"Precipitating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... red and panting, shoving their vast overworked bellies before them, still found strength to shout into the very ear of the mules, in an unctuous, effusive voice, "Long live our noble Bey!" The rain on all this, the rain falling in buckets, discolouring the pink coaches, precipitating the disorder, giving the appearance of a rout to this triumphal return, but a comic rout, mingled with songs and laughs, mad embraces, and infernal oaths. It was something like the return of a religious procession flying before a storm, cassocks turned up, surplices over heads, and the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... suggested, and upon this, thinking the door locked, I threw my weight against it, precipitating myself into the room with unnecessary violence, to find the duke sitting at the desk, his head thrown back upon the cushions, and one hand on the arm of the great chair in an attitude of peaceful slumber. But there came to me ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... the whole Jewish community burned themselves in their synagogue; and mothers were often seen throwing their children on the pile, to prevent their being baptized, and then precipitating themselves into the flames. In short, whatever deeds fanaticism, revenge, avarice, and desperation, in fearful combination, could instigate mankind to perform, were executed in 1349, throughout Germany, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... murder; and like the old Parisian jeweller Cardillac, in Louis XIV.'s time, who was stung with a perpetual lust for murdering the possessors of fine diamonds—not so much for the value of the prize (of which he never hoped to make any use), as from an unconquerable desire of precipitating himself into the difficulties and hazards of the murder,—Caligula never failed to experience (and sometimes even to acknowledge) a secret temptation to any murder which seemed either more than usually abominable, or more than ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... the ground, and by the finding of a loaded revolver. Carefully examining the spot, the detective pointed out, at last, the very root, not more than three quarters of an inch thick, which formed a loop on the surface of the ground, in which the unfortunate man's foot had caught, precipitating him upon the stone. Every member of the jury having examined it, Mr. Bangs took out his knife and cut it away in order to prevent similar accidents in future. The coroner did not think the blow sufficient to kill the man, though it must have rendered him insensible. The killing ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... While you are waiting you should stand in the aisle and remove your coat, vest and shoes, and then begin to search for your suitcase which you will finally locate by crawling on your chin and stomach under berth number 11. When you again resume an upright position the train will give a sudden lurch, precipitating you into berth number 12. A woman's voice will then say "Alice?" to which you should of course answer "No" and climb quickly up the ladder into your ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... ladies, with flying draperies and countenances of mingled mirth and dismay, might have been seen precipitating themselves into a respectable mansion with unbecoming haste; but the squirrels were the only witnesses of this "vision of sudden flight," and, being used to ground-and-lofty ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... aspirations. It is at such times that my mind always turns to the East, that swarming ant-heap of the human race, where alone it is possible to be very great. I renew my dreams of '98. I think of the possibility of drilling and arming these vast masses of men, and of precipitating them upon Europe. Had I conquered Syria I should have done this, and the fate of the world was really decided at the siege of Acre. With Egypt at my feet I already pictured myself approaching India, mounted upon an elephant, and holding ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... underlying their union that one should look for the cause of the murderous crime I secretly imagined to be hidden behind this seeming suicide? Or were these parties innocent and old David Moore the one motive power in precipitating a tragedy, the result of which had been to enrich him and impoverish them? Certainly, a most serious and important question, and one which any man might be pardoned for attempting to answer, especially if that man was a young detective lamenting ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... digestive system, reproductive organs; also defects and peculiarities of the skeleton, etc. This does not mean that all shortcomings are inherited. It does mean, however, that the type of organism is inheritable which lacks resistance to the germs and other precipitating factors in ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... "By precipitating matters we may do a great deal more harm than good," she said. "We have had to buy our wisdom in rather an expensive school, but it ought to make us wiser in future. So far we have only suspicions to go upon, not facts, and it is very likely that if we accused Oily Dave of stealing ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... cheerily, and, indeed, it was a problem to get down to him without precipitating the loose earth and rock that were ready to make a landslide down the hole, and ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... Evil under the Sun: Sonnet." This sonnet was composed in August 1849, when the great cause of the Hungarian insurrection against Austrian tyranny was, like revolutionary movements elsewhere, precipitating towards its fall. My original title for the sonnet was, "For the General Oppression of the Better by the Worse Cause, Autumn 1849." When the verses had to be published in "The Germ," a magazine which did not aim at taking any side in politics, it was thought that this ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... issued forth from his entrenchments on learning the movements which announced to him our retreat. His accustomed prudence kept him from precipitating the pursuit by an effort that might become dangerous; the well-known character of Marshal Ney protected the rear- guard no less than the valor of his troops. He ranged his forces in order of battle before Pombal, which obliged Wellington to recall the troops which he had detached for the succor ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... The revelry within became more and more boisterous, and the chances of a speedy retreat more and more remote, when all of a sudden there was a sharp click and the door swung back hard on its hinges, precipitating Cusack, Pilbury, and Curtis backwards into the room in among the very feet of the besieged as, in a compact body, they rushed out. Morrison, Philpot, and Morgan did what little they could to oppose them but they were simply run over ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... for a few moments, Pendleton retaining a certain rigidity of step and bearing which Paul had come to recognize as indicating some uneasiness or mental disturbance on his part. Hathaway had no intention of precipitating the confidence of his companion. Perhaps experience had told him it would come soon enough. So he spoke carelessly of himself. How the need of a year's relaxation and change had brought him abroad, his journeyings, and, finally, how he had been advised by his German physician ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... it will be time to contrive ulterior measures. In the mean time it so happens that no necessity exists for precipitating matters. Yours truly, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... was at hand; for Louis did not forget his promise of succour. Shouting his battle-cry, he spurred, lance in rest, to his brother's rescue, and, precipitating himself with his knights on the Moslem warriors, soon redeemed the disaster which had marked the opening of the battle. Nor did the saint-king exhibit the slightest dread of exposing his royal person. With a shout of 'Montjoie, St. Denis!' he charged into the midst of the ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... seen. It was a species of table-land, near the summit of an almost inaccessible hill, densely wooded from base to pinnacle, and interspersed with huge crags that appeared to lie loosely upon the soil, and in many cases were prevented from precipitating themselves into the valleys below, merely by the support of the trees against which they reclined. Deep ravines, in various directions, gave an air of still ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... sketch to one side and precipitating three books and a mass of papers to the floor, Red stood up. He towered above his shrinking fiend, wrath in his eye. His lips moved. If it had been three months earlier Chester would have expected to hear language of a lurid description. As it was, the first syllable ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... invading Belgium. But he never mentions Belgium's maritime interests, Antwerp and the extensive seacoast on the North Sea. He is oblivious to the fact that Germany's desire to possess these was the sole motive for precipitating war and invading Belgium. To Germany the coast of Belgium is the door to the world and world domination. Switzerland does not possess such a door, and therefore had nothing to fear from her powerful neighbour; but if the Allies are unable to bar this door to Germany's aggressive schemes, ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... to his first action against Rodan—with a sharpened trowel that had pierced the wall of a stellene dome—eventually leading up to Dutch's death, and very nearly precipitating his own demise and that of his other companions, he wondered if it wouldn't be regarded as criminal. Now he wasn't absolutely sure, himself, that it hadn't been criminal—or Moonmad. Yet he didn't hate Xavier ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... hardly exist than that of the huge city, dark with the smoke of ages, and groaning with the various sounds of active industry or idle revel, and the lofty and craggy hill, silent and solitary as the grave—one exhibiting the full tide of existence, pressing and precipitating itself forward with the force of an inundation; the other resembling some time-worn anchorite, whose life passes as silent and unobserved as the slender rill which escapes unheard, and scarce seen, from the fountain of his patron saint. ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... in precipitating the crisis of the situation with magical promptness, for Caroline sprang to her feet, turned with a shudder and buried her head in Andrew's hunting coat somewhere near the left string for cartridge loops. She clung to ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... one hand is the rock, with woods of pine-trees hanging overhead; on the other, a monstrous precipice, almost perpendicular, at the bottom of which rolls a torrent that, sometimes tumbling among the fragments of stone that have fallen from on high, and sometimes precipitating itself down vast descents with a noise like thunder, which is made still greater by the echo from the mountains on each side, concurs to form one of the most solemn, the most romantic, and the most astonishing ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... which I have vainly sought for weeks. I have been out of employment ever since the combined efforts of our National Administration and of our incompetent Congress succeeded in sowing the seeds of distrust in every mind, thereby stagnating business and precipitating a financial crisis, from the debris of which I can never ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... and so agreeably relieved. There was abundance of water for all our requirements here, but the approach was so narrow that only two horses could drink at one time, and we had great difficulty in preventing some of the horses from precipitating themselves, loads and all, into the inviting fluid. No one who has not experienced it, can imagine the pleasure which the finding of such a treasure confers on the thirsty, hungry, and weary traveller; all his troubles for the time are at an end. ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... the old man meant just what he said, and was always equipped to make good his promises. The effect was remarkable. Instead of precipitating a fight, it seemed to paralyze the crowd, and nothing came of it that night; the captain was wise enough ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... reach another, and, at length, hauled myself on to the overhanging snow-lid into which the rope had cut. Then, when I was carefully climbing out on to the surface, a further section of the lid gave way, precipitating me once more to the full length ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... concentration which renders it impracticable for treatment. Common salt was added to the extent of 2 per cent. without influencing the growth of the bacilli. Sulphate of iron, in the proportion of 2 per cent., checks this growth, probably by precipitating albumimites from the fluids, and possibly also by its acid reaction; certainly it does not seem to have any specific disinfecting action—i.e., in destroying the bacilli. Indeed, Koch thinks that the admixture of sulphate of iron with faecal ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... to take the breath away to ride in one of these conveyances through the congested portions of Manila. Not only does the turning to the left seem strange, but taking the sharp corners—an accomplishment for which the two-wheeled gig is well adapted—frequently comes near precipitating a collision; and, in order to avoid this, the driver pulls the pony to his haunches. When the coast is clear, you will go rattling merrily away, the quilez door, unfastened, swinging back and forth abandonedly, regardless of appearances. ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... Hareton, who was hanging a litter of puppies from a chair-back in the doorway; and, blessed as a soul escaped from purgatory, I bounded, leaped, and flew down the steep road; then, quitting its windings, shot direct across the moor, rolling over banks, and wading through marshes: precipitating myself, in fact, towards the beacon-light of the Grange. And far rather would I be condemned to a perpetual dwelling in the infernal regions than, even for one night, abide beneath the roof ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... the tribune, amid the roar of "Hochs," and the thunder of hands and feet and sticks, and the flutter of handkerchiefs, with men precipitating themselves to kiss his hand, and others weeping and embracing, be sure that no private ambition possesses him, be sure that his heart swells only with the presentiment of great events and with uplifting thoughts ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... lyric operas agreeable. But the strength of the company lay in the male contingent—Bonci, the most famous of living tenors, after Caruso, whom Mr. Conried thought it wise to carry over to the Metropolitan Opera House, thus precipitating a controversy, which, as such things go, was of real assistance to the manager whom the rival sought to injure; Maurice Renaud, the most finished and versatile of French operatic artists, whom the foresight of ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... moment without danger to himself, but it would have been at the cost of their leader's life; nor could they shift their position and raise a weapon to fire into the room, where there was a prospect of hitting the daring youth at bay, without precipitating ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... Courtney. "When two people, as you and I are, are on hand to prevent our young friends from precipitating themselves into double harness before they have thoroughly studied their own minds and desires, we ought to succeed in the work because ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... suggests that hereafter bishops for the islands be selected more carefully. The provincial and other high officials of the Augustinian order state that the archbishop's rash utterances had much to do with precipitating the Chinese insurrection, and that his quarrels with the governor are unnecessary and notorious—moreover, he opposes their order in every way; and they ask the king to interpose his authority and restrain Benavides. At the same time the Audiencia complain that he interferes with their proceedings, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... second division, in spite of all that could be done to refrain and control them by Cortes and his officers—and there were no braver men on earth—crowded on the frail bridge. The structure which was sufficiently strong for ordinary and orderly passage, gave way, precipitating a great mass of Spaniards and Indians into the causeway. Cortes with his own hands, assisted by a few of the cooler veterans, tried to lift up the shattered remains of the bridge but was unable to do anything with it. It was ruined beyond ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Public group and standing out for Cleveland against themselves, taking the initiative and acting respectively as President and Secretary of the Public group, the Ghost of the city of Cleveland publicly swears off from being a ghost and begins precipitating a body ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... dear, this evening; my mind is in an agitation not to be expressed; a few hours will determine my happiness or misery for ever; I am displeased with your father for precipitating a determination which cannot be made with too ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... committed by Austria, under the circumstances, was not in precipitating war, which could not well be avoided in the temper of her antagonists, but in putting, through court favor and privileges of rank, an incapable leader at the head of the army. Old Radetzky, the victor ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... his political opponents to interpose and Governor Robinson from among them did interpose, being firmly convinced that Lane, by his intemperate zeal and by his guerrilla-like fighting was provoking Missouri to reprisals and thus precipitating upon Kansas the very troubles that he professed to wish to ward off. Incidentally, Robinson, unlike Fremont, was vehemently opposed to ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... stovepipe doubled in two, its largest part some two feet in diameter. Still more I scraped, and then abruptly I leaped out of the hole and away from the filthy thing; frantically unstopping and tilting the heavy carboys, and precipitating their corrosive contents one after another down that charnel gulf and upon the unthinkable abnormality whose titan ...
