"Brittle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a cat, or any animal which "humps" itself. In the same way a scrofulous patient must not eat turkey, as that bird seems to have a scrofulous eruption on its head, while ball players must abstain from eating frogs, because the bones of that animal are brittle and ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... princess lives in a glass castle, that princess on a glass hill; this one sees all things in a mirror; they may all live in glass houses if they will not throw stones. For this thin glitter of glass everywhere is the expression of the fact that the happiness is bright but brittle, like the substance most easily smashed by a housemaid or a cat. And this fairy-tale sentiment also sank into me and became my sentiment towards the whole world. I felt and feel that life itself is as bright as the diamond, but as brittle ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... of 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. I dashed in, fighting my way free from restraining ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... they watched, it settled slowly 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
... morning; towards midday it had thawed a little, but by the time it was dark everything was frozen hard again. The moon was nearly full, and shone brightly upon the frozen grass, casting queer shadows through the bare branches of the trees; it was very cold, and I walked fast; the brittle, frozen mud of the road broke beneath my feet with a creaking, crunching sound, and startled the deep stillness. As I neared the house the moon was before me, and the mass of buildings ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... live. Mr. Liesk, who was intimately acquainted with every part of this reef, and likewise with that of North Keeling atoll, assured me that these corals invariably compose the outer margin. The lagoon is inhabited by quite a distinct set of corals, generally brittle and thinly branched; but a Porites, apparently of the same species with that on the outside, is found there, although it does not seem to thrive, and certainly does not attain the thousandth part in bulk of the ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... oblong-ovate, glaucous-green, the cushions few and scattered; spines white, flattened, of various lengths. Flowers tawny yellow, small for the size of the plant. A native of Cuba, and requiring stove treatment. Being very brittle, this plant ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... persistent tenderness, which dare look in His face, nor be ashamed; which sees in this life only the beginning of the life to come; and in the closest, most passionate human love something to be held with a loose hand, something frail as glass and brittle as straw, unless it is perfected and sanctified by the ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... never can take leave, my friend, of life, On nobler terms. Life! what is life? A shadow! Its date is but the immediate breath we draw; Nor have we surety for a second gale; Ten thousand accidents in ambush lie For the embody'd dream. A frail and fickle tenement it is, Which, like the brittle glass that measures time, Is often broke, ere ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... really a great experience. Grant had an eye for horse-flesh, and the four dapple-greys which pressed their fine shoulders into the harness of his breaking plow might have delighted the heart of any teamster. As he sat on his steel seat and watched the colter cut the firm sod with brittle cracking sound as it snapped the tough roots of the wild roses, or looking back saw the regular terraces of shiny black mould which marked his progress, he felt that he was engaged in a ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... smitten by a shock here! Driven—driven! He could not rid his mind of the word, nor of the meaning it suggested. The pavements about him began to ring and echo with the tramp of many feet, and the cold, brittle air was shivered with the noisy voices that had roared and bawled applause and laughter at the National Theatre all the evening, and were now singing and howling homeward. Groups of rude men, and ruder boys, their breaths steaming in the icy air, began to tramp by, jostling him as they passed, ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... deserve notice. Among the shells that please by their variety of colours, if one can be found accidentally deformed by a cloudy spot, it is boasted as the pride of the collection. China is sometimes purchased for little less than its weight in gold, only because it is old, though neither less brittle, nor better painted, than the modern; and brown china is caught up with ecstasy, though no reason can be imagined for which it should be preferred to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... whose impetuous courtship of her five years ago had carried her on the wings of Icarus to a region so full of brightness and of sunlight that it was no wonder that the wings—which had appeared god-like—turned out to be ephemeral and brittle after all, and that she was soon precipitated back and down into the ordinary ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... that worthy, pulling away at the oars, and on we shoot, steadily nearing the rustic stone city that looks so attractive, so different from our hasty, brittle, shingly American half-minute houses,—massive, permanent, full of character and solid worth. And now our tiny craft butts against the pier, and we ascend from the Jesuit river and stand on British soil. No stars and stripes here, but Saint George and his dragon ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... should rest from time to time on the gravel. At last the tide was so low that rocks appeared above the surface, and the boat occasionally struck them in a very unpleasant manner. To stay so near the shore any longer was not possible. A slight blow against a rock might rub off all the brittle gum, and then his chances would be destroyed. He determined to put out farther, and ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... very little time, the future is not ours, we hold the present but by a brittle thread; it is the past that is in our hearts. And so it is that to go afoot through Southern England is not less than to appeal to something greater and wiser than ourselves, out of which we are come, to return to our origins, to ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... Presently came 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 name, ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... creeping fret, the poisons and obstructions of decay. It was as if she had parted with her own light, elastic body, and succeeded to somebody else's that was all bone, heavy, stiff, irresponsive to her will. Her brain felt swollen and brittle, she had a feeling of tiredness in her face, of infirmity about her mouth. Her looking-glass showed her the fallen yellow skin, the furrowed lines ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... 