one word was said of flavor. It had to be a good cracker; but the marketable qualities did not take into consideration ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... passive strife. Yet am I tremulous and a trifle sick, And, face to face with chance, I shrink a little: My hopes are strong, my will is something weak. Here comes the basket? Thank you. I am ready. But, gentlemen my porters, life is brittle: You carry ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... a rash use of the instrument the dura mater may possibly be injured. The tough outer table is more difficult to cut than the softer and more vascular diploe, and the inner table is denser than either, but more brittle. In many old skulls, however, the diploe is wanting altogether, and the two tables are amalgamated, and often ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... backbone, all the works of man afford nothing so artfully and curiously wrought. It would be too stiff, and too frangible or brittle, if it were made of one single bone: and in such a case man could never bend or stoop. The author of this machine has prevented that inconveniency by forming vertebrae, which jointing one with another make up ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... steal each other's horses. The Indian method of caring for their horses in the cold winter was to let them shift for themselves during the day, and to take them into their own lodges at night where they were fed with the juicy, brittle twigs of the cottonwood tree. With this spare fodder the animals thrive and keep their coats fine ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... of any kind; therefore I cannot hesitate to consider both to be the same species. The first Southern specimen which I examined presented the following characters: on the prosoma there was a central longitudinal band, formed of a thin, brittle, brown-coloured calcified layer, which became irregularly rather narrow towards the thorax; on each side it sent out six or seven irregular rectangular plates, which surrounded and supported the bases of the two rows of filamentary appendages; and outside these, ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... and prevent the odium of felo de se. Medicinal virtues are here to be had without the expense and hazard of a dispensary: You may sleep without dreaming of bottles at your tail, and a looking-glass shall not affright you; and since the glass bubble proved as brittle as its ware, and broke together with itself the hopes of its proprietors, they may make themselves whole by ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... nothing at all but the shadowy lines of birch stems that went reeling past. A branch struck Heysham's horse, and swerving, it jammed his leg against a tree; then there was a crash as my own beast, blundering, charged through a thicket where the brittle stems snapped like pistol-shots, but the salesman was close behind me, and with a shout of "No bridge for miles. I'll show you the way over," I drove ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... of the multitude, the subterranean lavas which simmer beneath a brittle crust of good order and regular administration, all the latent possibilities of volcanoes which this inward fire betokens, are, on the contrary, always present to the mind of the visionary; rumblings are heard, and they herald the earthquake. The vehement and passionate England that produced ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... had turned mechanically back. They walked on in gloomy silence side by side, away now from the lake—back under the barbed thorn-tree-back by the moss-grown crag-back by the hollow trunks, and over the fallen leaves of trees, that had defied the storms of centuries, to drop, perhaps, brittle and sapless, some quiet day when every wind ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... description of glass manufacture," said Preston. "What wouldn't scratch something else, makes a confounded fracture in your feelings. I'll try and remember what brittle ware I ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... appears in the form of circular patches of the skin, which soon become denude of hair. Sometimes a white sticky discharge and the formation of scaly, brittle crusts on the patches appear, silvery gray in color. They are generally confined to the head and neck. It is a common disease among young cattle in the Winter and Spring. This disease is attended with more or less itching and ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... blocked the doorway was crystalline now, and broke to brittle fragments at a blow. He entered the familiar cabin of the ship. There was nothing disturbed; the sealed inner door had barred entrance to ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... moulded by them, instead of assimilating them; that which, instead of growing and blossoming under any wholesome dew, is crystallised over with it, as with hoar frost, and becomes to the true life what an arborescence is to a tree, a candied agglomeration of thoughts and habits foreign to it, brittle, obstinate, and icy, which can neither bend nor grow, but must be crushed and broken to bits if it stands in our way. All men are liable to be in some degree frost-bitten in this sort; all are partly encumbered and crusted over with idle matter; only, if they have ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... Butter Scotch Candy Potatoes Chocolate Creams Chocolate Fudge Creamed Dates Creamed Dates, Figs and Cherries Cream Walnuts Cream Made from Confectioners' Sugar Dates with Nuts Maple Fudge Maple Wax Molasses Nut Peanut Brittle Peppermint Drops Pinoche ...
— A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl • Caroline French Benton
... gouges in the beginner's set of tools; the "Arkansas" being used for the smaller tools. The "Arkansas" slip should be what is called "knife-edged." This is required for sharpening such tools as the veiner and V tool; it is a very fine marble-like stone, and exceedingly brittle; care must be taken in handling it, as a fall would in all ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... to operate satisfactorily on a standard voltage must be long and thin. This necessitates storing away a considerable length of wire in the bulb without permitting the loops to come into contact with each other. After the filaments have been in operation for a few hundred hours they become brittle and faults develop. When examined under a microscope, parts of the filament operated on alternating current appear to be offset. The explanation of this defect goes deeply into crystalline structure. The tantalum ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... Tombed in thy brittle shell, This human heart Thou croonest age on age, "Give and ask not, Help and blame not," Heeded less than large and mottled cowry The which at least some child may hold to ear All smiles ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... stone-shaping. The hard or silicious rocks which form the immediate region, and the quartzite and crystalline limestone, did not lend themselves, either in the quarry or under the chisel, to such work. In Chiapas, the unshaped and uncoursed masonry of Palenque is formed of a hard, brittle limestone, scarcely capable of being worked to faces. No invisible joints, such as are the beauty of some of the ancient stone structures of the Americas—North and South—were possible, and mortar ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... up, with her back against the brushwood wall. Her light sun-helmet lay on the floor. In her ruffled hair were caught two or three thin brown leaves, their brittle edges curled inwards. The little boy, slightly smiling, yet essentially serious, as are children tested by a great new experience, squatted close to her and facing her, with one leg under him, the other leg stretched out confidentially, as much as to say, "Here it ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... his mirthful stories of a row between a wine agent and a theatrical manager over a doubly reserved table in a conspicuous restaurant. "Otherwise—phutt! But they'll be very careful what kind of assignments they hand over to your reckless hands in future. You mustn't throw expensive and brittle conventions at the editor's ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the middle of a week that had threatened to keep the sky besmirched. Roving bands of negro boys were hunting rabbits in the fields, with dogs that leaped high in low places where dead weeds stood brittle. The pop-eyed hare was startled from his bed among brambly vines, and fierce shouts arose like the remembered yell of a Confederate troop. The holidays were near, the crops were gathered, the winter's wood was up, the hunting season open, but no negro fired a gun. At this time ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... Chew and Digest. The second important use of cooking is that it makes food both easier to masticate and easier to digest. As we have seen, it bursts the little coverings of the starchy grains, and makes the tough fibres of grains and roots crisp and brittle, as is well illustrated in the soft, mealy texture of a baked potato, and in the crispness of parched wheat or corn. It coagulates, or curdles, the jelly-like pulp of meat, and the gummy white of the egg, and the sticky gluten of wheat flour, so that they can be ground into tiny ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... back without inspection." The incident serves to remind us that both commanders believed their nations to be at war at this time. As a matter of fact, just a fortnight before the meeting in Encounter Bay, diplomacy had patched up the brittle truce ironically known as the Peace of Amiens (March 25). But neither Flinders nor Baudin could have known that there was even a prospect of the cessation of hostilities. Europe, when they last had touch of its affairs, was still clanging with battle and warlike ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... gracious, how awful! The Trades were assembled, And they all yelled together, and tempers got brittle; And when Burns rose and thundered, all Liverpool trembled (Though Burns is perhaps ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 13, 1890 • Various
... adopted for common use; by which means the tendency to contract chaps and chilblains, and roughness from drying winds, will also be lessened. The coarse, strong kinds of soap, those abounding in alkali, should be rejected, as they tend to render the skin rough, dry and brittle. Rain, or soft, water is the best natural water for washing the hands, as it cleanses them more rapidly and completely than ordinary hard water, and with the use of less soap. It may be advantageously used tepid, or even warm; but hot water should be avoided. ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... by a criss-cross of worthless thread, to his badly cut, badly shaped, and badly sewn clothes, made of shoddy and transparent cloth—blotting-paper—that one day of sunshine fades and an hour of rain wets through, to his emaciated leathers, brittle as shavings and torn by the buckle spikes, to his flannel underwear that is thinner than cotton, to his ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... thrice-piled clouds; The new day lowers, and equal odds Have changed not less the guest of gods; Discrowned and timid, thoughtless, worn, The child of genius sits forlorn: Between two sleeps a short day's stealth, 'Mid many ails a brittle health, A cripple of God, half true, half formed, And by great sparks Promethean warmed, Constrained by impotence to adjourn To infinite time his eager turn, His lot of action at the urn. He by false usage ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the Revolution, when King James fled overseas, and the Dutch King William reigned in his stead. The event was a godsend to our trade, for with Scotland in a bicker with Covenants and dragoonings, and new taxes threatened with each new Parliament, a merchant's credit was apt to be a brittle thing. The change brought a measure of security, and as we prospered I soon began to see that something must be done in our Virginian trade. Years before, my uncle had sent out a man, Lambie by ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... nine to ten inches long. It is made out of the leaf of a species of palm-tree called coucourite, hard and brittle, and pointed as sharp as a needle. About an inch of the pointed end is poisoned. The other end is burnt to make it still harder, and wild cotton is put round it for about an inch and a half. It requires considerable ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... "permits" are opening up in the settlement when we come back, promises to be a full night. These men have waited a whole year for a drink, and now the lids can't come off quick enough. "Come, hurry up, Flynn, we're all as dry as wooden gods, we're so dry that we're brittle—we'd break if you hit us." "Well, I'm hurrying; I'm as much in a rush as any of you; I'm so warped the hoops are ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... startled. "Not at all. Not in the least. Do you suppose we are made of such brittle stuff, we poor landowners, that we can't stand ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... There is no doubt on that head: if Polybius is not romancing, the Celtic sword of 225 B.C. doubled up at every stroke, like a piece of hoop iron. But Mr. Leaf tells us that, "by primitive modes of smelting," iron is made "hard and brittle, like cast iron." If so, it would be even less trustworthy for a sword than bronze. [Footnote: Iliad (1900), Book VI, line 48, Note.] Perhaps the Celts of 225 B.C. did not smelt iron by primitive methods, but discovered some process for making it not hard and brittle, ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... inclination of replying, she added, "Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... important thing is that it did. It was all-metal, of course, tested and guaranteed. The guarantee isn't worth much here. A flaw in the forging, perhaps, that escaped detection. And this low temperature. Makes metal as brittle as glass. And the thing may have ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... mended, and—hearts or plates—what cannot be mended had best be hidden away. Hearts and plates are brittle things, but the last can be bought in iron, as I wish the first could be also. Yes, husband, we will trek ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... his blowpipe hung it up carefully by one end, as should it become in the slightest degree bent, it would be, he explained, completely spoiled. He then commenced manufacturing arrows. They were made out of the leaf of a species of palm-tree, hard, brittle, and pointed as sharp as needles. Having burned the butt end, he fastened round it some wild cotton of just sufficient thickness to fit the hole of the tube. As soon as he had formed an arrow he put it into the blowpipe, and aimed at an unfortunate parrot perched on ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... inhabitants of our country eighteen hundred years ago, of chipping arrow-heads with an astonishing degree of neatness out of the same stubborn material. They found, however, that though flint made a serviceable arrow-head, it was by much too brittle for an adze or battle-axe; and sought elsewhere than among the Banffshire gravels for the rock out of which these were to be wrought. Where they found it in our northern provinces I have not yet ascertained. It is but a short time since I came to know that they were beforehand with me in the ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... pot proposed To an earthen pot a journey. The latter was opposed, Expressing the concern he Had felt about the danger Of going out a ranger. He thought the kitchen hearth The safest place on earth For one so very brittle. 'For thee, who art a kettle, And hast a tougher skin, There's nought to keep thee in.' 'I'll be thy body-guard,' Replied the iron pot; 'If anything that's hard Should threaten thee a jot, Between you I will go, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... about 1842, which he loaded upon a wagon and peddled through the country. Later his establishment grew large. Another John Lane, a son of the first, patented in 1868 a "soft-center" steel plough. The hard but brittle surface was backed by softer and more tenacious metal, to reduce the breakage. The same year James Oliver, a Scotch immigrant who had settled at South Bend, Indiana, received a patent for the "chilled plough." By an ingenious method the wearing ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... attitudes which are worth more study than the Apollo or the Antinous, because they are life, not marble. How noble were Horatio Greenough's meditations, in presence of the despised circus-rider! "I worship, when I see this brittle form borne at full speed on the back of a fiery horse, yet dancing as on the quiet ground, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... and become inelastic, and their diameter is diminished. This obstructs the free circulation of the blood and causes malnutrition of the brain and other vital organs. Furthermore, the blood vessels become brittle and break easily and ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... strength, absorbed and lost. Thus oft reclined at ease, I lose an hour At evening, till at length the freezing blast That sweeps the bolted shutter, summons home The recollected powers, and, snapping short The glassy threads with which the fancy weaves Her brittle toys, restores me to myself. How calm is my recess! and how the frost Raging abroad, and the rough wind, endear The silence and the warmth enjoyed within! I saw the woods and fields at close of ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... flowers, the group is gone. One gentle spirit seeks the tomb, His brow yet fresh with childhood's bloom: Another treads the paths of fame, And barters peace to win a name. Another still, tempts fortune's wave, And seeking wealth, secures a grave. The last, grasps yet the brittle thread: Though friends are gone and joy is dead— Still dares the dark and fretful tide, And clutches at its power and pride— Till suddenly the waters sever, And like the leaf, he ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... own letters, breaking from their brittle confining band, poured in a cataract of folded paper and close-knit writing which looked like his own self of long ago, upon the table before him. He was condemned ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... at it, and it looked at them. Its veil of myrtle, trembling yet with the shock of its entrance, gave it the semblance of movement and of life. It towered in the majesty of its insistent whiteness. It trailed its mystic modesties before them. Its brittle blossoms quivered like innocence appalled. The wide cleft at its base betrayed the black and formidable heart beneath the fair and sugared surface. These crowding symbols, perceptible to Edith's subtler intelligence, massed themselves in her companions' ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... are in general very brittle, and no experienced bushman likes to sleep under trees, especially ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... boning-knife carefully remove the top formed by the smaller circle you marked, and which (if the paste was very light and the oven in good condition) will probably have risen out of the centre. Be careful in handling these covers, for while warm they are very brittle. With a coffee-spoon remove the half-cooked dough from the centre of the patty, taking care, however, to leave sufficient thickness of inner crust to prevent ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen |
