"Caustical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ensuing month, and thus a favourable opportunity was presented of contrasting the working of the two systems. The grossly unfair results of the provincial elections drew forth from many journals most caustic criticism. Le Peuple expressed the hope that these provincial elections would be the last instance of the use of the majority system in Belgium. "Is it not," it proceeded, "absurd, stupid, detestable that ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... aviation, communications, computer-aided design and manufactures, medical electronics), wood and paper products, potash and phosphates, food, beverages, and tobacco, caustic soda, cement, ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... thousand laymen waited on the archbishops to thank them for dissenting from the judgment. The Convocation of Canterbury also plunged into the fray, Bishop Wilberforce being the champion of the older orthodoxy, and Bishop Tait of the new. Caustic was the speech made by Bishop Thirlwall, in which he declared that he considered the eleven thousand names, headed by that of Pusey, attached to the Oxford declaration "in the light of a row of figures preceded by a decimal point, so that, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... tragedy, he would have presented another and a different type of that same ideal—lonely, austere, passionate age, defiant of profane authority and protective of innocent weakness against wicked and cruel strength. His embodiment of Cassius, with all its intensity of repressed spleen and caustic malevolence, was softly touched and sweetly ennobled with the majesty of venerable loneliness,—the bleak light of pathetic sequestration from human ties, without the forfeiture of human love,—that is the natural adjunct of intellectual greatness. ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... similar. How, then, did nitrate of silver come to be given for epilepsy? Because, as Dr. Martin has so well reminded us, lunatics were considered formerly to be under the special influence of Luna, the moon (which Esquirol, be it observed, utterly denies), and lunar caustic, or nitrate of silver, is a salt of that metal which was called luna from its whiteness, and of course must be in the closest relations with the moon. It follows beyond all reasonable question that the moon's metal, silver, and its preparations, must be the specific ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... army. Her next step was to form a great league of rulers that would find a common interest with her in dismembering the kingdom of Frederick. She knew she could count on Saxony. She easily secured an ally in the Tsarina Elizabeth of Russia, who had been deeply offended by the caustic wit of the Prussian king. She was already united by friendly agreements with Great Britain and Holland. She had only France to win to her side, and in this policy she had the services of an invaluable agent, Count Kaunitz, ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... divinity of genius. This is a power that comes complete at once from the hands of the Creator of all things, and the first essays of a man of real genius are such, in all their grand and most important features, as no subsequent assiduity can amend. Add to this, that Mr. Fuseli is somewhat of a caustic turn of mind, with much wit, and a disposition to search, in every thing new or modern, for occasions of censure. I believe Mary came something more a cynic out of the school of Mr. Fuseli, than she ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... the Capharnaum! The key that locks up the acids and caustic alkalies! To go and get a spare pan! a pan with a lid! and that I shall perhaps never use! Everything is of importance in the delicate operations of our art! But, devil take it! one must make distinctions, and not employ ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... atmosphere to Middleton's mind; and the hard, bald caustic peculiarity of his genius, which is unpleasingly felt in reading any one of his plays, becomes a source of painful weariness as we plod doggedly through the five thick volumes of his works. Like the incantations of his own witches, it "casts a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... age of sixty-six, without issue or assets, was the last of that particular line of Georges. I say that he handsomely complied with the requirements of the will; but my statement appears to be subject to qualification, for on the day of his obsequies it was remarked of him by a caustic contemporary: "Well, yes, Mr. Jaffrey was a gentleman by profession, but ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... our diplomats and the author of many books of permanent value. My friendship with MacVeagh and White continued during their lives, that is, for nearly sixty years. MacVeagh was one of the readiest and most attractive of speakers I ever knew. He had a very sharp and caustic wit, which made him exceedingly popular as an after-dinner speaker and as a host in his own house. He made every evening when he entertained, for those who were fortunate enough to be his guests, an occasion memorable ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... 14th it was announced that General Price would conduct the military operations against the Mercutians. Press dispatches simultaneously announced that troops, machine guns and artillery were being rushed to Billings. This provoked a caustic comment from the Preparedness League of America, to the effect that no military operations of any offensive value could be conducted by the United States ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... repeating itself. The dingy, oblong dining-room, with its mosquito netting, stained tablecloth, and hard cane chairs, expanded until she fancied herself in the drawing-room of Blenheim House. Between the landladies there was little enough to choose. Mrs. Raithby Lawrence, notwithstanding her caustic tongue and suspicious nature, had at least made some pretense at gentility. The woman who faced her now—hard-featured, with narrow, suspicious eyes and a mass of florid hair—was unmistakably and ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that serenity of mood which distinguishes those whom no ennui annoys, because they expect no interest. He was generally gay, his caustic spirit caught the ridiculous rapidly and far below the surface at which it usually strikes the eye. He displayed a rich vein of drollery in pantomime. He often amused himself by reproducing the musical formulas and ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... the removal of carbuncle are always injurious, the chemical effect of Potash is frequently most beneficial. I have, in repeated instances, applied to the ulcerated surface, caustic potash freely, allowing the dissolved caustic to penetrate to the very "core" by running into the orifices. At first it would produce some smarting, but the pain is different from that of the carbuncle, and the change is agreeable rather than otherwise. Soon after the application ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... nothing about electricity, and actually refuse to ride on a motorcycle because the throbbing engine scared him, was more than they could understand. They quickly decided that he was a coward and had already lost respect for him, as was evident from the caustic comments made by the group under the maple after he ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... passage from one of its leaders. Speaking of the arrogance of the Anglican Church, which, as compared to the Catholic Church, is but a baby, still in long clothes, it gives expression to its views in the following caustic lines. One might almost imagine it were the Tablet or Catholic Times that we are about to quote from, but, nothing of the kind, it is the Nonconformist organ, the Daily News. It writes: "The Anglicans may still persist in patronising the Roman ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... an inner one of differently shaped ones, likewise filled with purple fluid, but of a slightly different tint, and differently affected by chloride of gold. These two layers are sometimes well seen when a gland has been crushed or boiled in caustic potash. According to Dr. Warming, there is still another layer of much more elongated cells, as shown in the accompanying section (fig. 3) copied from his work; but these cells were not seen by Nitschke, nor by me. In the centre there is a group of elongated, cylindrical cells of unequal ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... she was working like a woolcarder at the disordered room, but could not refrain her tongue from caustic comments upon my behaviour. "Wicked, wicked Don Francis! Nay, complete and perfect fool rather, who, because a lady is kind to you, believes her to be dying for your love. Your love indeed! What is your precious love worth beside the doctor's? ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... say nothing of Rivarol, a caustic wit of the revolutionary time, nor of Joubert, a writer of sayings of this century, of whom Mr. Matthew Arnold has said all that needs saying. He is delicate, refined, acute, but his thoughts were fostered in the hothouse of a coterie, and have none of the salt and ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... character immediately became the subject of violent controversy. His severe critical strictures had made him many enemies among the minor writers of the day and their friends. One of the men who had suffered from Poe's too caustic pen was Rufus W. Griswold, but friendly relations had been nominally established and Poe had authorized Griswold to edit his works. This Griswold did, including a biography which Poe's friends declared a masterpiece of malicious distortion and misrepresentation; it certainly ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... disgusted to the depths with Colman. No one will ever pity him for the private contempt and the public derision he brought upon himself through his mean discernment and his want of appreciation of the very best play of the period. The press so teemed with caustic and sarcastic epigrams at his expense that he fled for refuge to Bath during the run of the piece, and at last begged Goldsmith to intercede and rescue him from the scorn of the critics. After all the worries and vexations, it is not surprising that poor Noll should ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... fate with constantly waning patronage for another year, when he succumbed to the inevitable and sought a new field, a wiser if a sadder man. His mantle has fallen upon E. S. Bower, whose capacity and style were graphically portrayed in caustic rhyme by Mrs. Ellsworth, making him the target for the wit of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the Dragon that the eye first turns. What Mr. Ruskin would say of the latest version of the encounter between England's tutelary genius and his fearsome foe, one can only guess; but I feel sure that he would be caustic about the Saint's grip on his spear. To get its head right through the dragon's chest—taking, as it has done, the longest possible route—and out so far on the other side, would require more vigour and tension than is suggested by the casual way in which the thumb rests on the handle. Dragons' ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... become a barrister to study morals, or even to consider them," was the somewhat caustic reply. "When once a brief is in my mind, it is a matter of brain, cunning and resource. The guiltier a man, the greater the success if ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Operation for Artificial Anus denied to have been performed. 42, Gangrenous Sore Mouth of Children. 43, Operation for Phymosis. 44, Lunar Caustic on Wounds and Ulcers. 45, Haemorrhage from Lithotomy. 46, Extirpation of the Parotid Gland. 47, Aneurism from a Wound, cured by Valsaiva's method. 48, Protrusion and Wound of the Stomach. 49, Oesophagotomy. 50, Retention of Urine, caused by a ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... mass of corporeal substance which weighs upon him so cruelly. You gaze at the mortal heap; and, while it fills your eye with what purports to be Byron, you murmur within yourself, "For Heaven's sake, where is he?" Were I disposed to be caustic, I might consider this mass of earthly matter as the symbol, in a material shape, of those evil habits and carnal vices which unspiritualize man's nature and clog up his avenues of communication with the better ...
— P.'s Correspondence (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... large assemblies of people; while other qualities are required that are hardly to be looked for in one and the same capacity. The way to move great masses of men is to shew that you yourself are moved. In a private circle, a ready repartee, a shrewd cross-question, ridicule and banter, a caustic remark or an amusing anecdote, whatever sets off the individual to advantage, or gratifies the curiosity or piques the self-love of the hearers, keeps attention alive, and secures the triumph of the speaker—it is a personal ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... other man is for others, for the world, for salons; the court, the sovereign, the public often see them grand, and noble, and generous, embroidered with virtues, adorned with fine language, full of admirable qualities. What a horrible jest it is!—and the world is surprised, sometimes, at the caustic smile of certain women, at their air of superiority to their husbands, and ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... hours a day he toiled, but he was a sociable man, nevertheless, a cultured man fond of music, possessing a tongue that was feared as much as is the Russian knout. Mr. Moore has printed many specimens of his caustic wit. Whistler actually kept silent in his presence—possibly expecting a repetition of the mot: "My dear friend, you conduct yourself in life just as if you had no talent at all." Manet good-naturedly took ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... visitor presented himself to me. He came and went apparently without help or hindrance—as if he had had a master-key to all the recesses of the prison. And yet he seemed no agent of the Inquisition—indeed, he denounced it with caustic satire and withering severity. But what struck me most of all was the preternatural glare of his eyes. I felt that I had never beheld such eyes blazing in a mortal face. It was strange, too, that he constantly referred to events that ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... dripping lye. This necessitated wood ashes, of course—ashes from green wood. Oak or hickory was best. They were kept dry until they went into hoppers, where they were rotted by gentle wetting for a space of several days. Then water was dripped through, coming out a dark brown caustic liquid, clean-smelling, but ill to handle—it would eat a finger-tip carelessly thrust in ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... life were equally necessary to enrich an infinite consciousness, which must know both good and evil in order to merge and to transcend them, he could hardly nurse any intense enthusiasm for a different complexion to be given to the lives of men. His moral passion—for he had it, caustic and burning clear—was purely intellectual: it was shame that in England the moral consciousness should have been expressed in systems dialectically so primitive as those of the positivists and utilitarians. He acknowledged, somewhat superciliously, ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... other sex; and we will take more from a woman than even from the oldest man in the way of biting comment. Biting comment is the chief part, whether for profit or amusement, in this business. The old lady that I have in my eye is a very caustic speaker, her tongue, after years of practice, in absolute command, whether for silence or attack. If she chance to dislike you, you will be tempted to curse the malignity of age. But if you chance to please even slightly, ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... where the Lungs and Pleura grow together, and an Abscess forms, to open it with Caustic; and afterwards to keep the Ulcer open during the Patient's Life: For he says, he has often seen, where such Sores were healed up, that the Patient died soon after by an Efflux of Matter upon the Breast. Monita Medica, Cap. ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... vanity, and triviality—these are the enchanted circle I cannot escape from. I am now going to the war, the greatest war there ever was, and I know nothing and am fit for nothing. I am very amiable and have a caustic wit," continued Prince Andrew, "and at Anna Pavlovna's they listen to me. And that stupid set without whom my wife cannot exist, and those women... If you only knew what those society women are, and women in general! ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... is so robust, what man so violently in love as to persist in his passion, after ten years of marriage, in presence of a wife who loves him no longer, who gives him proofs of this every moment, who repulses him, who deliberately shows herself bitter, caustic, sickly and capricious, and who will abjure her vows of elegance and cleanliness, rather than not see her husband turn away from her; in presence of a wife who will stake the success of her schemes upon the horror caused ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... suffering is degradation. Sympathy would burn them like caustic. They are dumb on the side which seeks promiscuous fellowship. They love one person, and live or die by ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... sharp, cutting, sarcastic, caustic, scathing, bitter, satirical, pungent, piquant; nipping, blasting; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... to startle the town and to show what a wonderfully clever young fellow had descended upon it. In his later books, such as Coningsby, Sybil, and Tancred, he wished to propound a new party programme. Lothair was a picture of British society, partly indulgent and sympathetic, partly caustic or contemptuous, but presented all through with a vein of persiflage, mockery, and extravaganza. All this was amusing and original; but every one of these things is fatal to sustained and serious art. If an active politician seeks to galvanise a new party by a series of novels, the ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... By degrees the grove filled with people—the Elliots, the Thornburys, Mr. Venning and Susan, Miss Allan, Evelyn Murgatroyd, and Mr. Perrott. Mr. Hirst acted the part of hoarse energetic sheep-dog. By means of a few words of caustic Latin he had the animals marshalled, and by inclining a sharp shoulder he lifted the ladies. "What Hewet fails to understand," he remarked, "is that we must break the back of the ascent before midday." He was assisting a young lady, by name Evelyn Murgatroyd, as he spoke. She ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... cards, and humorously reminiscent of old jokes between the games; John Jennings lagged at cards, but flashed out now and then with fine wit, while his fervently working brain lit up his worn face with the light of youth. The lawyer, who drank more than the rest, played better and better, and waxed caustic in speech if crossed. As for the Squire, his frankness increased even to the risk of self-praise. Before the evening was over he had told the whole story of little Jerome, of Doctor Prescott and himself and the Edwards mortgage. The three friends ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... conflicting interests of men who would furnish the supply. Some dealers in fresh burned lime have asserted that it was folly to expect any appreciable result from the use of unburned limestone. The manufacturer of ground limestone has pointed out the possibility of injuring a soil by the use of caustic lime, and oftentimes has so emphasized his point that farmers have become unwilling to apply fresh or water-slaked lime to their land. Manufacturers of hydrated lime in some instances have made a confused situation worse by insisting upon the claim that there was a fertilizing quality ...
— Right Use of Lime in Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... came a clean, clear, historical illustration carrying conviction; then, very likely, a simple and strong argument, not infrequently ended by some heavy missile in the shape of an accusation or taunt hurled into the faces of his adversaries; then, perhaps at considerable length, a mixture of caustic criticism and personal reminiscence, in which sparkled those wonderful sayings which have gone through the empire and settled deeply into the German heart. I have known many clever speakers and some very powerful orators; but I have never known one capable, in the same degree, of overwhelming his ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... baffle by ridicule, or silence by sarcasm, all who may oppose him with statements that cannot be disproved, or arguments that cannot be upset by reason. That which duty bids him do, practice enables him to do with terrible precision and completeness; and in many a case the caustic tone, assumed at the outset as a professional weapon, becomes habitual, and, without the speaker's knowledge, gives more pain within his home ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... false premises and misstatements of fact and of law, which seem to show political motives and not infrequently personal animosity toward Mr. Wilson. The exaggerated statements and unfair arguments of some of the Senators, larded, as they often were, with caustic sarcasm and vindictive personalities, did much to prevent an honest and useful discussion of the merits and demerits ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... again. But if those who are near have sufficient nerve for the operation, and a suitable instrument, they should cut out the central part bitten, and then bathe the wound for some time with warm water, to make it bleed freely. The wound should afterwards be rubbed with a stick of lunar caustic, or, what is better, a solution of this—60 grains of lunar caustic dissolved in an ounce of water—should be dropped into it. The band should be kept on the part during the whole of the time that these means are being adopted. The wound should afterwards be covered ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... the flesh far worse than ordinary scourges. For others, exploring with a searching and inquisitive malice, stimulated by an insatiate rapacity, all the devious paths of Nature for whatever is most unfriendly to man, they made rods of a plant highly caustic and poisonous, called Bechettea, every wound of which festers and gangrenes, adds double and treble to the present torture, leaves a crust of leprous sores upon the body, and often ends in the destruction of life itself. At night, these poor innocent ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... were omitted is possible. There is internal evidence of this in the abrupt manner in which it opens, and in the absence of allusions to the discords during the voyage and on the arrival. Captain Smith was not the man to pass over such questions in silence, as his subsequent caustic letter sent home to the Governor and Council of Virginia shows. And it is probable enough that the London promoters would cut out from the "Relation" complaints and evidence of the seditions and helpless state of the colony. The narration of the captivity is consistent as it ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... product is known as "seed lac." It is then melted and strained and spread out in thin layers in a form called "shell lac." This is what is known as orange shellac in the market. It may be bleached by boiling in caustic potash, and passing chlorine thru it until the resin is precipitated. It is further whitened by being pulled. This is what is known in the market as "white shellac." It comes in lumps. Orange shellac is the stronger and is ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... the caustic John had time to throw in, before the silent arrangement at the gangway was interrupted by the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... was our housekeeper and sole domestic. She was a hard-featured but kindly old woman, with a caustic tongue and a soft heart. She heard my story unmoved, betraying neither enthusiasm or disapproval. When I had finished, she simply set her cap straight and rubbed her ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... not to be on my guard." With that he joined Lord Lilburne's group, and accepted the invitation to the card-table. At supper, Vaudemont conversed more than was habitual to him; he especially addressed himself to his host, and listened, with great attention, to Lilburne's caustic comments upon every topic successively started. And whether it was the art of De Vaudemont, or from an interest that Lord Lilburne took in studying what was to him a new character,—or whether that, both men excelling peculiarly in all masculine accomplishments, their conversation ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... schemes of decoration and another Renaissance of art. Had he only been a painter he would never have exercised an extraordinary influence; but he was a singularly interesting appearance as well and an admirable talker gifted with picturesque phrases and a most caustic wit. ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... help being struck with the accuracy of the old man's knowledge respecting that country, which so few Englishmen know anything about; his shrewd appreciation of the American character,—shrewd and caustic, yet not without a good degree of justice; the sagacity of his remarks on the past, and prophecies of what was likely to happen,—prophecies which, in one instance, were singularly verified, in regard to a complexity which was then arresting the ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Blenderhasset Impey, some sort of governor or such-like portent in the East Indies, and from her remains—in Mrs. Mackridge—I judge Lady Impey was a very stupendous and crushing creature indeed. Lady Impey had been of the Juno type, haughty, unapproachable, given to irony and a caustic wit. Mrs. Mackridge had no wit, but she had acquired the caustic voice and gestures along with the old satins and trimmings of the great lady. When she told you it was a fine morning, she seemed also to be telling you you were a fool and a low fool to boot; when she was spoken to, ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... having concluded his researches without discovering that Old Sarum is not in Cornwall. Still, he has written a readable book. His knowledge of English is superior to that of the majority of his compatriots; and when he is not trying to be caustic or facetious he is often quite sensible. We can say no ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... letter to his father he had sent all the facts of his disgrace at school and had added that he was truly sorry; the reply he received had been terse and rather stern but not unkind. Mr. Blake expressed much regret for his son's conduct and closed his epistle with the caustic comment that he should look for a proof of Van's desire to make good. That was all. Van knew that Dr. Maitland had also written; but what he did not know was that with the fearlessness so characteristic ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... and Thomas were saving men, yet both died very poor. The one at one time possessed L200,000; the other had a considerable fortune. The Earl alone has died wealthy. It is saving, not getting, that is the mother of riches. They all had wit. The Earl's was crack-brained and sometimes caustic; Henry's was of the very kindest, best-humoured, and gayest that ever cheered society; that of Lord Erskine was moody and maddish. But I never saw him ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... connection to put along-side of these rather caustic criticisms a remark in kind recorded by Thoreau in his Journal concerning Emerson: "Talked, or tried to talk, with R. W. E. Lost my time—nay, almost my identity. He, assuming a false opposition where there was no difference of opinion, talked to the wind—told me what ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... abrupt a manner by this Englishman, had sought in his subtle mind for some means of escaping from his fetters; but no one having rendered him any assistance in this respect, he was absolutely obliged, therefore, to submit to the burden of his own evil thoughts and caustic spirit. ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... embarrassed, and had to confess that he could not promise to do so, because, as it happened, the young man had gone out among the hills to pass the night in prayer, and he did not know precisely at what hour he would return. The Abbot was greatly annoyed, and mumbled a series of reproaches and caustic remarks. Don Clemente therefore decided to tell him of the meeting with Signora Dessalle, the former mistress; of what had followed on the way home, of his determination to send Benedetto to Jenne, and to oblige him to remain there until the woman ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... is it important to distinguish between the qualities of soaps used on the sensitive skins of infants and invalids. If you ever wash an infant in strongly caustic soap, you may look for a state of discomfort in the child which will make it restless and miserable without your being able to tell how it is so. You may ascribe to unhappy "temper" what is due to the bad soap which you have put on the skin. So with sensitive invalids, when they ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... insect and fungus parasites. If you wish to use again the boards brought outside, broom them over and paint them copiously with kerosene. And if your cellar or house has a dirt floor, a heavy sprinkling of very caustic lime water all over it will do good ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... some of the splendours and "humours" of the coronation with her usual clever power of observation and occasional caustic commentary. "The maids called me at half-past two that June morning, mistaking the clock. I slept no more, and rose at half-past three. As I began to dress the twenty-one guns were fired, which must have awakened all the sleepers in London. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... back—and presently I began to wonder whether I should attribute it to the influence of those with whom I was temporarily associated. I was almost confirmed in this impression when Mr. Harland's voice, harsh and caustic as it could be when he was irritated or worsted in an argument, broke the ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... counter-reasons, of exciting doubt and controversy, not of vouchsafing certitude. So long as it contents itself with controverting that which is false, it is potent and salutary; but when, despising divine assistance, it advances beyond this, it becomes dangerous, like a caustic drug which attacks the healthy flesh after it has ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... buttercup, which is as nothing to the glitter of a gold dollar in the eyes of a practical farmer, fills him with wrath when this immigrant takes possession of his pastures. Cattle will not eat the acrid, caustic plant—a sufficient reason for most members of the Ranunculaceae to stoop to the low trick of secreting poisonous or bitter juices. Self-preservation leads a cousin, the garden monk's hood, even to murderous practices. Since children will put ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... gaseous chlorine or chlorine water, in order to attack the jute pigment, which is very difficult to bleach, until it takes an orange shade. After having removed the acids, etc., formed by this treatment, the jute is placed in a weak alkaline bath, cold or hot, of caustic soda, caustic potash, caustic ammonia, quicklime, sodium or potassium carbonate, etc., or a mixture of several of these substances, which converts the greatest part of the jute pigment, already altered by the chlorine, into a form easily soluble in water, so that the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... first transcribing the above letter for the press, omitted the whole of this caustic, and, perhaps, over-severe character of Mr. Hunt; but the tone of that gentleman's book having, as far as himself is concerned, released me from all those scruples which prompted the suppression, I have considered myself at liberty ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... parchmentroll energetically) This book tells you how to act with all descriptive particulars. Consult index for agitated fear of aconite, melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Virag is going to talk about amputation. Our old friend caustic. They must be starved. Snip off with horsehair under the denned neck. But, to change the venue to the Bulgar and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike women in male habiliments? (With a dry snigger) You intended to devote ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... property of combining with and neutralizing the properties of acids, producing salts by the combination. Alkalies change most of the vegetable blues and purples to green, red to purple, and yellow to brown. Caustic alkali: An alkali deprived of all impurities, being thereby rendered more caustic and violent in its operation. This term is usually applied to pure potash. Fixed alkali: An alkali that emits no characteristic smell, and can not be volatilized or evaporated without great difficulty. Potash and soda are called the fixed alkalies. Soda ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... had but one brother, Hiley, who subsequently figured so often in the caustic rhymes of Canning, and who, under his brother's auspices, was successively secretary of the treasury, paymaster of the forces, and under-secretary of state. In his twelfth year, Henry, followed by Hiley, was sent to Winchester, then under the government of the well-known Dr Joseph Wharton, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... in Lady Ball's own room, after they had left Sir John. The tidings had taken the old man so much by surprise, that he had said little or nothing. Even his caustic ill-nature had deserted him, except on one occasion, when he remarked that it was like his brother Jonathan to do as much harm with his money as ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... account of its great specific gravity. It already threatened the poor dog's life, though not yet endangering that of her masters. The Captain, seeing this state of things, hastily laid on the floor one or two cups containing caustic potash and water, and stirred the mixture gently: this substance, having a powerful affinity for carbonic acid, greedily absorbed it, and after a few moments ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... She found now that the children instead of laughing at her laughed with her, formed a phalanx of protection around her and refused to be disobedient. Miss Jones herself was discovered to have a dry, rather caustic, sense of humour that Aunt Amy felt to be impertinence, ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... which a considerable portion of the press could afford it; and Thomas Moore and George Cruikshank manufactured the most stinging satires and the most ludicrous caricatures upon every person of distinction who opposed her; but a writer had entered the field on the other side, whose caustic humour told more damagingly on the popular idol and her chief supporters than the pen of the poet or the pencil of the artist; and Theodore Hook, in the columns of the John Bull, made the respectable portion of the Queenites heartily ashamed ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Nesbitt?" he inquired, with a caustic smile. "Charming occupation. Do you select that quality and color for any beauties to be found in them? I can remember seeing your mother using knitting needles on this very veranda thirty—yes, forty years ago. ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the fourth and most malicious personage, his name will be enough—it was Bixiou! Not (alas!) the Bixiou of 1825, but the Bixiou of 1836, a misanthropic buffoon, acknowledged supreme, by reason of his energetic and caustic wit; a very fiend let loose now that he saw how he had squandered his intellect in pure waste; a Bixiou vexed by the thought that he had not come by his share of the wreckage in the last Revolution; a Bixiou with a kick for every one, like Pierrot at the Funambules. Bixiou had the ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... they gave a round sum to the church, and Martin took caustic gratification in the fact that, although his attitude toward it and religion was well known, he too was counted as one of the fold. To do its leaders justice, he admitted that this might have been partly through their hesitancy to hurt Rose who was always to be found ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... come to realise that it was not good to take twins from their mother, and she insisted on the child being kept in the home. Jean was sent to stay and sleep with the woman, and as she had, on occasion, as caustic a tongue as "Ma," the man had not a very agreeable time. It was decided later to bring the woman and child to the hut, and there, beneath her verandah, they rigged up a little lean-to, where they were housed, Jean sleeping with them at ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... forms of protest was through the satirical poets. Of these caustic writers, Persius (34-62) is obscure and of a moderate degree of merit. Juvenal (about 55-135), on the contrary, is spirited and full of force. Martial (43-101), a Spaniard by birth, was the author of numerous short poems ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... sew, knit, spin, weave, and cook. She could make enough money in Biddeford or Portsmouth to support herself, and Patty, too, until the proper work was found for both. But there would be a truly terrible conflict of wills, and such fierce arraignment of her unfilial conduct, such bitter and caustic argument from her father, such disapproval from the parson and the neighbors, that her very soul shrank from the prospect. If she could go alone, and have no responsibility over Patty's future, that would be a little more possible, but she must ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the grin as a distinct insult to his intelligence and he pounced upon the little brown man in an even more caustic tone: ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... that it is almost a test of worthlessness that the multitudes approve. Baron Bramwell, in discharging a prisoner at the Old Bailey, made what he thought some appropriate observations, which were followed by a storm of applause in the crowded court. The learned judge, with that caustic humour which distinguishes him, looked up and said, "Bless me! I'm afraid I must have said something very foolish." An amusing scene occurred outside a barrister's lodgings during the Northampton Assizes. Two painters decorating ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... to burn did not meet with as much success. Colonel Craven, of Ripley, who was taken prisoner, talked in so caustic a tone that Morgan ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... bacteria as "bugs." Surely reform is needed. I am not so sure of Mr. Meech's remedy. I imagine that fortune, not his pains, is to be thanked for his grubless trees. I have known this borer to do very serious mischief where the most perfect culture was practised. The caustic wash is much safer than a petroleum wrap. The eggs are often laid high up on the trunk or even on the branches. Nothing is better for the borers than the soap and ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... not captivated. He was tormented by a feeling of hostility to Trirodov. He glanced at Trirodov with suspicion and hate. He was exasperated by Trirodov's confident tone and facile speech. Piotr's remarks addressed to the visitor were often caustic, even coarse. Rameyev looked vexed at Piotr now and then, but Trirodov appeared not to notice his sallies, and was simple, tranquil, and courteous. In the end Piotr was compelled to restrain himself and abandon his sharp manner. Then he grew silent ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... With the milky juice of this tree the Indians poison their arrows; the dew-drops, which fall from it, are so caustic as to blister the skin, and produce dangerous ulcers; whence many have found their death by sleeping under its shade. Variety of noxious plants abound in all countries; in our own the deadly nightshade, henbane, hounds-tongue, and many others, are seen in almost every high road untouched by ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... walls changed into overhangs, and our climb into a circular stroll. At this topmost level the vegetable kingdom began to challenge the mineral kingdom. Shrubs, and even a few trees, emerged from crevices in the walls. I recognized some spurges that let their caustic, purgative sap trickle out. There were heliotropes, very remiss at living up to their sun-worshipping reputations since no sunlight ever reached them; their clusters of flowers drooped sadly, their colors and ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... the country, and who had a habit of coming to Hillsborough at least once a week "to talk with the boys." Uncle Abner belonged to the poorer class of planters; that is to say, he had a small farm and not more than half a dozen negroes. But he was decidedly popular, and his conversation—somewhat caustic at times—was thoroughly enjoyed by the younger generation. On this occasion he had been talking to Jack Walthall, when the stranger drew a ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... my design, however, to expatiate upon the merits of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for themselves. Boccalini, in his "Advertisements from Parnassus," tells us that Zoilus once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very admirable book:—whereupon the god asked him for the beauties of the work. He replied that he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing this, Apollo, handing him a sack ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... activities against the American government's policy respecting Great Britain put them in danger of prison. The Sedition law, on the other hand, was vigorously applied. Several editors of Republican newspapers soon found themselves in jail or broken by ruinous fines for their caustic criticisms of the Federalist President and his policies. Bystanders at political meetings, who uttered sentiments which, though ungenerous and severe, seem harmless enough now, were hurried before Federalist judges and promptly fined and imprisoned. ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... We have the authority of a personal friend of the author for the assertion that their heroine was no fictitious one. The lectures were immensely popular, Englishmen not being slow to recognize in Jerold's caustic portraiture the features of a very formidable household reality. But with the ladies Mrs. Caudle proved no favorite, nor, in their judgment, did the "Breakfast-Table-Talk," of the Henpecked Husband (subsequently published in the Almanac of the current year), make amends for the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... A somewhat caustic and sarcastic sketch, and perhaps a little ill-natured, of a somewhat amiable cleric. Dr. Syntax is a good example of an old-world parson, whose biographer thus describes ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... the sloe, and the seeds are used as coffee or eaten as beans. Kanembe- embe: the pounded leaves used as an extemporaneous glue for mending broken vessels. Katunguru is used for killing fish. Mutavea Nyerere: an active caustic. Mudiacoro: also an external caustic, and used internally. Kapande: another ordeal plant, but used to produce 'diaphoresis'. Karumgasura: also diaphoretic. Munyazi yields an oil, and is one of the ingredients for curing the wounds of poisoned arrows. Uombue: ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... mention of her name is a caustic to the wounds of her heart. The endearments attached to that beloved and significant appellation are fled with departed time, and Bethlehem no longer beholds her in a situation to command respect, to ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... nervous language the trials and difficulties he had to contend with; and all these his imagination embodied for him in one grim and terrible form, which he christened "Bread Tax." With this demon he grappled in desperate energy, and assailed it vigorously with his caustic rhyme This training, these mortifications, these misfortunes, and the demon "Bread Tax" above all, made Elliott successively despised, hated, feared, and admired, as ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... The truth is also that the Emperor was much attached to M. Geoffroy, whose writings he did not wish submitted to censure like those of other journalist. It was said in Paris that this predilection of a great man for a caustic critic came from the fact that these contributions to the Journal of the Empire, which attracted much attention at this period, were a useful diversion to the minds of the capital. I know nothing positively in regard to this; but when I reflect on the character of the Emperor, who ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... by a single familiar word. There is a great deal of false sentiment in the world, as there is of bad logic and erroneous doctrine; but—it is very much less disagreeable to hear a young poet overdo his emotions, or even deceive himself about them, than to hear a caustic-epithet flinger repeating such words as "sentimentality" and "entusymusy,"—one of the least admirable of Lord Byron's bequests to our language,—for the purpose of ridiculing him into silence. An overdressed woman is not ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... So the caustic divine wrote, and the Rector of Great Keynes was heavy-hearted as he walked up and down and read. Everywhere it was the same story; the extreme precisians openly flouted the religion of the Church of England; submitted to episcopal ordination as a legal ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... immediately after spreading (which is essential where you grow wheat on the same land every year) without injuring the feet of the horses. You speak of ten days or a fortnight being necessary to neutralize caustic lime, but our horses had their feet injured by it six weeks after it had been spread on the land, last year, although the weather had been wet almost the whole of the time, say from the beginning of February to the middle of March. ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... Whiffler relating the anecdote, a discussion ensues upon the different character of Tom's wit and Dick's wit, from which it appears that Dick's humour is of a lively turn, while Tom's style is the dry and caustic. This discussion being enlivened by various illustrations, lasts a long time, and is only stopped by Mrs. Whiffler instructing the footman to ring the nursery bell, as the children were promised that they should come ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... times, to justify his inclinations towards peaceable bourgeois prosperity to the struggling youth who surround his sister Tanya. These cruel young people, however, answer him only with sarcastic remarks, and caustic arguments, and do not hesitate to express their doubts as to the sincerity of his opinions. To his conscience, they are like a living reproach from the past. Once he also was intolerant towards others as these people are towards him to-day. And that is why ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... friction are all conducive to the pests, and such oils and fats as vaseline, glycerin, olive oil and mutton tallow or suet should never be used. Depilatories likewise should be shunned. The powdered preparations are usually composed either of sulphite of arsenic or caustic lime, and merely burn the hair off to the surface of the skin. It seems quite impossible for any such powder to kill or dissolve the hair roots without injury. The sticky plasters, made of galbanum or pitch, and which ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... mere spherical shell, filled with slightly consolidated ashes. The concretions contain a small proportion of carbonate of lime: a fragment placed under the blowpipe decrepitates, then whitens and fuses into a blebby enamel, but does not become caustic. The surrounding ashes do not contain any carbonate of lime; hence the concretions have probably been formed, as is so often the case, by the aggregation of this substance. I have not met with any account ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... for a year's furlough with permission to spend the first half in India. This was granted, and my leave commenced from March 27th. By April 9th I was at Nowshera, and by three o'clock on the following morning, with head shaved, a weak solution of caustic and walnut juice applied to hands and face, and wearing the dress peculiar to the Meahs or Kaka Khels, and in company with Hosein Shah, I sallied out as Mir Mahomed ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... should be damped with water containing 10 parts in 100 of alcoholized caustic soda; at the expiration of one hour the envelopes of the pericarp, and of the testa Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, should be separated by friction in a coarse cloth, having been reduced by the action of the alkali ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... But I found him much better acquainted than I was myself with the present state of France, the character of the Duke of Orleans, who had just succeeded to the regency of that kingdom, and that of the statesmen by whom he was surrounded; and his shrewd, caustic, and somewhat satirical remarks, were those of a man who had been a close observer of the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... is counterfeited by mixing liquid caustic ammonia with the distilled spirit of hartshorn, to increase the pungency of its odour, and to enable it to ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... I blessed with the genius of Praxiteles or of Angelo, I would chisel and bequeath to the world a noble statue,—typical of that rare, fearless friendship, which, walking through the lazaretto of diseased and morbid natures, bears not honied draughts alone, but scalpel, caustic, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... "E." and "E.C."; but in the course of the following year her name appeared in full. She contributed a poem weekly for several years, relinquishing her connection with the paper in 1850. Afterwards, in 1869, when the property changed hands, she wrote two or three poems. Under the signature "Caustic," Mr. Serle, the dramatic author and editor, contributed a weekly letter for about twenty-seven years; and from 1856 till 1869 was editor-in chief. In 1841-42 the Dispatch had a hard-fought duel with the Times. "Publicola" wrote a series of letters, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... He tied all up in a tight bundle. A coil of rope hung on a peg on the wall. The bundle was fastened to the end of it and lowered to the ground, amid a fire of remarks from the crowd, which were rather caustic and humorous ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... step to be taken in the 'laicisation' of the schools has been already revealed in the famous 'Article 7' of M. Ferry. M. Ferry is the true, though more or less occult, head of the present Administration in France. 'M. Ferry,' said a caustic French Radical to me in Paris, 'ought to be the mask of M. Carnot. Nature gave him a Carnival nose for that purpose. Everything is topsy-turvy now in France, and so M. Carnot is the mask of M. Ferry. But the nose ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... whole in the submarine boat. That gave rise to a question in my mind. How would the commander of this floating dwelling-place proceed? Would he obtain air by chemical means, in getting by heat the oxygen contained in chlorate of potash, and in absorbing carbonic acid by caustic potash? Or—a more convenient, economical, and consequently more probable alternative—would he be satisfied to rise and take breath at the surface of the water, like a whale, and so renew for twenty-four ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... written at the period referred to. This was entitled, "Terrible Tractoration!! A Poetical Petition against Galvanizing Trumpery and the Perkinistic Institution. Most respectfully addressed to the Royal College of Physicians, by Christopher Caustic, M. D., LL. D., A. S. S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Aberdeen, and Honorary Member of no less than nineteen very learned Societies." Two editions of this work were published in London in the ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... when he gives the rein to his humor. Sparks fly; he stops at no caustic witticism, recoils from no satire; he is malice itself, and puts no restraint upon his levity. The "Flea Song" is a typical illustration ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... is composed of the carbonate or the sulphate of lime. To prevent the formation it is necessary to use some substance which will precipitate these elements in the water. The cheapest and most universally used for this purpose are soda ash and caustic soda. ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe |
