"Caustic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mountains as Ireland is by the sea, is like a lost island, fabled, remote, its speech Provencal, its soul purely Celt. Laughter loving, warlike and brave in the idyllic years of their prime, the Gruyeriens of to-day are still gay, caustic of wit as they are kindly at heart; and, in a changed world, as tenacious of their new republican rights as they were erstwhile valiant vassals to their pastoral kings. The source of innumerable songs ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... rather than with her father's. The Martel shiftlessness and visionary improvidence were quite as intolerable to her as the iron-clad conventions of the Bartletts. She could take correction from Aunt Isobel and Aunt Enid, but there was something in her grandmother's caustic comments that made her tingle with instant opposition, as a delicate vase will shiver at the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... themselves by propounding such unmitigated nonsense as that power may be exercised, and phenomena produced, by non-entities. But if so, what else is Positivism than another form of that very metaphysicism which it condemns? and a form, too, peculiarly obnoxious to Mr. Mill's caustic remark that 'as in religion, so in philosophy, men marvel at the absurdity of other people's tenets, while exactly parallel absurdities remain in their own, and the same man is unaffectedly astonished that words can be mistaken for things, who ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... often justified of her children as wisdom, and two years after young Mrs. Beaufort's marriage it was admitted that she had the most distinguished house in New York. No one knew exactly how the miracle was accomplished. She was indolent, passive, the caustic even called her dull; but dressed like an idol, hung with pearls, growing younger and blonder and more beautiful each year, she throned in Mr. Beaufort's heavy brown-stone palace, and drew all the world there without lifting ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... guess that Wilford Cameron stood between him and Helen's good opinion; but when, after the family came in, the conversation turned upon Katy and her life in New York, the secret came out in the sharp, caustic mariner with which she spoke of New York ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... at Bagnols, in the department of Var; famed for his caustic wit; was a Royalist emigrant at the time of the Revolution, and aided the cause by his pamphlets; he was styled by Burke "The Tacitus ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... strength and passed again through fresh tailings. When the tailings contain a quantity of decomposed pyrites, partly oxidised, the acidity caused by the freed sulphuric acid requires to be neutralised by an alkali, caustic soda being usually employed. ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... then?" said the doctor, as he applied some powerful caustic to a wounded vessel; "there's no satisfying the like of you. Quite warm and comfortable ye'll be this morning after that. I saw the same shell coming, and I called out to Maurice Blake, 'By your leave, Maurice, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... fails to catch your name on introduction, and seems the avatar of the commonplace. The witty and ferocious critic whom your fancy had painted as a literary cannibal with a morbid appetite for tender young poets—the writer of those caustic and scholarly reviews which you never neglect to read—destroys the un-lifelike portrait you had drawn by appearing before you as a personage of slender limb and deprecating glance, who stammers and makes a painful spectacle of himself when you ask him his opinion of "The Glees ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... world of fashion, was more voluminous in her correspondence than ever, the more especially as young Langton appeared to her a very pretty fellow, and he being Tom's confidant, was likely to hear her letters read, or at least be given extracts from them. Her caustic condemnation of the fantastical Mistress Clo had gradually lapsed into a doubtful wonder, which later became open amaze not untinged with a pretty spitefulness ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... not deal, like Cervantes, with the ridiculous extravagance of a fantastic order, nor, like Washington Irving, with the faults and foibles of men, but he struck at the very heart of the social life of his countrymen's ancestors with caustic and relentless satire. Some of the more puritanical objected to the moral tendencies of Thackeray's lectures, and argued that the naughty scapegraces of the British court should not have been thus exhumed for the edification of ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... shove this ninety through a letter-slot," remonstrated caustic accents from across the busy courtyard. "Move over, girls, you're crowding the aisles! Say, Norris, this ain't a joy-ride down Riverside Drive, it's a testing run; reverse over there and take about six more sachet-bags of mud-pie ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... 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
... The caustic bodie would dander away with a grin, leaving a poor writhing soul. When he reached the Cross he would tell the Deacon blithely of the "fine one he had given him," and the Deacon would lie in wait to give him a fine one too. In Barbie, at least, your returning ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... a fancy to Paul, for he was, and still is, a man full of prejudice, if also full of wit. In his well-shaped head resides an intelligence of no mean order, and the lines graven in his pale face express thought and study, while suggesting also an extreme love of sarcasm and a caustic, incredulous humor. His large and deep-set blue eyes seem to look at things only to criticise them, never to enjoy them, and his arched eyebrows bristle like defenses set up between the world with its interests ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... are conveniently divided into two classes, insecticides and fungicides. An insecticide is a poison by which the insect is killed either directly by eating it, or indirectly by the caustic, smothering, or stifling effects resulting from closing its breathing pores. Direct poisons are used for insects which eat some part of the tree or fruit and are called stomach poisons. Sprays which kill indirectly are used for insects which suck the sap or juice from the tree or ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... 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 in ridding ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... sown between the rival commanders, and the plot carefully laid, which finally led to Colonel Fremont's court martial. Rank, with its green-eyed monster, jealousy, which is ever watching with a restless and caustic determination to snatch from the subaltern his hard-earned laurels, was actively at work during these winter months. By the programme, cut and dried, the ambitious young soldier, who was nobly breasting the conflicts against the enemies of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... what sort of a hand you'd make at potato digging," pursued Sandy. "But apparently this is the net result of your musical studies"—and, seating himself at the piano, he rattled off a caustic parody ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... of age, eccentric in person, habits, and dress. Among other oddities of apparel, he was partial to bright red small-clothes. His tory principles and singularities called down upon him the jibes of the patriots among whom his lot was temporarily cast, but his ready tongue and caustic wit were sufficient weapons of defence. In 1774, as town clerk of Worcester, he recorded a protest of forty-three royalist citizens against the resolutions of the patriotic majority. This record he was compelled in open town ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... identified with the holy grail, the cup which our Lord used at the Last Supper. Of garments purporting to be the seamless coat of Christ there were a considerable number shown in different places; but the most famous to this day remains the Holy Coat of Treves, which, in Dr. Robertson's caustic words, "the Empress Helena (the mother of Constantine) was said to have presented to an imaginary archbishop of her pretended birthplace, Treves." During the First Crusade the army before Antioch was ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... after page, looking for names as he called them off, but most of them had disguised their ventures through dummies. We had no trouble in putting our fingers on their allotments, however; Mr. Rogers commenting in his sage and caustic way on men and politics. It was growing late, and at a natural stopping-place in our talk I sent for paper and string, with my own hands tied up the book, and—with all the airs of extreme ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... list of items, the biggest of which was that bathroom without water that had sent Annalise out on strike, was the information that a remittance would oblige. A remittance! Poor Fritzing. He crushed the paper in his hand and made caustic mental comments on the indecency of these people, clamouring for their money almost before the last workman was out of the place, certainly before the smell of paint was out of it, and clamouring, too, in ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... dinna perjure yersel',' replied Liz, with a faint return of the old caustic speech. 'If ye dinna believe me, ask him. Is Wat away? Teen, ye micht ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... other skull. If there be a nest of ants near the camp, place the skull in their immediate vicinity. Some recommend putting in water till the particles of flesh rot, or till the skull is cleared by the fishes. A strong solution of caustic water may be used if you wish to get the bones cleaned very quickly. Some put the skulls in quicklime, but it has a tendency to make the bones splinter, and it is difficult to keep the teeth from getting loose and dropping out. The best but slowest plan is to fix them in mechanically by wire or ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... opposing,—something inimical to my peace and happiness held me 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, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... without fear to the familiar hubbub. Should she go in? Some one might give her a drink, to ease for a time the terrible gnawing at her breast. Might? Yes; but more likely she would be thrust out with jeers and curses, and, for some reason, old Marg was in no mood to use the caustic wit and ready tongue that were her only weapons. So she staggered on until the swarming tenement was reached, stumbled up the five flights of unillumined stairs, and almost fell headlong into the dismal garret which she called ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... the whole sunny horizon of his countenance. But this was not all; you might read there a spirit of kindly sarcasm that was in complete keeping with a disposition always generous and affectionate, mostly blunt and occasionally caustic. Nothing could exceed the extreme neatness with which he attended to his dress and person. In this point he was scrupulously exact and careful; but this attention to the minor morals was the result of anything ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... think him; but to please him I ought to turn away my head with pretended horror, to love nothing with real love, and tell him his distinction is mere sickliness. I have the misfortune to admire all beautiful things without setting myself up for a wit by caustic and envious criticism of whatever shines from poesy and beauty. I don't seek to make Canalis and Nathan say of me in verse and prose that my intellect is superior. I'm only a poor little artless child; I care only for Calyste. Ah! if I had scoured the world like ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... own reward; and our hero had, moreover, other stimulating motives for persevering in a display of affected composure and indifference to Flora's obvious unkindness. Pride, which supplies its caustic as a useful, though severe, remedy for the wounds of affection, came rapidly to his aid. Distinguished by the favour of a Prince; destined, he had room to hope, to play a conspicuous part in the revolution which awaited a mighty kingdom; excelling, probably, in mental acquirements, and equalling, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... States Secret Service, who had instructions to run this man down—this man who signed himself The Eye of Allah. And do it quickly for the notes were threatening. Official Washington, it seemed, was getting jumpy and was making caustic inquiries as to why a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... derivation of the last of them, 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 ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... solution of chloride of ammonium with "agar-agar," or Ceylon moss. This type permits the use of larger plates, and adapts the battery for lighting small electric lamps. Skrivanoff has modified the De la Rue cell by substituting a solution of caustic potash for the ammonium chloride, and his battery has been used for "star" lights, that is to say, the tiny electric lamps of the ballet. The Schanschieff battery, consisting of zinc and carbon plates in a solution of basic sulphate of mercury, is suitable for reading, mining, and ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... suddenly gives him one between the eyes? A blow of the ax on his sinciput (if again I may be permitted to use your ingenious metaphor)? Hah, hah! And do you mean to say that when I spoke to you about quarters provided by the State, that—hah, hah! You are very caustic. But I won't revert to that again. By-and-by!—one remark produces another, one thought attracts another—but you were talking just now of the practice or form in vogue with the examining magistrate. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... illustration of the self-feeding power of the brain to meet an emergency, and a revelation, also, of the possible limitations of the starvation period. This was the case of a frail, spare boy of four years, whose stomach was so disorganized by a drink of solution of caustic potash that not even a swallow of water could be retained. He died on the seventy-fifth day of his fast, with the mind clear to the last hour, and with apparently nothing of the body left but bones, ligaments, and a thin skin; and yet the brain had ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... voice. His hand on the tiller and his fearless eyes roaming the horizon from within the monkish hood shadowing his face, he would utter the usual exordium of his remorseless wisdom: "Vous autres gentilhommes!" in a caustic tone that hangs on my ear yet. Like Nostromo! "You hombres finos!" Very much like Nostromo. But Dominic the Corsican nursed a certain pride of ancestry from which my Nostromo is free; for Nostromo's lineage had to be more ancient still. He is a man with the weight of countless ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... 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 to a pulpy state; each berry should ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... from the twigs and washed free from the coloring matter the 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 less likely to deteriorate, but white is ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... a brine of common salt (chloride of sodium), there are formed by double decomposition, small portions of caustic soda and chloride of calcium, which dissolve in the liquid. If the solution stand awhile, carbonic acid is absorbed from the air, forming carbonate of soda: but carbonate of soda and chloride of calcium instantly exchange their ingredients, forming insoluble carbonate ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... steps to my carriage, and there all your trouble ends. Why, Will,' he added, 'I have been yearning for you as if you were my own son; and of all the men that ever I came for in my long days, I have come for you most gladly. I am caustic, and sometimes offend people at first sight; but I am a good friend at ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... petroleum, petrochemicals, fertilizers, caustic soda, textiles, cement and other construction materials, food processing (particularly sugar refining and vegetable oil production), ferrous and ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... that came after them. Nor is it material that they differ in the mode, since they all agree in the kind. Calvus is close and nervous; Asinius more open and harmonious; Caesar is distinguished [b] by the splendour of his diction; Caelius by a caustic severity; and gravity is the characteristic of Brutus. Cicero is more luxuriant in amplification, and he has strength and vehemence. They all, however, agree in this: their eloquence is manly, sound, and vigorous. Examine their works, and ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... our other novelists much better. Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty, and wastes upon mean motives and imperceptible "points of view" his neat literary style, his felicitous phrases, his swift and caustic satire. Mr. Hall Caine, it is true, aims at the grandiose, but then he writes at the top of his voice. He is so loud that one cannot bear what he says. Mr. James Payn is an adept in the art of concealing what is not worth finding. He hunts down the obvious with the enthusiasm ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... they had been the results of nails lately driven into her feet and hands and a spear thrust into her side, the government ordered the lady to be examined by the most celebrated medical man of the day, who instantly discovered that the wounds or sores were produced by the mere application of lunar caustic. He applied to them the usual remedies. Patrocinio was watched day and night to prevent a re-application of the caustic, and ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... reviewed enthusiastically by Hallam, but was more or less slated by Christopher North in the columns of Blackwoods' Magazine. Tennyson was very angry about the latter review and replied to the reviewer in some caustic, but entirely unnecessary, verses. ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... in the matter of precedence, but of order. Commoners, male and female, old and young, ro[u]nin, samurai, according to their caste squatted or prostrated themselves in reverential attitude as the palanquin of some lord passed by. Caustic or benign, generally malicious, the comment of the Kidahachi and Yajiro[u]bei—"O[u]kubo Hikoroku Dono; 'tis true he possesses influence, and the roughness of Hikoza Sama, but the keen wit of the honoured father lacks."—"Yet the ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... General, and their quarrel did not help New France at the Royal Court. Berryer, the Colonial Minister, received Bougainville coldly, and to his appeal for help replied: "Eh, Monsieur, when the house is on fire one cannot concern one's self with the stable." But the Canadian envoy responded, with caustic wit, "At least, Monsieur, nobody will say that you talk like ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... patient with the stupid, or merciful to the absurd, and vanity never came into his presence without receiving swift and mortal blows; but the chastisement of his caustic tongue never fell upon modest worth, and there never lived a man who was a ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... each day found it harder to begin, and only the announcement of her intended departure one morning brought him to the hazard. He was beginning to feel less secure of her, and less indifferent to the gibes of the town jokers, who found in his enslavement much material for caustic remark. They called him the "tired cowboy" ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... from growing on the feet, wear easy shoes, and bathe the feet often in lukewarm water, with a little salt and potash dissolved in it. The corn itself may be completely destroyed by rubbing it daily with a little caustic solution of potash, till a soft and flexible skin is formed. For chilblains, soak the feet in warm bran and water and rub them well with flour of mustard. This should be done before the chilblains ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... must be more than suspected, is not glanced at. Even the ridicule due to his inordinate vanity, is spared him. "Yes support that head," says this dying gladiator to his friend; "would I could bequeath it to thee!" And our caustic Diogenes withholds the lash. As the history proceeds, Danton is elevated to the place of hero. He is put in strong contrast with Robespierre. The one is raised into simple admiration, the other sunk into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... good-hearted man at the bottom, however, and as tender as a woman in cases of real suffering; though woe to the malingerer or shammer of illness who incautiously ventured within reach of his caustic tongue! ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... at his best 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 ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... temper naturally shrewish was soured till she grew positively terrible. She was not old, but she had aged; she deliberately set herself to extort by fear all that the world was inclined to refuse her, and was harsh and rasping as a file. Caustic to excess she had few friends among women; she surrounded herself with prim, elderly matrons of her own stamp, who lent each other mutual support, and people stood in awe of her. As for poor Pons, his relations with this fiend in petticoats ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... be acknowledged that the balm he sought in satire, was a dangerous caustic which, while closing one wound, might well cause others to open. At the same time, the money embarrassments inherited from his predecessor in the estate went on accumulating, and the period was approaching when the cassock, donned in boyish fun, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... [Footnote: Jour. f. prakt. Chem., 1911, 84, 140.] from the chloride of trimethylgallic acid and the methyl ester of the acid from the glucoside of syringin; on saponification with caustic potash the former compound yielded trimethylgallic ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... caustic tongue helped her purpose. He gave personal offence not only to Elizabeth, the ruler of Russia, but to Madame Pompadour, the real sovereign of France under Louis XV. Both of these ladies urged their countries against the insulter. The three leading powers ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... came at once, and with his claw-like hands cleverly drew together the edges of Red Chicken's wound and gummed them in place with the juice of the ape, a bulbous plant like the edible taro. Red Chicken must have suffered keenly, for the ape juice is exceedingly caustic, but he made no protest, continuing to puff the pipe. Over the wound the tatihi applied a leaf, and bound the whole very carefully with a bandage of tapa ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... several nights afterwards, a 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 must ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... 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
... disgust by vapid panegyric, or gross invective; weary by uniform dulness, or tantalise by superficial knowledge. Sometimes merely written to catch the public attention, a malignity is indulged against authors, to season the caustic leaves. A reviewer has admired those works in private, which he has condemned in his official capacity. But good sense, good temper, and good taste, will ever form an estimable journalist, who will inspire confidence, and give stability ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... was on the point of letting fly some caustic remark on his father's dress at the present moment; but he contented himself with ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... process, invented by M. Meliner in France in 1865, the chips from spruce and poplar logs are boiled under pressure in a strong solution of caustic soda. ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... of all natives are highly discolored by the perpetual indulgence in this disgusting habit; nor is this the only effect produced; cancer in the cheek is a common complaint among them, supposed to be produced by the caustic lime which is so ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... quickly, or not at all. The moment an animal is bitten, that moment the wound should be searched for, and when found, should be freely opened with a knife, and lunar caustic, caustic potash, or the permanganate of potash at once applied to all parts of the wound, care being taken not to suffer a single scratch to escape. This, if attended to in ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... the same faces at the boarding house table, hearing the same stale jokes or caustic remarks about Mrs. Atterson's food from Fred Crackit and the young men boarders of his class, or the grumbling of Mr. Peebles, the dyspeptic invalid, or the inane monologue ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... Their most favourite dramatic pieces are almost without incident, and the dialogue of their comedies consists of moral insipid apophthegms, entirely destitute of wit or repartee." While amusing himself with the sights of Paris, Smollett drew up that caustic delineation of the French character which as a study in calculated depreciation has rarely been surpassed. He conceives the Frenchman entirely as a petit-maitre, and his view, though far removed from Chesterfield's, is not incompatible with ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... 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
... to look thoughtful. Now, Eph did know how to say caustic things when occasion seemed ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... metope Express, as though they were an open tome Top-lined with caustic monitory gnome; "Dunces, Learn here ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... more than a quarter of a century I have found no caustic or cautery to compare with solar heat in its beneficial results. Unlike other caustics, it can be applied with safety on the most delicate tissues and the system receives this treatment kindly. The irritation and inflammation following are ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... three men, a dog or two, and several fowls, together with provisions and instruments. It was air tight, warmed and illuminated with coal gas, and the oxygen for breathing was got from chlorate of potash, while the carbonic acid produced by the lungs and gas-burners was absorbed with caustic potash to keep the air pure. This bullet-car was fired from a colossal cast-iron gun founded in the sand. It was aimed at a point in the sky, the zenith, in fact, where it would strike the moon four days later, that is, after it had crossed the intervening space. The charge of gun-cotton ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... strip, and the deck was dotted with men trying to get the maximum amount of water from the sea in a small bucket let down on a line from the moving ship. First efforts in this direction would have been amusing had it not been for the caustic eye of the 'Mate' on the bridge. If the reader ever gets the chance to try the experiment, especially in a swell, he will soon find himself with neither bucket nor water. The poor Mate was annoyed by the loss of ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... the bed without speaking. He perceived that time had only increased the bitterness of his brother's caustic temper. ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... indignation of the English landscape painter, Turner, at the praise which was so glibly lavished on Claude—an indignation that caused Turner to bequeath two of his own landscape paintings to the trustees of the National Gallery, on the caustic condition that they should always be placed between the two celebrated 'Claudes,' known as 'The Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca' and 'The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba'—helped to shake the English art world's faith in its former idol. Mr Ruskin's ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... acid? Well, the professor of chemistry says it is a compound containing three atoms of hydrogen, one of phosphorus, and four of oxygen. It is a syrupy liquid and one of the strongest mineral acids. In concentrated form it is as caustic as oil of vitriol. Why, here you have a Century dictionary. That should tell what phosphoric acid is. This is ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... merely twenty-six hours a day dictating my autobiography, which, as John Phoenix said in regard to his autograph, may be relied upon as authentic, as it is written exclusively by me. But it is not to be published in full until I am thoroughly dead. I have made it as caustic, fiendish, and devilish as possible. It will fill many volumes, and I shall continue writing it until the time comes for me to join the angels. It is going to be a terrible autobiography. It will make the hair of some folks curl. But it cannot ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his apprehension. The newspapers criticized his plan in caustic editorials and ridiculous cartoons as "Scott's Anaconda," and public opinion rejected it in an overwhelming demand for a prompt and energetic advance. Scott was correct in military theory, while the people and the administration were right in practice, under existing ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... deal of this sort of chaff was current, so that the most dunder-headed boy had plenty on the tip of his tongue. A small and indignant knot of townspeople, headed by a stout and severe middle-aged woman, with two big boys, her sons, followed the keeper, endeavouring by caustic remarks and withering glances to stop the flood of chaff, and restore the legitimate authority and the reign of keeper and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... 