— The Shunned House • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... precipitating himself, next morning, into the breakfast room, where, at a rather later hour than usual, Mrs. Gartney and Faith were washing and wiping the silver and china, and Mr. Gartney still lingered in his seat, finishing somebody's long speech, reported ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the second drawbridge to be lowered and the gates to be opened. In poured the mass, precipitating themselves in fury upon that hated fortress, rushing madly through all its halls and passages, breaking its cell-doors with hammer blows, releasing captives some of whom had been held there in hopeless misery for half a lifetime, unearthing secrets ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... way through the trackless tangle, giving vent the while to a superfluity of oaths, he presently stumbled on the entrance to the fogou, almost precipitating himself into its darkness, so suddenly had he stumbled on it, ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... know what I wanted to say but it would not form itself on the pen, and what I wrote one day I had an infinite disrelish for the next. I have heard something in my time about rising upon our dead selves. I know of nothing so dead and so precipitating as the look into an early youthful diary. Not much more encouraging is the book one has written and published, and some time after ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... receiving him. Conceive then what were the horrors of my position. I turned over in my mind every means of escape, but all avenues to it were shut. I had never before thought of looking over the precipice upon which the windows of our prison opened; but now I seriously thought of precipitating myself, rather than submit to the tyrant. But a few hours after I had had the blessing to discover you on the bridge, I had been ordered to hold myself in readiness to receive him; and it was then that I had positively ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... small punctures. True, these vents will allow the gas to escape, but this action will proceed so slowly as to permit the vessel to remain aloft long enough to enable the observer to complete his work. A lucky rifle volley, or the stream of bullets from a machine gun may riddle the envelope, precipitating a hurried descent, owing to the greater number of perforations through which the gas is able to escape, but as a rule the observer will be able to ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... Suddenly precipitating himself down the steps, he seized Rybin by the hair, and pulled his head backward and forward. "Is it you speaking, you damned scoundrel? ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... banished by him from Khartoum for cruelty; they were one and all sympathetic to the very order of things which Gordon had destroyed, and which, as long as he retained power, would never be revived. What wonder that they should snatch the favourable opportunity of precipitating the downfall of the man they had so long feared! But it was neither creditable nor politic for the representatives of England to stand by while these schemes were executed to the detraction of the man who had then given six years' disinterested and laborious effort to the regeneration ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... deadly missiles were carefully prepared; but an accidental explosion, which occurred on the 16th of July, in one of these manufactories situate in Patrick-street, was very near leading to the discovery of the entire business, and had the effect of precipitating the outbreak. The government at this time had undoubtedly got on the scent of the movement, and the leaders considered that no time was to be lost in bringing matters to a crisis. Emmet now took up his abode in the Marshalsea-lane depot, snatching his few hours of sleep "on a mattress, ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... is, I hope, natural and probable; commencing strikingly, proceeding naturally, ending happily—like the course of a famed river, which gushes from the mouth of some obscure and romantic grotto—then gliding on, never pausing, never precipitating its course, visiting, as it were, by natural instinct, whatever worthy subjects of interest are presented by the country through which it passes—widening and deepening in interest as it flows on; and at length arriving at the ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... consequence of certain climatic accidents of a permanent kind, such as living on the banks of a river or in a dense forest, how was it that the force of these accidents did not begin to operate at once? How could the isolated state of nature endure for a year in face of them? Or what was the precipitating incident which suddenly set them to work, and drew the primitive men from an isolation so profound that they barely recognised one another, into that semi-social state in which the ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... Tryon had informed Howe that it only needed the presence of a small force to secure it, and develop a strong loyal support among the inhabitants of both the city and colony. The patriotic party had abated none of its zeal, but it recognized the danger of precipitating matters, and accordingly pursued what appeared to colonists elsewhere to be a temporizing and timid policy, but which proved the wisest course in the end. The city was at the mercy of the men-of-war. Any attempt ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston |
