"Volatile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... went. It was odd enough, to be sure," said Uncle Joe, taking a pinch of rappee from his tortoise-shell box—"very odd, in fact, but somehow or other, Mrs. Padlock, being in poor health, and her sister, a rather volatile and inexperienced young ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... whether we use it, and fructify and increase it. If you wrap it in a napkin and put it away underground, when you come to take it out, and want to say, 'Lo! there Thou hast that is Thine,' you will find that it was not solid gold, which could not rust or diminish, but that it has been like some volatile essence, put away in an unventilated place, and imperfectly secured: the napkin is there, but the talent has vanished. We have to work with God, and we can resist. Ay, and there is a deeper and a sadder word than that applied by the same Apostle in another letter to the same ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... and burned for thirty seconds or so, I suppose while it consumed the volatile oils in the weed. Then it died down and smoke began to come, white, rich and billowy, with a very pleasant odour resembling that of hot-house flowers. It spread out between us like a fan, and though its veil I heard ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... busy in trying to make me fond of her as she was in surmounting the difficulties of her lessons. But she was very young; and although, as her father declared, it was her natur' to run after the men, there was every reason to hope that a year or two would render her less volatile, and add to those sterling good qualities which she really possessed. In heart and feeling she was a modest girl, although the buoyancy of her spirits often carried her beyond the bounds prescribed by decorum, and often called forth a blush upon her own animated countenance, when her good sense, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... for the bride. It might even affect the happiness of the newly-married pair; but John did not wish to hint at these graver views of the subject; he was afraid to give them too much importance, and he confidently reckoned on Valentine's volatile disposition to stand his friend, and soon enable him to get over his attachment. All that seemed wanting was ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... weaker, more unprotected species with a means of escape from their enemies. The most stinking example I know is that of a large hairy caterpillar I have found on dry wood in Patagonia, and which, when touched, emits an intensely nauseous effluvium. Happily it is very volatile, but while it lasts it is even more detestable than ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... in the same way, I really believe more from fright than any other sympathy—at least with the players: but she has been ill, and I have been ill, and we are all languid and pathetic this morning, with great expenditure of sal volatile.[42] But, to return to your letter of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... conversation does not agree with what he and Mirabeau proposed about the King's recovering his prerogatives. Are these the prerogatives with which he flattered the King? Binding him hand and foot, and excluding him from every privilege, and then casting him a helpless dependant on the caprice of a volatile plebeian faction! The French nation is very different from the English. The first rules of the established ancient order of the government broken through, they will violate twenty others, and the King will be sacrificed, before this frivolous people again organise themselves with any ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... stream came fast; chaperones silting up along the wall facing the entrance, the volatile element swelling the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... afternoon, the order of the day, as from the Grosvilles to Lady Kitty. Ashe wondered how she liked it. The girls followed her about with shawls. Lady Grosville installed her on a sofa in the back drawing-room. A bottle of sal-volatile appeared, and Caroline Grosville, instead of going twice to Sunday-school, devoted herself to fanning Kitty, though the weather—which was sunny, with a sharp east wind—suggested, to Ashe's ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... found a husband who would be permanently precious to her, since she would never be certain of him. Like her, he was restless, volatile, and maintained his equilibrium as a bicycle does only by keeping on going. He was mad to be off to the clouds of France. There was a delay because ships were sailing infrequently, and their departure was kept secret. Passengers had ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... "Arch, volatile, a sportive bird, By social glee inspired; Ambitious to be seen or heard, And pleased ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... was quick and pointed. The Tea Act of 1773 raised two highly volatile issues: the right to tax and the granting of a trade monopoly on tea. In both instances the principle was most bothersome. The tea tax was small, but as Bland had said of the Pistole Fee, "the question then ought not to be ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... they may be used in any compound that requires lightness without richness. Even our grandmothers made snow pancakes; but, in the present age, to be distinguished is to be venturesome, and in this experiment one need not stop short of veritable loaf-cake. The volatile element in snow makes two table-spoons of it equal to one egg; therefore to a small loaf I should allow ten table-spoons. Cooks always put in as many eggs as they can afford, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... threshed their way across the fast-chilling and silent plain. On the eastbound one two women sat in heavy reverie. On the westbound one a group of solicitous ladies and gentlemen gathered about a golden-haired daughter of California offering her sal volatile, claret, brandy-and-water. She chose the claret and sipped it tremblingly. Its deep hue answered the glow in the great ruby in her ring. By a chance her eye caught it and she turned the ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... being retained beneath the robe, precisely as if she wore a crinoline with an incense-burner beneath it, which would be a far more simple way of performing the operation. She now begins to perspire freely in the hot-air bath, and the pores of the skin being thus opened and moist, the volatile oil from the smoke of the burning perfumes ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... necessary to lead me; I was so overcome with joy, that I should have fainted, but the good missionary made me inhale some volatile salts which he had about him; and supported by him and my son, I managed to walk. My first words were a thanksgiving to God for his mercy; then I implored my good friend to tell me if I should indeed see my wife ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... by a Frenchman, affable, volatile, affectionate. "Ah cher ami, do not leave me with the abruptness. You desolate mon coeur. Alors—return ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... the able development of her character which appeared in the Quarterly Review for May, 1811, in its critique on her Letters to Walpole:—"This lady seems to have united the lightness of the French character with the solidity of the English. She was easy and volatile, yet judicious and acute; sometimes profound and sometimes superficial. She had a wit playful, abundant, and well-toned; an admirable conception of the ridiculous, and great skill in exposing it; a turn for satire, which she indulged, not always in the best-natured manner, yet with irresistible ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... shame off the stage. Life had to be whole to the Puritan, as indeed it has to be to other thoughtful men. And the Bible taught him that. His concern was for the higher elements of life; his appeal was to the worthier values in men. The concern of the stage of his day was for the more volatile elements in men. The test of a successful play was whether the crowds, any crowds, came to it. And as always happens when a man wants to catch the interest of a crowd, the stage catered to its lowest interests. You can hardly read the story of ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... Secretary's Orders. See Orders in Council Hoxie. See Stewart, Hubou, acetylene black, Hungarian rules for apparatus, Hydraulic pendants for acetylene, Hydrocarbons formed by polymerisation, illuminating power of, volatile, names of, Hydrochloric acid in purified acetylene, Hydrogen and acetylene, reactions between, effect of, on acetylene flame, ignition temperature of, in acetylene, liberated by heat from acetylene, silicide in crude acetylene, Hygienic advantages ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... was late so volatile and gay, Like a trade-wind must now blow all one way, Bend all my cares, my studies, and my vows, To one dull rusty weathercock—my spouse! So wills our virtuous bard—the motley Bayes Of crying epilogues ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... part continued in the future, although the great bulk of the United States production will in the future, as in the past, be absorbed locally. Most of the coal in the United States available for export is higher in volatile matter than the British and German export coal. This quality will in some degree be a limiting factor in exportation. On the other hand, it may result in wider introduction of briquetting, coking, and other ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... the poet paints a life which does not exist. He only extracts and concentrates, as it were, life's ethereal essence, arrests and condenses its volatile fragrance, brings together its scattered beauties, and prolongs its more refined but evanescent joys: and in this he does well; for it is good to feel that life is not wholly usurped by cares for subsistence and physical gratifications, but admits, in measures which may be indefinitely enlarged, ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... county boundary you cannot come back. Alexander, you are not attending. Here are two licenses permitting two pigs to go to market in Lancashire. Attend Alexander. I have had no end of trouble in getting these papers from the policeman." Pigling Bland listened gravely; Alexander was hopelessly volatile. ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... remarked at some length," said Constance, "upon the importance of young ladies having some attendance when they are out late in the evening, and that you in particular were one of those persons he didn't say, but he intimated, of a slightly volatile disposition whom their friends ought ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... reclaimed area of the mangrove swamp is the "milky mangrove," or river poison tree, alias "blind-your-eyes" (EXCAECARIA AGALLOCHA). In India the sap of this tree is called tiger's milk. It issues from the slightest incision of the bark, and is so volatile that no one, however careful, can obtain even a small quantity without being affected by it. There is an acrid, burning sensation in the throat, inflamed eyes and headache, while a single drop falling into the eyes will, it is believed, cause loss of sight. Yet a good caoutchouc may be prepared from ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... A VERY volatile young lord, whose conquests in the female world were numberless, at last married. "Now, my lord," said the countess, "I hope you'll mend."—"Madam," says he, "you may depend on it this is my ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... mind did not last very long with the volatile youth; for, truth to say, the sudden dereliction of mortality on the part of his quarrelsome old father, did not come altogether amiss to him. What hindered him now from wedding the girl of his heart, and leading as jolly a life as any? According to good old custom, he put on his dress and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... that when we are married, and begin to settle into a calm, my volatile disposition will carry me back to coquetry: my passion for admiration is naturally strong, and has been increased by indulgence; for without vanity I have been extremely the taste of ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... together at night until they dropped asleep in the filthy stables where they were packed, their chains secured at either end to the wall, and so tightly that they had barely liberty to lie down, and none to turn, or even stir, in their sleep. By degrees Tristram grew even to like this volatile and disreputable comrade, whose conscience was none of his own growing, but of the laws he ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in such an occupation, replied, that he was very sorry to part with me, as he had no doubt I should some day make as clever, and he hoped as good, a man as my father. The only fault in me of which he had to complain was, that I was too volatile, and inattentive to my books; but he added, that he could already discover sufficient capacity to enable me, with a little steadiness, to become a very good scholar. Then, addressing himself particularly ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... so silly and theatrical?" she muttered. Then, glancing round the room to see if there were anything she could give her, she noticed a bottle of Eno's Fruit Salts, and her eyes twinkled. It was not exactly the same thing as sal volatile, of course, but at any rate it would keep the girl quiet, so, pouring out a large glassful, she bade Marie drink it. The latter obeyed meekly, and for some time was reduced to silence ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... are supposed to lose their virtue by contact with the ground, the volatile essence with which they are impregnated being no doubt drained off into the earth. Thus in the Boulia district of Queensland the magical bone, which the native sorcerer points at his victim as a means of killing him, is never by any chance allowed to touch the earth.[35] The wives of rajahs ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... no! Do you want to kill me at once? I only want rest and a chance to get my breath again. Tea? Wine? Faugh! I hope I know better than that after the agonies I have had to go through. Sal- volatile! Do you take me for an hysterical old woman? Feet up? Ay, young sir, I expect I shall have a longer dose of that position than I care for after this adventure! As if I had not had enough of it already—five weeks on my chair in the summer, three ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... results from emissions by coal- and oil-fired power stations and industrial plants and from trucks transiting Austria between northern and southern Europe natural hazards: NA international agreements: party to - Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Sulphur 85, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Wetlands; signed, but not ratified - Air Pollution-Sulpher 94, Antarctic-Environmental ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... had suspected that a quantity of the oil of vitriol was rendered volatile by this process, I examined it, by all the chemical methods that are in use; but could not find that water thus impregnated contained the least perceivable quantity ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... pardon for such profanation, but it really moves my spleen that people should wish to bring down the volatile figures of your romance to the level of an everyday novel. It is exactly the romantic atmosphere of the ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... recognize men at once; it doesn't take much digging. Before they arrived in Naples they had agreed to take the Sicilian trip together, then up Italy, through France, to England. The scholar and the merchant at play were like two boys out of school; the dry whimsical humor of the Scotsman and the volatile sparkle of the Irishman ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... in vain. For, sooner than expected, the volatile fluid— or whatever it may be—passes out of their veins, and their nervous strength returns; even Ludwig saying he is himself again, though he is ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... for a pretty girl, and knew the language of flattery, was welcome everywhere in Hawkeye. Even Miss Laura Hawkins thought it worth while to use her fascinations upon him, and to endeavor to entangle the volatile fellow in the meshes ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... oil which boils at 150deg C. and is readily volatile in steam. Benzene-azo-ethane, C6H5.N2.C2H5, is a yellow oil which boils at about 180deg C. with more or less decomposition. On standing with 60% sulphuric acid for some time, it is converted into the isomeric ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... been any smelling salts or sal volatile in this subdivision of the Ethiopian region, I should have forthwith fainted on reading this, but I well knew there was not, so I blushed until the steam from my soaking clothes (for I truly was "in a deuce of a mess") went up in a cloud and then, just as I was, I went "across" and ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... and tearing to pieces and placing embankments so that the volatile and fugacious species should be as it were caught in a net and held behind the hedges of definitions, and he considered that superior things were, by participation, and according to similitude, reflected in those inferior, and these in those according ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... there's nothing harder hearted; For thoughtless of all sufferings unseen, Of all save those which touch upon the round Of the day's palpable doings, the vain man, And oftener still the volatile woman vain, Is busiest at heart with restless cares, Poor pains and paltry joys, that make ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... been no shock to her. By that time she had come to know his volatile nature, and had given up all hope of ever being more to him than another ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... already, with their lovely faded tints of green and gold and red and blue and yellow, like the hues of withered flowers: for it is a city of paints and trees, and all in the little winding streets, as I write, are volatile almond-blossoms, mixed with maple-blossoms, white with purple. Even the most splendid of the Sultan's palaces are built in this combustible way: for I believe that they had a notion that stone-building was presumptuous, though I have ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... father's disposition;—the whole affair is chimerical—yet he will gratify an idle penchant at the enormous, cruel expense, of perhaps ruining the peace of the very woman for whom he professes the generous passion of love! He is a gentleman in his mind and manners—tant pis! He is a volatile school-boy—the heir of a man's fortune who well knows the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... edification. Scientific truth is something fugitive, relative, full of fine gradations; he tries to fix it in absolute formulas. The Aids to Reflection, or The Friend, is an effort to propagate the volatile spirit of conversation into the less ethereal fabric of a written book; and it is only here and there that the poorer matter becomes vibrant, is really ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... steady nor consistent in the nice process of fixing his volatile opinions and those of his subjects. In his youth he was, offended by the slightest deviation from the orthodox line; in his old age he transgressed the measure of temperate heresy, and the Jacobites, not less than the Catholics, were scandalized by ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... answer was quickly forgotten. Long they debated the morrow. Several have left accounts of what occurred. Johnston, although he had laid the remarkable ambush, and was expecting victory, was grave, even gloomy. But Beauregard, volatile and sanguine, rejoiced. For him the triumph was won already. After their great achievement in placing their army, unseen and unknown, within cannon shot of the Union force, failure ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... messenger and half-brother, Fadrique, had played the role of Sir Tristram as he brought the lady back, and that she had been a somewhat willing Isolde. There were others who said that Blanche, knowing the king's volatile disposition and of his relations with the notorious Maria, had endeavored upon the eve of her marriage to seek aid from the arts of magic in her effort to win the love of her husband, and had obtained from a Jewish sorcerer a belt which she was told would make Pedro faithful, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... plants is owing, in nearly all cases, to a perfectly volatile oil, either contained in small vessels, or sacs within them, or generated from time to time, during their life, as when in blossom. Some few exude, by incision, odoriferous gums, as benzoin, olibanum, myrrh, &c.; others give, by the same act, what are called balsams, ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... Miami he had received a twenty page letter from the Bluegrass region of Kentucky which threw him into a state of such volatile ineptitude that I was well satisfied to let him give what orders he would, sending us to the world's end for all I cared. In a very large measure Tommy's happiness was my own, as I knew that mine would ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... himself at a distance from their party, awakened reflections calculated to depress deeply a mind like Ravenswood's, which was naturally contemplative and melancholy. His pride, however, soon shook off this feeling of dejection, and it gave way to impatience upon finding that his volatile friend Bucklaw seemed in no hurry to return with his borrowed steed, which Ravenswood, before leaving the field, wished to see restored to the obliging owner. As he was about to move towards the group of assembled huntsmen, he was joined by a horseman, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... was oral, the volatile Mitchell made use of his voice in a manner of heathenish boisterousness, and presently reclined upon a lounge to laugh the better. His stricken comrade, meanwhile, recovered so far as to pace the floor. "I'm goin' to pack up and light out for home!" he declared, over and over. And even oftener ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... from his eye and hung limply from its ribbon. Henry literally could not, after his tiring night, his exhausting day, the emotional strain of the last hour, stand up to Charles Wilbraham any more. If he could have a dose of sal volatile—a cocktail—anything ... as it was, he wilted, all but crumpled up; all he was able for was to sit, as composed as might be, under ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... been expected for the past several days, but not especially looked forward to. His status and stature with the Extraterrestrial Mining Company was well known to all of us, and certainly respected. His volatile temperament was well known also; it commanded our concern. And if ever Mr. Goil's temperament was to be put to a test, it was during one of his inspection visits. And that was what he had come ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell
... calm,' exclaimed Lady Armine. 'This is most unfortunate. Dear, dear Katherine, but she has such a heart! All the women have in our family, and none of the men, 'tis so odd. Mr. Glastonbury, water if you please, that glass of water; sal volatile; where is the sal volatile? My own, own Katherine, pray, pray restrain yourself! Ferdinand is here; remember, Ferdinand is here, and he will soon be well; soon quite well. Believe me, he is already quite another ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... said on the subject then, but when Katherine returned from the station after bidding her sister-in-law good-by, Miss Payne met her with a strong recommendation to take some "sal volatile and water, and to ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... dear," answered her father, "you'd better bring some sal volatile or something. Mrs Negus has fainted; and I'm afraid poor Mr Lathrope ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... seemed to be less of conscience in his mental operations, than a new-born sorrow or sympathy, wrung out of a heart naturally obdurate, by the anguish of a personal experience of the pain he himself had produced in another, who had the strongest claims on his protection and love. His mind, though volatile and wandering, and not far from verging on delirium, was not yet deranged; and I was about to put a question to him concerning his wife, whom he had not directly mentioned to me, when the door opened, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... of forty, ugly and childless. Hinatiaiani was her adopted daughter, and Pae had been sorely angered when Grelet, whose companion she had been for eighteen years, took the girl. But with the birth of Tamaiti, Pae became reconciled, and looked after the welfare of the infant more than the volatile ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... the volatile, yet noble-minded Belfield, to whose mutable and enterprising disposition life seemed always rather beginning than progressive, roved from employment to employment, and from public life to retirement, soured with the world, and ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... the colonel up to his apartment when a servant from Mrs. James knocked hastily at the door. The lady, not meeting with her husband at her return home, began to despair of him, and performed everything which was decent on the occasion. An apothecary was presently called with hartshorn and sal volatile, a doctor was sent for, and messengers were despatched every way; amongst the rest, one was sent to enquire at the lodgings of ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... our senses in immediate sensation opens our weak and volatile spirit to every impression, but makes us in the same degree less apt for exertion. That which stretches our thinking power and invites to abstract conceptions strengthens our mind for every kind of resistance, but hardens it also in the same proportion, and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Volatile Salts for Pungents.—Liquor ammon., 1 pint; oil lavender flowers, 1 dram; oil rosemary, fine, 1 dram; oil bergamot, 1/2 dram; oil peppermint, 10 minims. Mix thoroughly and fill pungents or keep in well stoppered ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... is distilled at moderate temperatures, volatile liquids are obtained. These hydrocarbons, being inflammable, naturally attracted attention when first known, and in 1781 their use as fuel for lamps was suggested. However, it was not until 1820 that the light oils obtained by distilling coal-tar, a by-product of the coal-gas industry which was ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... these occasions, wrote a letter as brief as brief might be, but of its kind altogether perfect. It ran thus: "I have heard of your great grief, and I send you a simple pressure of the hand." Coming from a gay and volatile person, it had for the mourner great consolation; pious quotations, and even the commonplaces of condolence, would have seemed forced. Undoubtedly those persons do us great good, or they wish to, who tell us to be resigned—that we have deserved this affliction; ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... the monferrina to the rattle of tambourines or the chant of some wandering ballad-singer. These scenes were so engaging to the comedians that they could not be restrained from going ashore and mingling in the village diversions; and the Marquess, though impatient to rejoin his divinity, was too volatile not to be drawn into the adventure. The whole party accordingly disembarked, and were presently giving an exhibition of their talents to the assembled idlers, the Pantaloon, Harlequin and Doctor enacting a comical intermezzo which Cantapresto had that morning composed for them, ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... 'wore a white greatcoat, and consequently talked loud'—(there is something very delicious in that CONSEQUENTLY). He wore his hat on one side. He was active, volatile, and went to the top of Arthur's Seat on the Sunday forenoon. He was as quiet in a debating society as he was loud in the streets. He was reckless and imprudent: yesterday he insisted on your sharing a bottle of claret with him (and claret was claret then, before the cheap-and-nasty ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fortunately espied the youngest son of the enraged and disappointed vendor of volumes actually flying a kite formed of a portion of the first volume. "Heavy," retorted Silk, "nonsense, sir. Look there! so volatile and exciting is that masterly production, that it has even made that youthful scion of an obdurate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... Volatile, restless, "always children longing for something new," as the Egyptian priest said of them, they were too ready to believe that they had attained laws, and then, tired with their toy, throw away those hastily assumed laws, and wander off ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... in the fish business, but it is not monumental; it will not live after him in memorial grandeur, and the business itself is far from imposing—the phosphate of ammonia and its volatile allies passing even from the recollection of reminiscent contemporaries. The people with rare collections to sell work among that class of trade represented by Tescheron, a man with money seeking to benefit mankind in some way that will insure the perpetuation of ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... savour the whittle's sharp edge, and I thank my Lord for my escape and for the loosing of my prosperity from the trap of trouble." Now when the Birder heard these words of the Birdie he repented and regretted his folly, and he cried, "O my sorrow for what failed me of the slaughter of this volatile," and as he sank on ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... groups: Korean National Council of Churches; large, potentially volatile student population concentrated in Seoul; Federation of Korean Trade Unions; Korean Veterans' Association; Federation of Korean Industries; ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... descending mass, composed of ore, coal and flux.—By coal is here meant charcoal; when any other species of fuel is alluded to, it will be specified. In the upper half of the fire-room the materials are subjected to a comparatively low temperature, and they lose only the moisture, volatile matter, hydrogen, and carbonic acid, that they may contain; this change taking place principally in the lower part of the upper half of ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... consoling as he was complimentary, and by the time that messengers from the palace had arrived with inquiries from the Emperor and invitations to the Emperor's ball, the mother of the heroine could dispense with her sal volatile. ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... partake but the lovely child who was presented to her for this purpose. Her beautiful form prejudiced everyone in her favour; but the distress and sorrow which were impressed on her countenance, at an age generally too volatile and thoughtless to be deeply affected, could not fail of exciting a tender sensibility in the heart of a ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... to Mike, meeting him at the station in the family motor on the Monday, 'is a man of vast but volatile brain. He has not that calm, dispassionate outlook on life which marks your true ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... esteemed as a carminative for windy colic. Being so aromatic and comfortably stimulating, the fruit is commended for aiding the digestion of savoury pastry, and to correct the griping tendencies of such medicines as senna and rhubarb. It contains malic acid, tannin, the special volatile oil of the herb, ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... anything but agreeable to be haunted by a suspicion that one's intellect is dwindling away; or exhaling, without your consciousness, like ether out of a phial; so that, at every glance, you find a smaller and less volatile residuum. Of the fact there could be no doubt; and, examining myself and others, I was led to conclusions, in reference to the effect of public office on the character, not very favorable to the mode of life in question. In some other form, perhaps, I may hereafter develop these effects. Suffice ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... distillation of hydrocarbon oils by causing the oil to flow over the surfaces of a succession of heated pipes in different vacuum stills, the temperature of such pipes increasing in each successive still, so as to drive off at first more volatile ingredients, and then those less so, and so on till only the residuum remains, ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... young, volatile reader, "I shall never have patience to get through these volumes, there are so many ahs! and ohs! so much fainting, tears, and distress, I am sick to death of the subject." My dear, cheerful, innocent girl, for innocent I will ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... size or weight of the radio-active substance. "A gram of such substance," says Sir Oliver Lodge, "might lose a few thousand of atoms a second, and yet we could not detect the loss if we continued to weigh it for a century." The volatile essences of organic bodies which we detect in odors and flavors, are not potent like the radium emanations. We can confine them and control them, but we cannot control the rays of radio-active matter any more than we can confine a spirit. We can separate the three different kinds of rays—the ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... angry, as the succession of events or impressions might dictate. To collect beautiful things was a passion with him, and he was proud of the natural taste and instinct, which generally led him right. But for 'aesthetics'—the philosophy of art—he had nothing but contempt. The volatile, restless mind escaped at once from the concentration asked of it; and fell back on what the Buddhist calls 'Maia,' the gay and changing appearances of things, which were all he wanted. And it was because the war had interfered with this pleasant and perpetual challenge ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... married, which was a pity, since that was the only thing that would have satisfied both parties. Prince Vivien was fully aware of the feeling in his favour, but being too honourable to wish to injure his pretty cousin, and perhaps too impatient and volatile to care to think seriously about anything, he suddenly took it into his head that he would go off by himself in search of adventure. Luckily this idea occurred to him when he was on horseback, for he would certainly have set out on foot rather than lose an instant. As it was, he simply ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... disappearing in transit. Two car-loads of building lumber sent to repair the station at Red Butte vanished somewhere between the Angels shipping-yards and their billing destination. Lime, cement, and paint were exceedingly volatile. House hardware, purchased in quantities for company repairs, figured in the monthly requisition sheet as regularly as coal and oil; and the lost-tool account roughly balanced the pay-roll of ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... The active principle of tea is called theine; that of coffee, caffeine, and of cocoa, theobromine. They also contain an aromatic, volatile oil, to which they owe their distinctive flavor. Tea and coffee also contain an astringent called tannin, which gives the peculiar bitter taste to the infusions when steeped too long. In cocoa, the fat known as cocoa butter amounts to fifty ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... they found this true: the empty brass pan, with the bottom bright and clean, as if a treasure had lain there, and all the rest of it cankered with rust. Whether this sciencer was some obscure Roger Bacon, and had discovered the use of a volatile anaesthetic centuries ago, or whether he was enjoying a solitary practical joke at the expense of two simpletons, is impossible to say. "It is at your choice to believe either or neither," as Westcote says of ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... which surprised Cockburn, Warden, and O'Meara alike, was largely due to his iron will. He knew that his exile must be disagreeable, but he had that useful faculty of encasing himself in the present, which dulls the edge of care. Besides, his tastes were not so exacting, or his temperament so volatile, as to shroud him in the gloom that besets weaker natures in time of trouble. Alas for him, it was far otherwise with his companions. The impressionable young Gourgaud, the thought-wrinkled Las Cases, the bright pleasure-loving ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... from Maude. "Let us see what that volatile sister of mine has to say. Something very important or she wouldn't write." As he opened the note sheet, he turned to his wife. ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... abortive attempts of the antiseptic pad, to maintain a condition of asepsis around the wound, we advise the continual soaking of the whole foot in a cold antiseptic bath. This may be either carbolic acid 1 in 20, or—what is less volatile, perhaps more effectual, and certainly more economical—perchloride of mercury 1 ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... in the war of Friule, He being then Archduke; and I have worn it Till now from habit— From superstition, if you will. Belike, It was to be a talisman to me; And while I wore it on my neck in faith, It was to chain to me all my life long The volatile fortune, whose first pledge it was— Well, be it so! Henceforward a new fortune Must spring up for me; for the potency Of this ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... syllogisms. First, we, or others for us, have examined various objects which yielded under the given circumstances a dark spot with the given property, and found that they possessed the properties connoted by the word arsenic; they were metallic, volatile, their vapor had a smell of garlic, and so forth. Next, we, or others for us, have examined various specimens which possessed this metallic and volatile character, whose vapor had this smell, etc., and have invariably found that they were poisonous. The first observation we judge that we may ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... possible that some readers of these pages may remember a previous chronicle by the same historian wherein it was recorded that the volatile spirit of Mr. Hamlin, slightly assisted by circumstances, passed beyond these voices at the Ranch of the Blessed Fisherman, some two years later. As the editor stood beside the body of his friend on the morning of the funeral, he noticed among the flowers laid ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... left the place in a little while and proceeded towards the railroad depot. Ralph had conceived quite a liking for his volatile new acquaintance. Clark had shown himself to be a loyal, resourceful friend, and the young engineer felt that he would miss his genial company if the other did not take the return trip to Stanley Junction. He told Clark this as ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... curious that when I look for more definite instruction on such points to the higher ranks of botanists, I find in the index to Dr. Lindley's 'Introduction to Botany'—seven hundred pages of close print—not one of the four words 'Volatile,' 'Essence,' 'Scent,' or 'Perfume.' I examine the index to Gray's 'Structural and Systematic Botany,' with precisely the same success. I next consult Professors Balfour and Grindon, and am met by the same dignified silence. Finally, I think over the possible chances in ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... could ever tame its beautiful wildness. And in spirit they were what they seemed: such a wild, joyous, frolicsome spirit with such grace and fleetness one does not look for in human beings, but only in birds or in some small bird-like volatile mammal—a squirrel or a marmoset of the tropical forest, or the chinchilla of the desolate mountain slopes, the swiftest, wildest, loveliest, most airy and most vocal of small beasties. Occasionally to watch their wonderful motions more closely and ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... Le Grande possessed in an eminent degree the peculiarities of his gay, volatile ancestry. Proud of his children, and ambitious for their future, in his lavish bounty he withheld nothing he deemed necessary for their advancement ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... it not so? but yet it haunts me like a phantom; I know it is unsubstantial and vain; but it will be present; will intrude its horrors on my mind; will whisper that my brother, as volatile as ardent, would have divided his energies amid a hundred objects. It was I who taught him to concentrate them and to gage all on this dreadful and desperate cast. Oh that I could recollect that I had but once said to him, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... drained his glass at a gulp, and his lips pressed together as though he were unwilling that even the volatile essence ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... was necessary for beauty; her hair was black, her complexion brown, her eyes prominent and always moving; lively, active, and if one once yielded to her whims, exacting beyond measure; but until then buxom and soft, and inclined to pet and spoil whoever, for the moment, had arrested her volatile fancy. Just as we make her acquaintance this happy individual was a certain Maitre Quennebert, a notary of Saint Denis, and the comedy played between him and the widow was an exact counterpart of the one going on in the rooms of Mademoiselle de Guerchi, except that the roles were inverted; for while ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... came over Juarez's face, but he said nothing. All the stolid Indian in his nature came to the surface. He merely grunted contemptuously at the Mexican's remark and this made the volatile Manuel uneasy in his turn, for he wanted to realize that his malice had struck home, but Juarez did not give him that satisfaction. There was a sort of hidden duel between these two, the subtle Mexican and the crafty Indian nature of Juarez. ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... not happened. The little creature's volatile beauty fluttered back to her from time to time; there was a purified transparent quality in it that had been wanting before. It had still the trick of fluctuating, vanishing, as if it had caught something of her soul's caprice; but while it was there Mrs. Nevill Tyson was a more ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... we have inferred it must have been, ever itself intensely heated, the volatile and gaseous matters which now constitute our atmosphere and oceans, must have united to form an atmosphere of far greater extent than it is at present. The aqueous matter rising into regions where the rarity of the air would cause cold sufficient to condense it, would have been in ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... it was Katherine Rodney, pretty, plump, and spoiled, who pulled the first stone from the foundation of Medcroft's house of cards. Katherine had convinced herself that she was deeply enamoured of the volatile Freddie; the more she thought that she loved him, the greater became the conviction that he did not care as much for her as he professed. She began to detect a decided falling off in his ardour; it was no use trying to hide the fact from herself ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... they perceive, they love the country. Moreover, Maud has a passion for knowing all the village people, and takes the children with her, so that they really know the village-folk all round; they are certainly tremendously happy and interested in everything. Of course they are volatile in their tastes, but I rather encourage that. I know that in the little old moral books the idea was that nothing should be taken up by children, unless it was done thoroughly and perseveringly; but I had rather ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... game!" said Tom to herself, watching the set face with her sharp little eyes, "but she's uncommon bad all the same. I'll put Evie on her track!" So Miss Everett's attention was duly called to the condition of her pupil, and Rhoda was dosed with sal- volatile, and provided with smelling salts to keep in her pocket. Not a word of reproach was spoken, and Evie indeed appeared to treat the indisposition as quite an orthodox thing under the circumstances. So affectionate was she, ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... amid the feverish world would wear 'a body free of pain, of cares a mind; 'fly the rank city, shun its turbid air; 'breathe not the chaos of eternal smoke, 'and volatile corruption, from the dead, 'the dying, sick'ning, and the living world 'exhaled, to sully heaven's transparent ...
— A Lecture on the Preservation of Health • Thomas Garnett, M.D.
... race of troops may go along into the field. Only the man versed in statecraft should be allowed to participate in the talk about the results of war. Not he who has out yonder proved an unworthy diplomat, nor the dilettante loafer sprayed with the perfume of volatile emotions. Manhood liability to military service requires manhood suffrage? That question may rest for the time being; likewise the desire for equality of that right shall not be argued today. But common ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... unresponsive. Hurt by her aunt and her cousins, who ridiculed her studies and teased her about her unwillingness for society, which they attributed to a lack of the power of pleasing, Felicite resolved on making herself coquettish, gay, volatile,—a woman, in short. But she expected in return an exchange of ideas, seductions, and pleasures in harmony with the elevation of her own mind and the extent of its knowledge. Instead of that, she was filled with disgust for the commonplaces of conversation, ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... earth and the animal remains supply the other. Evaporation of pure water from the surface of the earth causes the moisture which rises from below to bring to the surface the salt dissolved in it; and as this salt is not volatile, the escape of the moisture leaves it at or near the surface. Hence, under buildings, especially habitations of men and animals, the salt accumulates, and in times of scarcity it may be collected. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... depends upon three points,—upon intense heat, blowpipe action, and the volatility of certain metals. We know that there are plenty of metals that are volatile; but this, I think, is the first time that it has been proposed to use the volatility of certain metals—such as gold and palladium—for the purpose of driving them off and leaving something else behind. He counts largely upon the volatility of metals which we have not been in the habit of ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
... this, also, there was an element of ill feeling, an often open expression of antagonism toward the boys, which probably the other guests all tensed unpleasantly, but which the contented, jovial host and his impetuous and volatile daughter hardly recognized or thought of. Thaddeus, the thin-faced, pale, stoop-shouldered, indolent, cigarette-smoking nephew, though often treated with slight courtesy, continually pushed himself to the front, compelling consideration apparently for the sole purpose of exerting ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... she probably did know that ammonia is good for just that sort of faintness which she must have experienced after taking the powder. Perhaps she thought of sal volatile, I don't know. But most people know that ammonia in some form is good for faintness of this sort, even if they don't ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... different treatment: each suggested and verified by laborious experience and vigilant attention. In some cases the pure silver is separated by mechanical means; in others the ore is roasted, in order to throw off the sulphur, arsenic, and other volatile matters, which are separately collected and form no inconsiderable portion of the valuable produce of the mine. These roastings again are smelted with a variety of fluxes, and in different states of purification, until they are ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... head in his hands; then suddenly, he broke out into another paroxysm. "The feminine nature always the same, always, always; infinitely charming and infinitely volatile. Delicious, and oh ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Georgia; to the peculiar penetrating warmth which passed through the clothing to the body and made one feel that one was not surrounded by mere air, but was immersed in a dry bath of some infinitely superior vapor, a vapor volatile, soothing, tonic, distilled, it seemed, from the earth, from pine trees, tulip trees, balm-of-Gilead trees, (or "bam" trees, as they call them), blossoming Judas trees, Georgia crabapple, dogwood pink and white, ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... tissue freight The snowflakes are—in sparkle pure As the rich parure A lovely queen were proud to wear; As volatile, as fine and rare As thistle-down dispersed in air, Or bits of filmy lace; Like nature's tear-drops strewn around That beautify and warm the ground, But melt upon ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... we do for Frances, mamma? Will you let her have your smelling bottle, or shall I run and get some sal volatile?" ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... have heard much of this Politian. Gay, volatile and giddy—is he not? And little ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of separation, which a savage dreamer or seer would feel after a dream or vision in which he visited remote places, would satisfy him that his soul, at least, was volatile. But some experience of what he would take to be visits from the spirits of others, would be needed before he recognised that other men, as well as he, had the faculty of sending ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... earnest. Our meetings were stolen ones, and my letters passed through the medium of a confidant. A gate leading from Mr Chaworth's grounds to those of my mother, was the place of our interviews, but the ardour was all on my side; I was serious, she was volatile. She liked me as a younger brother, and treated and laughed at me as a boy; she, however, gave me her picture, and that was something to make verses upon. Had I married Miss Chaworth, perhaps the whole tenor of my life would ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... impression which the favourable exterior of this young man had at first inspired. She accuses herself with finding him so handsome, and seems to fortify her heart against the fascination of his looks. "Barbaroux is volatile," she said; "the adoration he receives from worthless women destroys the seriousness of his feelings. When I see such fine young men too conceited at the impression they make, like Barbaroux and Herault de Sechelles, I cannot help thinking that ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... memories, like the gnats in a summer twilight. There is not a sight, a sound, a smell, not a breath from sea or garden, that is not full of them, and on which, busy and numberless, they are not wafted into us. And each of these volatile presences brings the notions of right and wrong with it; and it is these that make sensuous life tingle with so strange and so elaborate an excitement. Indirectly then, though not directly, the mere joy in the act of living will suffer from the loss of religion, in the same ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... vacuous, vandalism, variegate velocity, venal, venereal, venial, venous, veracious, verdant, verisimilitude, vernacular, versatile, vestal, vibratory, vicarious, vicissitude, virulence, viscid, viscous, vitiate, vitreous, vituperate, vivacious, volatile, volition, voluminous, voluptuary, voluptuous, voracious, votive, vulnerable, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... the zinc. Whence the inferior surface of the plate of zinc abounds now with vitreous ether, and its upper surface with resinous ether. Beneath this pair of plates lay a cloth moistened with water, or with some better conductor, as salt and water, or a slight acid mixed with water, or volatile alcali of ammoniac mixed with water, and this vitreous electric ether on the lower surface of the zinc plate will be given to the second silver plate which lies beneath it; and thus this second silver plate will possess not only its own natural vitreous atmosphere, which was denser or in greater ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... hope, however, academies have been instituted, to guard the avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse intruders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength. The French language has visibly ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... {where thou mayst give an Example of Purity to the Writers of a neighbouring Nation; which now shall have an Opportunity to receive English Bullion in Exchange for its own Dross, which has so long passed current among us in Pieces abounding with all the Levities of its volatile Inhabitants.} The reigning Depravity of the Times has yet left Virtue many Votaries. Of their Protection you need not despair. May every head-strong Libertine whose Hands you reach, be reclaimed; and every tempted Virgin who reads you, imitate ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... gravel arise from various viscous superfluities in the kidneys and bladder, which occasion difficulty in micturition. Stone is produced by the action of heat upon viscous moisture, sublimating the volatile elements and condensing the denser portions. Putrefication of stone in the bladder is the result of three causes, viz., consuming heat, viscous matter and stricture of the meatus. For consuming heat acting ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... power of style to obscure its inner poverty of thought. The book brought him immediately a distinguished reputation from a public which exalted elegance of diction beyond all literary virtues. The volatile Charles Townshend made him tutor to the Duke of Buccleuch, through whom Smith not only secured comparative affluence for the rest of his days, but also a French tour in which he met at its best the most brilliant society ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... have been consulting me—the women in tears. He will marry his grandchildren's German governess, and there is nothing to be done. In such cases nothing is ever to be done. You can easily distract an aged man's volatile affections, and attach them to a new charmer. But she is just as ineligible as the first; marry he will, always a young woman. Now if a respectable virgin or widow of, say, fifty, could hand him a love philtre, and gain his heart, appearances would, more or less, be ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... curious, in the light of future events, to note that young Morse's parents were fearful lest his volatile nature and lack of steadfastness of purpose should mar his future career. His dominating characteristic in later life was a bulldog tenacity, which led him to stick to one idea through discouragements and disappointments which would have overwhelmed ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... accident, and the pitiable state of the rest of the daring explorers, were enough to stop any further questions and expressions of astonishment. On one side of me the frightened Miss X——, using my nose as a cork for her sal-volatile bottle; on the other the "God's warrior" covered with blood as if returning from a battle with the Afghans; further on, poor Mulji with a dreadful headache. Narayan and the colonel, happily for our party, did not experience ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... nature; the resolutions and combinations that are formed during the process of the vinous and acetous stages of fermentation, are interesting, beyond comparison, to the brewer, malt and molasses distillers, vintager, cider and vinegar maker, &c. The elastic fluids and volatile principles that are extricated and escape, formerly so little attended to, are now better understood. The method of commodiously saving, and advantageously applying them, and other volatile products, ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... The stubborn and irreclaimable imp of evil nature peers out sullenly and doggedly, or sparkles on you a pair of small snake-eyes, fruitful of deceit and cunning. The better boy, easily moved, that might become anything, mercurial and volatile, "most ignorant of what he's most assured," reflects on his face the pleasure of having his picture taken, and smiles good-humoredly, standing in this worst of pillories, to be pelted along a lifetime with unforgetting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... volatile alkali, my lad," he said, laughing. "There!—you'll soon be all right. I've strapped ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... them, too, have the surface covered with glandular hairs secreting a strong-scented volatile oil, giving the peculiar odor to these plants. The dead nettle (Lamium) (Fig. 120, A) is a thoroughly typical example. The sage, mints, catnip, thyme, lavender, etc., will recall ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... Subtile parts were so easily Soluble even in Cold water, I concluded that they must abound with Salts, and perhaps contain much of the Essential Salt, as the Chymists call it, of the Wood. And to try whether these Subtile parts were Volatile enough to be Distill'd, without the Dissolution of their Texture, I carefully Distill'd some of the Tincted Liquor in very low Vessels, and the gentle heat of a Lamp Furnace; but found all that came over to be as Limpid and Colourless as Rock-water, and the Liquor remaining in the ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... fact that she was in the habit of centralising attention. The usually volatile Countess became subdued and repressed in her presence; the big son and the little one were respectfully quiescent; I confess ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... Julia, tottering along with her little hands extended, to catch the butterfly that tempted her on from flower to flower. My brother Henry was two years younger than myself, and was at the time I speak of a remarkably handsome, active boy, of ten years of age—full of fun and mischief, unsteady and volatile. My father found considerable difficulty in confining Henry's attention to his studies; for, though uncommonly quick and intelligent, he wanted patience and application. He could not bear the drudgery of poring over musty books. He used to say ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... wax. Tie first this piece of silk over your mouth, and then stop your nostrils carefully with the wax. Then open the vial quickly and pour a little of the contents into your hand. You must be quick, for it is very volatile. Rub that on the back of my head, keeping the vial closed. When your hand is dry, hold the vial open to my nostrils for two minutes by your watch. By that time, I shall be asleep. Put the vial in this pocket of my caftan; open all the doors and windows, and tell my servant to leave them so, ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... Works that can claim all this will yet die if they are conversant about trivial objects only, or written without taste, genius, and true nobility of mind; for range of information, knowledge of details, novelty of discovery are of a volatile essence and fly off readily into other hands that know better how to treat them. The matter is foreign to the man, and is not of him; the manner is ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... awful fate of this unknown man, Nigel travelled as if in a dream, taking little notice of, or interest in, anything, and replying to questions in mere monosyllables. His companions seemed to be similarly affected, for they spoke very little. Even the volatile spirit of Moses appeared to be subdued, and it was not till they had reached nearly the end of their journey that their usual ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Bible was perused and spoken of with an interest that indicated a genuine hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and where the name of JESUS sounded often and sweetly on the ear. Under such training, Harry, though naturally of a wild, volatile disposition, was deeply and irresistibly impressed with a reverence for sacred things, which, now that he was thousands of miles away from his peaceful home, clung to him with the force of old habit and association, despite ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... trade and all our economic and social policies must recognize this. The world has discovered that cash without credit means little. One cannot use cash if one cannot use one's credit to draw it whenever and wherever needed. Credit is intangible and volatile, and may be ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... man 'who has not been all that he ought to have been' is still able to love," said Evadne, "which is not the case. We are all endowed with the power to begin with; but love is a delicate essence, as volatile as it is delicious; and when a man's moral fibre is loosened, his share of love escapes. But this is not the point," she broke off, dropping Mrs. Beale's hand, and gathering herself together. "The trouble now is that you are going ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the name of an art—dates back to a remote antiquity, and has been practiced with but little change for hundreds of years. It is true that some improvements have been recently made, but these relate to the recovery of certain volatile ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... may marry, and live in a cottage on the borders of his park; and Vernon can retain his post, and Laetitia her devotion. The risk of her casting it of had to be faced. Marriage has been known to have such an effect on the most faithful of women that a great passion fades to naught in their volatile bosoms when they have taken a husband. We see in women especially the triumph of the animal over the spiritual. Nevertheless, risks must be run for a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the French character must come as a revelation to those who have in the past regarded the French as a volatile, frivolous, impulsive people, virile, yet lacking the accredited determination and persistency of the Teuton. This impression has been a great mistake. The faces of the men and women of France alike show no sign of ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... sweet and spicy; the sun drew out the delicate essence of gum and sap, warming volatile juices until they exhaled through ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... the way, and as I should have said before, I had still further enlarged my staff by one art director of the most flamboyant and erratic character, a genius of sorts, volatile, restless, emotional, colorful, a veritable Verlaine-Baudelaire-Rops soul, who, not content to arrange and decorate the magazine each month, must needs wish to write, paint, compose verse and music and stage plays, as well as move ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... and quiet troops who were taking their evening's repast on the side of the highway, opposite to the field through which she was flying. They were her countrymen, and she knew that her sex would be respected by the Eastern militia, who composed this body; but in the volatile and reckless character of the Southern horse she had less confidence. Outrages of any description were seldom committed by the really American soldiery; but she recoiled, with exquisite delicacy, from even the appearance of humiliation. When, therefore, she heard ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper |