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 more for ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... is the caustic comment of Admiral Jurien de la Graviere—"was evidently unsuited ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... technical term for the operation by which fibrous raw materials are reduced to a residue of cellulose pulp by means of chemical treatment. In these tests about 300 pounds of hurds were charged into the rotary with the addition of a caustic-soda solution, such as is regularly employed in pulp mills and which tested an average of 109.5 grams of caustic soda per liter, or 0.916 pound per gallon, and averaged 85 per cent causticity. Sufficient caustic solution ...
— Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material - United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 404 • Lyster H. Dewey and Jason L. Merrill
... herself feel interested, and, when this failed, upon her courtesy, to appear so; but she was conscious of relapses more and more frequent into the dreary regions of Boredom. Every body would agree with every body else so completely! A bold contradiction, a stinging sarcasm, or a caustic retort, would have been worth any thing just then to take off the cloying taste of the everlasting honey. She roused herself at these last words enough to ask ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... the surf half the afternoon. The bliss of the water on their thin young legs and scrawny bodies was Heaven. They did not swim; they lay inert, letting the waves move them about, and out of the depths of a deep content making caustic comments about the human form as ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... familiar with the general spirit and the special ideas of the different periods to which they refer, as well as with Russia and its life and literature in general. Saltykoff (who wrote under the name of "Shtchedrin") was very keen to catch the spirit of the moment, and very caustic in portraying it, with the result that very often the names he invented for his characters clove to whole classes of society, and have become by-words, the mere mention of which reproduces the whole type. For example, after the Emancipation, when the majority of landed proprietors ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... some girls who grow up into real women, though you probably have hard work to believe that," said her brother, equally caustic in stating his opinions, "and they are waiting for the right man to come along and take sole possession of them, body and soul and affairs—when they are women! Then it isn't bossing any more! It's love, glorified! Letting 'em have their own way ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... antidotes may sometimes be used for special poisons, as advised below. In general, if an acid has been taken it may be neutralized with an alkali, such as chalk, magnesia, bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), ammonia (diluted), or soap. If the poison is an alkali, such as caustic soda or potash (lye), or ammonia, an acid, such as diluted (1 per cent) sulphuric acid or vinegar, may be administered. Special treatments ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... another for points of vantage on the gallery stairs, where an occasional glimpse might be caught of the handsome, dark-eyed, gray-haired woman who looked singularly appropriate at the pulpit desk. The congregation hung upon every word, and her remarks, sometimes bitter and caustic, were met with a hum of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... live with the Cutters, she seemed to care about nothing but picnics and parties and having a good time. When she was not going to a dance, she sewed until midnight. Her new clothes were the subject of caustic comment. Under Lena's direction she copied Mrs. Gardener's new party dress and Mrs. Smith's street costume so ingeniously in cheap materials that those ladies were greatly annoyed, and Mrs. Cutter, who was jealous ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... remaining in the system when taken in small quantities, and piling itself up, as it were, until there is enough to accomplish something, when it causes debility, paralysis, and other things. Sulphuric acid is strongly corrosive,—a powerful caustic, attacking the teeth, even when very dilute; eating up flesh and bones alike when strong enough; and, if taken in a large enough dose, an awfully tearing ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... presented me, but which I unfortunately lent—and lost. A small edition was printed at Paris for private circulation. He has also written an unpublished poem in the form of a letter from Lord Castlereagh in the shades, to Mr. Canning on earth, the caustic severity of which, in the opinion of those who have heard it read, is equal to that of any satire in the English language. I remember only the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... the group. The educational process is complex. There must be first the incitement to thought. Most effective in this direction is criticism. If the roads are such a handicap to the comfort and safety of travel that there is caustic criticism at the next town meeting, public opinion begins to set definitely in the direction of improvement. If city government is corrupt and the tax rate mounts steadily without corresponding benefits to the taxpayers, ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... Garangula, under which high-sounding appellation Big Mouth has descended to posterity. He was an astute old savage, well trained in the arts of Iroquois rhetoric, and gifted with the power of strong and caustic sarcasm, which has marked more than one of the chief orators of the confederacy. He shared with most of his countrymen the conviction that the earth had nothing so great as the league of the Iroquois; but, if he could be proud and patriotic, so ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... looked at the bed for an instant, took Mrs. Bent by the shoulders, and said, quietly, "Get me some caustic. Be quick." ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... even desperate by the light at the street corner and yet composed. He was suffering, perhaps. He was credulous. Yet there was something caustic about him. He had in him the seeds of extreme disillusionment, which would come to him from women in middle life. Perhaps if one strove hard enough to reach the top of the hill it need not come to him—this disillusionment from women in ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... slightly at this caustic remark and the accompanying scorn on the high-bred face; and the flush which had risen to her cheek a moment before vanished, leaving her quite pale, ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... polemic tendency and this talent for embodying it in caustic and picturesque expression, which, as the dress of dialogue given to the books on Husbandry written in his eightieth year shows, never forsook him down to extreme old age, Varro most happily combined an incomparable knowledge of the national manners and language, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... no uncommon thing. The clash of tempers lasted for several minutes, then Maud flung out of the room. An hour later, at dinner-time, she was rather more caustic in her remarks than usual, but this was the only sign that ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... spoke with a caustic bitterness that had its roots. Her own venture in second marriage had been catastrophic—so catastrophic that her neglected bakery had gone very much to the bad. Still more closely to the point, Madame Jolicoeur—incident ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... 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 ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... imbecile carelessness. Even in times of peril one retains one's human weaknesses; and I felt that I could not face his comments. If he had permitted a certain note of querulousness to creep into his conversation already, the imagination recoiled from the thought of the caustic depths he would reach now ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... a lady be the signal for trifling and nonsense? How long shall there be circles of this sex, from which a man of sense must turn away with the caustic saying of Wallenstein, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... chloride of silver which is to be reduced is put into a flask with about twice its volume of a solution of caustic potash (of one part of caustic potash to nine of water), in which a small portion of sugar has been dissolved. Let it boil gently. The operation is complete when the blackish powder which results from this process, having been washed in several waters, is entirely soluble in nitric acid, which ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... for his sail. This work electrified the public. It pierced the crust of refinement and intelligence, and roused the latent laughter of its heart. Even newsboys chuckled with delight over its caustic hits at the powers that were, against which, with the characteristic precocity of Young America, each had his private individual spite; while they found in its peculiar phraseology a mine of fun. Patriots rejoiced that ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Brussels at once, if he could do so conveniently. The same post carried a letter to Lord Bob, and in it the writer admitted that he might need reinforcements before the campaign closed. He also inclosed the clipping from the newspaper, but added a choice and caustic opinion of the efficiency of the Brussels police. He did not allude specifically to Courant, the duke, or to the queer beginning of ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... commiseration, of benevolent malice, the writer pointed out how inevitable it was that the critics should have taken Mr. Price, when Divorce was first produced, for the new dramatic genius they were waiting for. 'There comes a moment,' said this caustic writer, 'in the affairs of men when the new is not only eagerly accepted, but when it is confounded with the original. Wearied by the old stereotyped form of drama, the critics had been astonished by a novelty of subject, more apparent than real, and by certain ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... through these a current of electricity is led. The salt, which is composed of chlorine and sodium, decomposes under the electric attack. The sodium goes to one pole and combines with water to form caustic soda, whereas the chlorine escapes at the other pole. Let us follow the chlorine, which is a yellowish-green gas, more than twice as heavy as air, and has found a new use as poison gas in the great war—for which all the ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... new form of miracle play in which she presently captivates London and Paris as the reincarnate Notre Dame de Bruges. So much of the tale I indicate; the rest is your affair. It is told in a pleasant haphazard fashion, enriched with flashes of caustic wit and disfigured with a good deal of ungrammatical and slovenly writing. I think I never met a novelist who did more execution among the infinitives. Also I suspect that Mrs. SAUNDERS' zeal for theatrical setting ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... steps, stood suddenly upright, thrusting the more dilapidated boot behind the other, and wondering with what purpose the two girls had sought him. One he recognized as a type common enough throughout the Dominion—kindly, shrewd, somewhat hard-featured and caustic in speech; but the other, who looked down on him with thinly-veiled pity, more resembled the women of birth and education whom he ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss |