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 ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... warm water with a bit of hairy deerskin. These mudded runners slip very smoothly over the soft snow, but are liable to chip off on rough ice or when they strike rocks, as frequently happens, for the frozen mud is as brittle as glass. On the Atlantic coast from Nachvak south, mud is never used, and there the komatiks are wider and shorter with runners of not much more than half the thickness, and as you go south the komatiks continue to grow wider and ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... and through with the green vines and pale pink blossoms of the mayflower, and she felt its fragrant breath streaming up in the moist moonlight. As she leaned forward to look through a rocky crevice, her arms rested on a bed of that brittle white moss she had often gathered with so much admiration, and a scarlet rock-columbine, such as she loved to paint, brushed her cheek,—and all these mute fair things seemed to strive to keep her company in her chill suspense of watchfulness. Two whippoorwills, from a clump of silvery ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... may remind one of the weird sisters' concoction in Macbeth. The pacuna is composed of a very delicate thin reed, perfectly smooth inside and out, which is encased in a stouter one. The arrows are from nine to ten inches long, formed of the leaf of a species of palm, hard and brittle, and pointed as sharp as a needle. At the butt-end some wild cotton is twisted round, to fit the tube. About an inch of the pointed end is poisoned. Quivers are made to hold five or six hundred of these darts. The slightest wound causes ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... memorials which I encountered in the prefecture and elsewhere. Sometimes there were offerings before the monuments. Occasionally the memorial took the form of a stone cut in the shape of a potato. There is a great exportation of sweet potatoes—sliced and dried until they are brittle—to the north of Japan where the tuber cannot ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... warehouses in the tropics, when the "claying" may protect the bean from mildew and preserve the aroma. In Ceylon it is usual to thoroughly wash the beans after the process of fermentation, thus removing all remains of the pulp, and rendering the shell more tender and brittle. Such beans arrive on the market in a more or less broken state, and it seems probable that they are more subject to contamination owing to the thinness of the shell. The best "estate" cocoa from Ceylon has a very bright, clear appearance, and commands a high price on the London market; ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... started for Coney Island. Although I have examined him closely on this point, he does not seem to have any very clear idea yet as to where they went that day, or what they did. All he can say is that "it was awful." They insisted on Hot Dogs, Pop Corn, Peanut Brittle, Dreamland, Luna Park, and all the rest; they went through the Old Mill, and they made George come down the "Bump the Bumps," "Shoot the Shoots" and such other exhilarating devices as they did not dare to ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... world's the ball; See't rise and fall, Its roll you follow; Like glass it rings: Both, brittle things! Within 'tis hollow. There it shines clear, And brighter here,— I live—by 'Pollo!— Dear son, I pray, Keep hands away! Thou shalt fall so! 'Tis made of clay, ...
— Faust • Goethe
... or 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 ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... the Yankee; this is the younger branch; but a branch of no base or brittle fiber, but of the tough old English oak, which has weathered triumphantly the tempest of a thousand years. It is a noble contention whether the younger or the elder branch has further advanced the frontiers of liberty, but it is unquestionable that liberty, as we understand it ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... the latter part of life, Young was fond of holding himself out for a man retired from the world. But he seemed to have forgotten that the same verse which contains "oblitus meorum," contains also "obliviscendus et illis." The brittle chain of worldly friendship and patronage is broken as effectually, when one goes beyond the length of it, as when the other does. To the vessel which is sailing from the shore, it only appears that the shore also recedes; in life it is truly thus. He who ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... calf, whose life had been cast in thorny ways, tried his new teeth on the tender ends and found them good. The orehannas drifted in one after the other, and other cows with calves, and soon there was a little circle about the tree-top, munching at the soft, brittle twigs. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... the little brittle caddy-spoon. He wanted to think it was correct; but his reason told him it was absurd to attempt to dig up a man with such a pitiful tool. If his father would only have got off his chest and reasoned with him he would not have cared; but here he was, a big heavy ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... Frederic's conscience told him that he had acted perfidiously and inhumanly towards the Queen of Hungary. That her resentment was strong she had given ample proof; and of her respect for treaties he judged by his own. Guarantees, he said, were mere filigree, pretty to look at, but too brittle to bear the slightest pressure. He thought it his safest course to ally himself closely to France, and again to attack the Empress Queen. Accordingly in the autumn of 1744, without notice, without ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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: ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... nature, and a mortal body, and a brittle and brief tenure of earth, you are traversing perilous paths. Had you God for your friend, your case would be far other than it is. Peril and snare might still beset you; but you would confront and traverse them, as the Hebrews of old did the weedy bed of the Red Sea, its watery walls guarding ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... of which we have spoken as being close to the sycamore walk, at the foot of a wall against which it flowed, forming a rather deep excavation, the current had found a vein of soft, brittle stone which, by its incessant force, it had ended in wearing away. It was a natural grotto formed by water, but which earth, in its turn, had undertaken to embellish. An enormous willow had taken root in a few inches of soil in a fissure of the rock, and its drooping branches fell into the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a light wind had arisen, and now, wandering northward, it tugged at the pony's long, shaggy mane and tail, set each individual hair of the little beast vibrating in unjustified ferocity; and, drifting aimlessly on, stirred the brittle grass stalks at the man's feet with the muffled crackling of a far-distant prairie fire. The herd, a great machine cutting clean every foot of the sun-cured grass in its path, moved on and on, reached ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... liberty to suppose if the facts point that way that there are the following layers in the earth's masses:—First, the external, rigid and brittle layer; second, a layer under such temperature and pressure that it is above its plastic yield point and may be considered as a viscous fluid. The pressure must continue to increase toward the center. We do not know what is the temperature, but it is perfectly possible ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... the axe lie outdoors on a very cold night; the frost would make it brittle, so that the steel might shiver on the first knot you struck ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... 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 pines on ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... Were tasked to his full 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 day A variegated show; the meadows green Though faded, and ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... we were left galloping, Joris and I, Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; Till over by Dalhem, a dome-spire sprang white, And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... Elnora, doubling down on the floor and spreading out her skirt, "set the bucket here, mother. These points are brittle, and should be put in one at a time. If they are chipped I can't sell them. Well sir! I've had a time! You know I just had to have books. I tried three stores, and they wouldn't trust me, not even three days, I didn't ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... 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 into the little cells, or vesicles, ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... canon is bridged, and one's fancy runs nimbly across a vast arch of Parian marble, and that makes up for the falls and the terraces. Where the ground is marshy, I come upon a pretty and vivid illustration of what I have read and been told of the Florida formation. This white and brittle limestone is undermined by water. Here are the dimples and depressions, the sinks and the wells, the springs and the lakes. Some places a mouse might break through the surface and reveal the water ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... Nay. I've got none of your poor brittle chaney-ladle kind o' bones; but my head's cut and the bark's all off my right leg in the front. Left leg arn't got no bark at all, and I'm reg'larly shaken in all my seams, and stove in on my starboard quarter, sir. So if you'll have me got into dock or beached and then overhaul me a ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... elegy of such notions as are possible to boys alone. 'Surely,' I said, 'the informing and all-perfect soul shines through and is revealed in this beautiful body.' So my worship began for you, whose violet eyes retain at all times their chill brittle shining, and do not soften, but have been to me always as those eyes which, they say, a goddess turns toward ruined lovers who cry the elegy of hope and contentment, with lips burned bloodless by the searing of passions which she, immortal, may ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... during the day, to let in the light, and air: and as for the window itself, with the exception of a few panes of glass in the centre, here and there patched with brown paper, it was almost wholly made up with squares of wood—giving ocular proof that glass was of a very brittle nature in St. Giles's. ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... in other areas of the world, heartening political victories have been won by the forces of stability and freedom. Slowly but surely, the free world gathers strength. Meanwhile, from behind the iron curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... dutch-oven or iron pot, having previously greased it with butter; let it boil very fast, stirring it all the time for fifteen minutes; then put in a tea-cup of sugar and let it boil fifteen minutes longer, stirring all the time; take a little out on a plate, and when it is brittle, pour it while hot into tin plates rubbed with butter; put it in a cold place and break it up when you want it for use; never put taffy in china or earthen plates, as they would probably be broken ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... printed on stout white wove paper, similar to that used for the Jubilee stamps and at some time or other a slightly thinner and more brittle paper seems to have been used. The paper for the 5c is of a distinctly bluish color—this being the first occasion on which colored paper was used for any of the postage ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... upon request gave his steward the military outfit of the Mayas—bow and arrows, wicker-work shield, and war-club, with a dagger of obsidian, a volcanic stone very hard and capable of being made very keen of edge, but brittle. Jeronimo when a boy had been an expert archer, and his old skill soon returned. He also remembered warlike devices and stratagems he had seen and heard of. Old soldiers chatting with his father in the purple twilight had often fought their battles over again, and ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... the ether penetrates and permeates all substance. The cold of absolute nothingness will destroy all life in the twinkling of an eye and the ship will be reduced to a puff of powder. At such a temperature, even stellanium has less strength than the most brittle substance. ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... hours to ride. But," he continued, stepping close to Cameron and looking him in the eyes, "there must be no more nonsense. You can see my man is somewhat short in temper; and indeed mine is rather brittle ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... slowly, with a pretty strong heat, till they become so dry and brittle as to fall readily into powder. Corn is most frequently prepared in this way for food; but this and several other grains are often torrefied for coffee. Care should ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... in, were Sir Martin Marrall, Gomez in the Spanish Friar, Sir Nicolas Cully in Love in a Tub, Barnaby Brittle in the Wanton Wife, Sir Davy Dunce in the Soldier's Fortune, Sosia in Amphytrion, &c. &c. To tell you how he acted them, is beyond the reach of criticism: but to tell you what effect his action had upon the spectator, is not impossible: this then is all you will expect from me, and hence ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... not advise a start before March, and not until April unless a steady heat of 60 deg. or 65 deg. can be maintained. Sow in well-drained pots, filled with soil composed of two parts of turfy loam and one part of leaf-soil, with very little sand added. The seedlings are exceedingly brittle at the outset, and re-potting should not be attempted until they are about an inch high. Even then they need delicate handling, and after the task is accomplished they should be promptly placed in a warm frame or propagating pit for a few days. In June ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... it; a group which presently strung itself out in Indian file on a diagonal course up to our gulch. The early-morning investigators were taking the plainly marked wagon trail in reverse, and Barrett turned to me with a brittle laugh. ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... was ever near the King, always urging him 'to hasten the end of the hunting.' The buck was slain close to the stables, and Ruthven would not allow James to wait for a second horse: that was sent after him. So the King did not even tarry to 'brittle' the buck, and merely told the Duke of Lennox, Mar, and others that he was riding to Perth to speak with Gowrie, and would return before evening. Some of the Court went to Falkland for fresh horses, other followed slowly with weary steeds. They followed 'undesired ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... on me, Dyke Darrel? I am surprised," cried Mr. Elliston in an injured tone. "I did not imagine that you could lose confidence in me, let what would happen. Can it be that our friendship was but a brittle ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... how soft limestone makes too weak roads for loads, how easily they wash and wear; how granite, because of its being made up of several materials, is poor, too; how flint and quartz, while hard, are brittle, and are not sufficiently tough; and that sandstone was impossible. Then he told them that good gravel, tough limestone and trap-rock were good road materials. Roads need materials having ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... off and are carried by water or wind.—Some trees and shrubs among the willows are called snap-willows, because their branches are very brittle; on the least strain from wind, rain, sleet, or snow, the smaller branches snap off near the larger branches or the main trunk, and fall to the ground. At first thought this brittleness of the wood might seem to be a serious defect in the structure of the tree or shrub, although ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... with internal pressure as Denver slid through the airlock and left the ship behind. Walking carefully against the treachery of moonweak gravity, he made cautious way up the slope toward the clustered buildings. Footing was bad, with the feeling of treading upon brittle, glassy surfaces and breaking through to bury his weighted shoes in inches of soft ash. A small detour was necessary to avoid upthrusting pinnacles of lavarock. In the shadow of these outcroppings he paused to let his eyes adjust to the ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... seemed to me no doubt about its origin. It was the hay Pyrot had stolen. Those qualities of verdure, softness, and aroma, are those of our national hay. The forage of the neighbouring Power is grey and brittle; it sounds under the fork and smells of dust. One can ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... make unleavened bread the flour is moistened and worked into a stiff dough, which is then rolled thin, cut into various shapes, and baked, forming a brittle ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... containing phosphorus is burnt beneath such a mantle, the phosphoric anhydride attacks those oxides, partially converting them into the respective phosphates, and these bodies are less refractory. A mantle exposed to the combustion products of crude acetylene soon becomes brittle and begins to fall to pieces, occasionally showing a yellowish colour when cold. The actual advantage of burning acetylene on the incandescent system is not yet thoroughly established— in this country at all events; but it is clear that the process ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... 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 mill-gudgeons upon. When found on the ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... 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' ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... [Sidenote: 13. Saltpeter and brimstone.] Saltpeter in many places, as at Ouglits, Yaruslaue, and Vstiug, they make and some smal store of brimstone vpon the riuer Volgha, but want skil to refine it. [Sidenote: 14. Iron.] Their iron is somewhat brittle, but a great weight of it is made in Corelia, Cargapolia, and Vstiug Thelesna. Other mine they haue none gowing within ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... in a certain regiment, and discharged from hospital at six o'clock that evening, had entered Queen's Hall at half-past seven. Still rather brittle and sore from his wound, he had treated himself to a seat in the Grand Circle, and there had sat, very still and dreamy, the whole concert through. It had been like eating after a long fast—something of the sensation Polar explorers must experience ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... Silurian Univalves or Gasteropods there is not much to tell, for their spiral shells were so brittle that scarcely any perfect specimens are known, though their broken remains are found in such quantities as to show that this class also was very fully represented in the earliest creation. But the highest class of Mollusks, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... Unceasingly roll'd, It riseth and falleth ever; It ringeth like glass! How brittle, alas! 'Tis hollow, and resteth never. How bright the sphere, Still brighter here! Now living am I! Dear son, beware! Nor venture there! Thou too must die! It is of clay; 'Twill crumble away; There ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... fluttered in the rich light that showed the goldsmith's treasures, pale and pinched-up faces hovered about the windows where was tempting food, hungry eyes wandered over the profusion guarded by one thin sheet of brittle glass—an iron wall to them; half-naked shivering figures stopped to gaze at Chinese shawls and golden stuffs of India. There was a christening party at the largest coffin-maker's and a funeral hatchment had stopped some great improvements ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... least required the adventitious aid of colour. Polychromacy was to a certain extent justified on terra-cotta, to soften the toneless colour of the clay, and on wood it served a purpose in hiding the cracks of a brittle substance. Nowadays it is happily no more than a refugium peccatorum. There is, however, no doubt that in Donatello's day it was widely used, and used by Donatello himself. It began in actual need, then became a convention, and long ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... to be some danger; for the wind that had loved Seth from the first was apparently jealous of Celia. It tore at her as though to toss her to unreachable distances in the way it ripped the tumbleweeds from their small brittle stems and ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... covered with numerous white, delicate floccose scales, which give it a beautiful appearance, as in Fig. 26, from specimens (No. 3185 C. U. herbarium), collected on the campus of Cornell University among grass. The entire plant is very brittle, and easily broken. It is tender and excellent for food. I often ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... ye pageants of a day, Formed, like your slaves, of brittle clay! Down to the dust your sceptres bend; To everlasting years He reigns, And undiminished state maintains, When kings, and suns, and time ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... was childish to be moved over an event so simple as the finding of a violin in an old cupboard. He soon collected himself and took up the instrument, using great care, as he feared lest age should have rendered the wood brittle or rotten. With some vigorous puffs of breath and a little dusting with a handkerchief he removed the heavy outer coating of cobwebs, and began to see more clearly the delicate curves of the body and of the scroll. A few minutes' more gentle handling ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... a pickle of sweat, And, for all that, the sweat on your salty skin Shall dry and crack, in the breathing of a wind That's like a draught come through an open'd furnace. The leafage of the trees shall brown and faint, All sappy growth turning to brittle rubbish As the near heat of the star strokes the green earth; And time shall brush the fields as visibly As a rough hand brushes against the nap Of gleaming cloth—killing the season's colour, Each ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... been to him as the divining-rod of Aaron, blooming ever afresh with magic flowers. Now that the flame of pain and passion burned it up, and left a bare sear brittle bough, he ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... hurrying home to his neighbors' houses. Of the man who had lost his temper, Bobo found no sign. In the grass by the roadside, however, he did find the lost temper—a queer sort of affair like a melon of fiery red glass all stuck over with uneven spines and brittle thorns. Bobo, with great goodness of heart, took along this extraordinary object, in the hope of ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... has an impracticable sound, even to you. You might want to eat some peanut-brittle (you never can tell when someone might offer you peanut-brittle these days), and the new-skin, while serviceable enough in the case of cream soups and custards, couldn't be expected to stand up under ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... cardboard boots, attached to the uppers 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, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... the eminentest hills, are kings; and have they line and lead enough to fathom this sea, and say, My misery is but this deep? Scarce any misery equal to sickness, and they are subject to that equally with their lowest subject. A glass is not the less brittle, because a king's face is represented in it; nor a king the less brittle, because God is represented in him. They have physicians continually about them, and therefore sickness, or the worst of sicknesses, continual fear of it. Are they ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... for Two Children Dicky The Three Drinkers The Boy out of Church After the Play One Hard Look True Johnny The Voice of Beauty Drowned The God Called Poetry Rocky Acres Advice to Lovers Nebuchadnezzar's Fall Give us Rain Allie Loving Henry Brittle Bones Apples and Water Manticor in Arabia Outlaws Baloo Loo for Jenny Hawk and Buckle The "Alice Jean" The Cupboard The Beacon Pot and Kettle Ghost Raddled Neglectful Edward The Well-dressed Children Thunder at Night To E.M.—A Ballad ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... blood-red and volatile Cinaber, with some Saline Bodies it will ascend in form of a Salt which will be dissoluble in water; with Regulus of Antimony and Silver I have seen it sublim'd into a kinde of Crystals, with another Mixture I reduc'd it into a malleable Body, into a hard and brittle Substance by another: And some there are who affirm, that by proper Additaments they can reduce Quicksilver into Oyl, nay into Glass, to mention no more. And yet out of all these exotick Compounds, we ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... walked slowly, treading under foot the dry frosty leaves, he reflected how the monotonous crackling of this foliage, once so full of life, now withered and rendered brittle by the frost, seemed to represent his own deterioration of feeling. It was a sad and suitable accompaniment of his own ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... an egg shell with cold water, add the eggs, and mix with flour as stiff as can conveniently be handled. Add a little salt to flour. Divide dough into sheets, roll on bake-board, spread on cloth a short time and let dry, but not until too brittle to roll into long, narrow rolls. Cut this with a sharp knife into thin, thread-like slices, unroll, drop as many as wished into the stew-pan with the meat and cook about 10 or 15 minutes. Place the meat on a platter ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... his own small defense, the strewing of brittle sticks along the only approach to the hollow, Travis dozed at intervals, his head down on his forearm across his bent knees. But the cold cramped him and he was glad to see the graying sky of pre-dawn. He swallowed two ration tablets and a couple of mouthfuls ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... 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 ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... All causes of disagreement, considered as forces in married life, are relative in their value to the comparative solidity of the characters on which they act—a truism which ought to be the foundation of social charity, but is not. Reanda could not be blamed for his brittle sensitivenesses, nor Gloria for a certain coarse-grained streak of cruelty, which she had inherited from her father, and which had combined strangely with the rare gifts and great faults of her dead ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... 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 all of man's ...
— The Coming of the Ice • G. Peyton Wertenbaker
... I flouted him in my youth; I wrestled with him and flung him from me. I laughed at his cold eyes across a naked sword, and spurned him on the heather; but now in my age, when my bones are brittle and my arms shrunk, he creeps behind me again, sure, sure o' his prey," and as he spoke he crouched like a stealthy enemy, one groping hand outstretched. Then he flung himself upright, his eyes ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... qt. of clams and chop them fine. Fry two slices of salt pork in an iron pot. When the fat is fried out, take the brittle out, put into the fat 2 slices of onion, then a layer of sliced potatoes, then a layer of chopped clams, sprinkle well with salt and pepper, then a layer of onion, then the bits of fried pork, cut into small pieces, ...
— 365 Luncheon Dishes - A Luncheon Dish for Every Day in the Year • Anonymous
... and had not the men, most providentially, caught and clung to a haycock that happened to be floating past, they must have been lost. They were carried along till it stuck on some young alder trees, when each of them grasped a bough, and the haycock sailed away, leaving them among the weak and brittle branches. They had been here about two hours, when one of the men being unable to hold on longer by the boughs, let himself gently down into the water with the hope of finding bottom; when, to his surprise, he found that the small boat had actually drifted to the root of ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... utterly impossible. This the Colonel realised, so his only hope lay in seeking refuge amidst the tops of the fallen trees. This position, however, was most precarious, for the branches were half rotten and brittle, absolutely unable to withstand the terrific goring impact of those wide-spread antlers, impelled by insensate rage and over one thousand pounds of flesh, bone, and ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... straw bonnet braided in the United States was made by Miss Betsey Metcalf, of Providence, R.I., in 1789. For many years straw-plaiting was done at home; but the quality of our material was always inferior to that grown abroad, our climate making it much more brittle and difficult to handle. The wage at first was from two to three dollars a week; but as factories were established where imported braid was made up, the sum sometimes reached five dollars. The census of 1860 gave the total number of women employed as ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... describes it as often growing to the size of a very large tree, 70 or 80 feet in height, and above 4 feet in diameter; he mentions two varieties, one with yellow and the other with white wood; that with yellow wood is soft and brittle, much used for boards, heels of shoes, also turned into bowls, trenchers, &c. the white is heavy, tough, and hard, and is sawed into joists, ...
— The Botanical Magazine Vol. 8 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... wood she dealt the reptile a blow, but the stick being decayed and brittle, inflicted little injury on the serpent, and only caused it to turn itself towards Mrs. Jameson, and fix its keen and beautiful, but malignant eyes, steadily upon her. The witchery of the serpent's eyes so irresistibly rooted her ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... us are ourselves. We've been through the War, my son. So have you; but you didn't have such a brittle old world inside you to try to put together again after it was smashed. Your inner world was in the making. Whatever you might feel in its collision with the runaway planet of the mad human mind, it could right itself; its ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... very rare. Yet according to the Mishkat al- Masabih (Lane 2, 54) Mohammed said, 'The best horses are black (dark brown?) with white blazes (Arab. "Ghurrah") and upper lips; next, black with blaze and three white legs (bad, because white- hoofs are brittle):next, bay with white blaze and white fore and hind legs." He also said, "Prosperity is with sorrel horses;" and praised a sorrel with white forehead and legs; but he dispraised the "Shikal," which has white stockings (Arab. "Muhajjil") on alternate hoofs (e.g. right hind ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... hole in the side of the tree and let the sap run out. When it has all run away the tree will dry up in a day, and I will be able to break through the wood, as it will be brittle like dried-up egg shell. You will have to do it at once, however, as I cannot last much longer than another day. I am ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... solid sapwood. Hence the first labor of the woodpecker must consist in finding a place in which it can dig. If there is an old stump of a limb sticking up, the problem is readily solved. Such wood has no sap in it, and is brittle enough to be easily dug out. But, if there be no such stub, the woodpecker will find a suitable place in most trees. At some time or other almost every tree loses a big limb. When such accident occurs there will ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... being practically as coarse as the leaves of P. utilissimus. They bear stout spines on the midrib and along the margins, from two centimeters to three centimeters apart. A fungus disease often attacks them, causing dry hard patches, and not only spoiling the color but also making the material so brittle that it breaks in the preparation ...
— Philippine Mats - Philippine Craftsman Reprint Series No. 1 • Hugo H. Miller
... characteristic is a tough hardness, not a brittle hardness, like that of glass or flint, which will splinter violently at a blow in the most unexpected directions; but a grave hardness, which will bear many blows before it yields, and when it is forced to yield at last, will do so, as it were, in a serious and thoughtful way; not spitefully, ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... to the dictates of an unthinking world. The list could be multiplied. But to sum it up, here was epitomized, beautifully, concretely, the main and minor vices of a generation for which Adrian found little pity in his heart; a generation brittle as ice; a generation of secret diplomacy; a generation that in its youth had covered a lack of bathing by a vast amount of perfume. That was it—! That expressed it perfectly! The just summation! Camellias, and double intentions in ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... often recall those days of summer sunshine to which I have alluded; and the scarcely less joyous winter season, when, ploughing the light snow, we raced with our inseparable companion, the favorite pointer, or built up a brittle giant for the glory of demolishing him with balls of his own substance, or directed the soft missiles against each other. Accompanied by our father, but never alone, we made excursions upon our frozen stream; ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... of the city ran down the hill to their home, in infinite astonishment. And ere they reached it, Elizabeth was weeping with dismay, and the darkling ground about them was white and brittle and active with the ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... usual on ski, they had to take them off in the afternoon because they struck such a peculiarly difficult surface that the sledges were constantly being brought up. Then on foot they made better progress, though no advance could be made without the most strenuous labour. The brittle crust would hold for a pace or two, and then let them down with a bump, while now and again a leg went down a crack in the hard ice underneath. So [Page 361] far, since arriving among the disturbances, which increased rapidly towards the end of the march, they had not encountered ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... likely, her morals mebby bein' able to stand more bein' so sort o' withy and soft than if they wuz more hard and brittle, they could ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... peat, which is brown or black in color, less elastic than turfy peat, the fibres either of moss, grass, roots, leaves, or wood, distinguishable by the eye, but brittle, and easily broken; sp. gr. 0.24 to 0.67, the weight of a full cubic foot being from 15 ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... my brother's daughter, Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass:— Murder her brothers, and then marry her! Uncertain way of gain! But I am in So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin: Tear-falling pity dwells ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... bluish pale, dark or lustre brown, wine red, or the violet, belong to many that are esculent; whilst the pale or sulphur yellow, bright or blood red, and the greenish, belong to few but the poisonous. The safe kinds have most frequently a compact, brittle texture; the flesh is white; they grow more readily in open places, such as dry pastures and waste lands, than in places humid or shaded by wood. In general, those should be suspected which grow in caverns ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... from his beard while he is alive, and twitched out with wooden tweezers. While he lives he will not suffer this to be done to him, and the leash will be of no use should he be dead, because it will be brittle." ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... means be taken away, because that which cannot be taken away is better, it is manifest that the instability of fortune cannot aspire to the obtaining of blessedness. Moreover, he that now enjoyeth this brittle felicity, either knoweth it to be mutable or no. If not, what estate can be blessed by ignorant blindness? And if he knoweth it, he must needs fear lest he lose that which he doubteth not may be lost, wherefore continual fear permitteth him not to be happy. Or though he should lose it, doth ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... the negroes are able to distinguish them at a glance and assort them accordingly. They are not engaged in this work of selection continuously from day to day, but at intervals, for they can handle the tobacco only when the weather is damp enough to moisten the leaf, otherwise it is so brittle that it would crack and fall to pieces under their touch. They like this work, for the barn is kept very comfortable by large stoves, they do not have to move from their seats, and they can all sit very sociably together, talking, laughing, and singing. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... the metallic sounds floated in from the belfries. Although startled by the dropping of the leaf, he closed the volume, leisurely placing it between the pages as a marker—it, so brittle! so yellow! so typical of decay and mortality! The book comprised the writings of Sir Cornelius Agrippa. Having tossed the old alchemist from him with an air of overwhelming dejection, the student abandoned himself to the most ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... effects is proved by the existence of fossil remains of aquatic and other animals on many mountains." Avicenna also explains the nature of petrifying or incrusting waters, and mentions aerolites, out of one of which a sword-blade was made, but he adds that the metal was too brittle to be of any use. A mere catalogue of some of the works of Avicenna will indicate the condition of Arabian attainment. 1. On the Utility and Advantage of Science; 2. Of Health and Remedies; 3. Canons of Physic; ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... to receive you?" said the peasant. "It is unkind to pass our houses by. Why do you deny your brothers so? You said you slept in the fields, eh? That is bad. You shouldn't. The earth here is full of evil, and the malaria comes up with the dampness. Your bones grow brittle and break, or they go all soft, you shrivel up and become white, or swellings come out on you and you get bigger and bigger until you die. No, no! God be thanked you came ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... kind of cane, somewhat resembling the bamboo in appearance only. It has very few knots; is brittle, perfectly smooth on the outer and inner surfaces—hollow, and grows to about 25 feet high by 2 inches diameter, and is not nearly so useful as the bamboo. It is used for making light fences, musical instruments, fishing-rods, inner walls ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... bones on the trail." He came back from his reverie as from a journey. "A'm the old breed that doesn't break. 'Tis you young brittle fellows all bred to pace and speed and style needs look to y'r goin's. Which way do A turn at the foot of the Ridge? One—two—three—A see four ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... and it is a more painful process to get them up.' As he spoke, he pointed to his sallow, sunken cheeks, and, drawing up his coat sleeve, disclosed an arm which looked as if the bone could be broken at a touch, so sharp and brittle did it appear, beneath its ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... an ejaculation of joy. The brittle rock had revealed its secret to him. Unexpected treasures, incalculable fortunes, lay before his ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... 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 ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... 'Brittle, the member for Stoney-Muckford, was in the next carriage to me yesterday; and he's a slow coach, too,' I threw in. 'It does look as if the division was nearer than ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... 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 Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... he (Mr. Mason) thinks it has not succeeded anywhere, as we have had no account of its being practised; but Mr. Ford, of Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, from iron-ore and coal, both got in the same dale, makes iron brittle or tough as he pleases, there being cannon thus cast so soft as to bear turning like wrought-iron." Most probably, however, it was not until the time of Richard Reynolds, who succeeded Abraham Darby the second in ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... rock to the ship. And there about the fins, already frozen into brittle spikes was a tangle of plants—the rich result ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... was 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 ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... the tree's thin shell, which was so brittle that a big piece came off in each of his hands. But then he clapped his hands with ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... this man, that of earthly matter maketh brittle vessels and graven images, knoweth himself ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... nature had forgot the spring. They are the true material fire of hell: Worse than those tributes i' th' Low Countries paid, Exactions upon meat, drink, garments, sleep, Ay, even on man's perdition, his sin. They are those brittle evidences of law, Which forfeit all a wretched man's estate For leaving out one syllable. What are whores! They are those flattering bells have all one tune, At weddings, and at funerals. Your rich whores Are only treasures by extortion fill'd, And emptied ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... the socket in the cap, is used, but the portion below the frill, that is, the "root" end, is discarded. Any part of the stem that is discolored or tough or woody should be rejected, and only the portion that is succulent and brittle and of a clean white color at any time used. The stems are nearly always retained in "button" mushrooms when they are cooked, and the upper or succulent parts of the stems of plump, fresh, full-grown mushrooms are often cooked along with ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... machete. Within a quarter of an hour I had cleared a small square of ground and was digging with a pick. What I presently uncovered were the remains of a skeleton. An old sack, more brittle than paper, lay beneath these. This I removed. There, lying in the sand, were ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... thy bullet hurts me not a little, Thy Shiah blood might serve to salve the ill. Maybe some Afghan Promises are brittle; Never a Promise to oneself, ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... in some quality indispensable for success. Neither glass nor porcelain is flexible, and therefore to lay a continuous line of one or the other was out of the question. Resin and pitch were even more faulty, because extremely brittle and friable. What of such fibres as hemp or silk, if saturated with tar or some other good non-conductor? For very short distances under still water they served fairly well, but any exposure to a rocky beach with its chafing action, any rub by a passing anchor, was fatal to them. What ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... of lap-dog, and among them the tiniest little Italian greyhound,—not more than eight inches long. This last was like a porcelain toy dog, and looked brittle, as if its thin legs would snap if much handled. I did not think it a pretty pet; it seemed too fragile to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... with water. A little soap may be used in cleansing the teeth, but clear water is sufficient, if used frequently and thoroughly. The teeth should not be used in breaking nuts or other hard substances. The teeth are brittle, and are often broken in this way. The use of candy and too much sweet food is also likely ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... often very necessary; professional repairers will tell you "it tears the wood too much." The glues mostly in favour among upper class repairers are those known as Russian, Cologne and Isinglass, all good; they are light in colour, very firm, not too brittle, and transparent. There are other varieties to be had of excellent quality and which conform to the conditions required. Thick cakes of a dark brown colour with an unpleasant odour should be avoided; they are too easily affected by the atmosphere, turn bad in the gluepot ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick |
