"Explode" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now when they had got a sliding-scale; for they had admitted the lamentable condition of their tenantry and peasantry. Let them accede, then, to his proposition for a committee, and he would pledge himself to explode the fallacy of agricultural protection, and to put an end to the present system within two years from the publication of its report. Mr. S. Herbert, secretary at war, announced that government would meet Mr. Cobden's motion with a direct negative. On a division the motion was negatived ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... moment, a graver suspicion crossed his mind: might not some detonating substance of a nature to explode when trodden upon, have been flung in? Hillsborough excelled in deviltries ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... a study as he approached. Indeed he seemed half ready to explode with suppressed merriment, but before he could speak a warning glance from Van Berg ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... tapes, and explained that I needed the time to let things happen the way Willy's influence makes them happen. I don't think Goil was totally convinced. But he must have been partly, at least, for with all the system's experts arguing about just exactly what made the ship explode, and with no two experts agreeing on an explanation, he might have given some benefit of the doubt to Willy. Anyway, he was so relieved that his interests in Mars were saved that he smiled for the next three days, dismissed me as an incurable visionary or some other sort ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell
... injured in the least. Look, you're quite a distance away, and even if it does explode and the books are scattered away, it can't hurt much to be hit by one of these volumes. There, I'm all ready now. Hold ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... satisfaction on these grounds was added besides a peculiar pleasure in the discovery of him which he could ask no one to share—that it was to him as a lump of dynamite under his wife's lounge, of which no one knew but himself, and which he could at any instant explode. It was sweet to know what he could do! to be aware, and alone aware, of the fool's paradise in which my lady and her brood lived! And already, through his own precipitation, his precious secret ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... Piper walking along in the midst of a group of soldiers. "It happened this way: We were talking about the battle scene, and C. C. kept saying it would be a failure when projected because the smoke bombs were not timed right. He said they should explode closer to the firing line, and some of the men who handled them said they held them as long as they dared before ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... tobacco. Another cut a main spar on one of my wings, and another hit my stabilizer, tearing it half in two. One other hit my gas tank and put a hole clear through it. Luckily my gas was low and it did not explode, but, believe ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... woman's wrath when they are just at the boiling point, and ready to overflow their confines, is like sitting down on a bunch of fire-crackers to prevent their going off. Let the water boil over, and there will still be enough left to brew you a cup of tea. Let the crackers explode, and you may sit down ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Tabitha. Even the most flaming love of royalty and realm serves not to keep warm toes extended beyond short blankets at Christmas-tide. It is not strange that late in December, 1776, all Jersey was mined with discontent, and needed but the spark of Continental success to explode. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... the rhymes," said Adrian. "I saw her this morning. The boy hasn't bad taste. As you say, she is too good for a farmer. Such a spark would explode any System. She slightly affected mine. The Huron is stark mad ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... than an hour they talked, and indignant servants, showing heads of expostulation, had to go away unnoticed. But The Bradder met explosions with what my father called afterwards rank obstinacy, and the man who explodes is naturally angry if he cannot get some one to explode back at him. ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... The sky would have told us we were in Italy if we had come on a magic carpet without a compass or a time-table. Poppa says we are not, under any circumstances, to mention it more than once, but that we might as well explode the fallacy that there is anything like it in America. There isn't. Our cerulean is very beautifully blue, but in Italy one discovers by contrast that it is an intellectual blue, filled with light, high, provocative. The sky that bends over Tuscany is the very ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... I spoke at length against the petty princeling, with the result that he was utterly laughed out of court. Alarmed by this exhibition, as I said, Appius is making up to me. For nothing could be easier than to explode the rest of his proposals. But I will not go so far as to trip him up, lest he appeal to the god of hospitality, and summon all his Greeks—it is they who make us friends again. I will do what Theopompus wants. I had forgotten to write to ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... down smilingly from his altitude in infinite space on my own discreditable five feet ten. He agreed with the Colonel as to the merits of Birmingham, and added that every Unionist in Belfast cherished a deep sentiment of gratitude to the hardware city, requesting me to explode the misleading statements of the Separatist press, which asserts that Tuesday's procession consisted of Orangemen. "The first two hours," said the Reverend Doctor, "consisted of bodies who do not processionise, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... on oxygen. While this element does not burn, a certain amount of it must be present to support combustion. Thus, the most inflammable gas or liquid will not burn or explode unless oxygenized. Explosives are made by using a sufficient amount, in a concentrated form, which is added to the fuel, so that when it is ignited there is a sufficient amount of oxygen present to support combustion, hence the ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... Pte. J. Melrose and Corporal A.R. Kelly were amongst the first to attempt this and their example was quickly followed by others. It was a deadly dangerous game, for it was impossible to tell how long any fuse had still to burn and the grenade might explode at any moment, but though several men were killed and wounded in this way, the survivors persisted bravely and the Turkish advance was effectually checked. Their bombing slackened off gradually and it became possible to hold on until the R.E. came up and erected a barricade ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... under fire before. The sound of a bursting shell was not a new one. But there had always before been a strong element of chance in my favour. When the Germans were shelling a town, who was I that a shell should pick me out to fall on or to explode near? But this was different. They were firing at a battery, and I was beside that battery. It was all very well for the officer in charge to have said they had never located his battery. I did not believe him. I still doubt him. ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... hauling it up if the line used were small, and from the difficulty of getting it down if the line used were large enough to give the requisite strength for hauling it up." One eccentric old sea captain proposed to sound the sea with a torpedo, or shell, which should explode the instant it touched the bottom. Another gentleman proposed to try it by the magnetic telegraph, and designed an instrument which should telegraph to the expectant measurers above how it was getting on in the depths below. But all ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... provinces, besides castles, forests and moors, Lord Woldo owned many acres of land under which was coal, and he allowed enterprising persons to dig deep for this coal, and often explode themselves to death in the adventure, on the understanding that they paid him sixpence for every ton of coal brought to the surface, whether they made any profit on it or not. This arrangement was called "mining ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... amusing tale of the man who complained of injuries resulting from a loaded seegar. He knew when he smoked it that it was a trick weed, and knew that it would explode, but he "didn't know when." He reminds us very strongly of a ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... just inside the screens. Don't see how it could have detonated unless something hot and hard struck it in the tube; it would need about that much time to explode. Good thing it didn't go off any sooner, or none of us would have been here. As it is, Area Six is pretty well done in, but the bulkheads held the damage ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... taking one line, the last round being always "expressed"—that is, unless you started instantly the boy above you finished, the next boy began, and took your place. I can still see and hear the unfortunate J. getting up steam for his line four or five boys ahead of time, so that he might explode at the right moment, which desirable end, however, he but very rarely accomplished, and never catching up, he used, like the man in the parable, always to "begin with shame to take the lowest place." Sometimes the ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... no Allied battleships could be relied upon to reinforce the North Sea Fleet. But Britain's margin was ample enough, and at the battle of Jutland her weight of metal was as two to one. The Germans, however, had advantages of their own, particularly in a delaying fuse which caused their shells to explode after penetrating the enemy's armour instead of before. Their capital ships were also better armoured, and rarely sank when struck by shells or torpedoes. This was also true of the British battleships, and none were sunk on either side except the old ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... under the circumstances. I am sure Hannibal or Napoleon would, were they locked suddenly into a car; there kept close prisoners for a certain number of hours, and whirled along at this dizzy pace. You can't stop, if you would:—you may die, but you can't stop; the engine may explode upon the road, and up you go along with it; or, may be a bolter and take a fancy to go down a hill, or into a river: all this you must bear, for the privilege of travelling twenty ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... whole shooting match," he promised himself, holding the glass beneath the faucet and fiddling nervously with the valves. For a moment he fancied the tank must be empty, for nothing came of his efforts. Then abruptly the fixture seemed to explode. "A geyser!" he cried, blinded with the dash of carbonated water and syrup in his face, while he ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... two hours later than usual—a fact in itself very disturbing to Mr. Baron; while Aun' Suke, compelled to cook again for the Confederate troopers, was in a state of suppressed irritation, leading her satellites to fear that she might explode. Small, pale and bloodless as "ole miss" appeared, none of her domestics dared to rebel openly; but if any little darky came within the reach of Aun' Suke's wooden spoon, she relieved her feelings promptly. In dining-room and kitchen, therefore, was seething and repressed excitement. The very air ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... half as bad as Nature in the human race—Spanish half-blood and Indian—with which she had peopled the region, for they were, to a man, stuffed with explosive material, which the spark of some speaker's language was always liable to explode. ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... Macrae, his face paling. 'What can this new outrage mean? Here on our deck is the gold; if they explode their torpedoes the bullion sinks to join the ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... attained to a "perfect development"—of villany. He learned enough, however, to verify the dark hints thrown out by the prisoners. The society numbered some thousands of members, all fully armed, thoroughly drilled, and impatiently waiting a signal to explode a mine deeper than that in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... is my arm 'Neath its white-gloved and jewelled load; And wishes me some dreadful harm, Hearing the merry corks explode. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... vaporize the gasoline, and the vapour is sucked into each of these cylinders in turn when the piston moves—like this." He sought to explain the action of the piston. "That compresses it, and then a tiny electric spark comes just at the right moment to explode it, and the explosion sends the piston down again, and turns the shaft. Well, all four cylinders have an explosion one right after another, and that keeps the shaft going." Whereupon the most important personage ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... comedies as the better known Love-a-la Mode (1759) and The Man of the World (1764). His recognition that tragedy was not his forte and his self-criticism in THE COVENT GARDEN THEATRE, where he exhorts the audience to "explode" him when he is dull, reveal the comic spirit operative in his sometimes cantankerous personality. It is that strain, here seen in genesis, which develops full-fledged in his ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... can put a heap of gunpowder inside a flame so that the outer envelope of burning gas does not ignite it (Fig. 37). There you see a heap of gunpowder in the centre of our large flame. The flame is so completely hollow that even it cannot explode the powder. ...
— The Story of a Tinder-box • Charles Meymott Tidy
... said Bearwarden, "our bullets will explode before they penetrate the scales. In the absence of any way of making a passage for an explosive ball by means of a solid one, we must strike a vital spot. His scales being no harder than the trunk of a tree, we can wound him terribly by touching him anywhere; ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... clock will explode!" cried Shirley, desperately. Instead, she sprang into the bright room, espied the diabolical arrangement in the corner, and ran to pick it up. She saw the wire, and her deft fingers reached behind the clock to turn back its hands. Had she ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... Gen. von Boyen," vol. ii., p. 254. This, and other facts that will later be set forth, explode the story foisted by the Prussian General von dem Knesebeck in his old age on Mueffling. Knesebeck declared that his mission early in 1812 to the Czar, which was to persuade him to a peaceful compromise with Napoleon, was directly ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... borrowing of this kind until after your marriage—not on any pretext whatever. Go without eating rather than do it. Your credit is still good; but it is being slowly undermined—and the indiscretion of a friend who chanced to say: "I think Valorsay is hard up," might fire the train, and then you'd explode.'" ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... up and down the room, a pent volcano ready to explode. He knew Whaley's advice was good. It would be suicide to encumber himself with this girl in his flight. But he had never disciplined his desires. He wanted her. He meant to take her. Passion, the lust for revenge, ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... would blow their brains out. Black Bill said that at this threat he drew his own pistol and snapped it at Gualtier. It would not go off. Gualtier then laughed, and said that pistols which had a needle run down the nipple did not generally explode—by which Black Bill saw that his pistol had been ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... we shut out the wind from the side, all but enough to create a draft; and the paper must have been smoldering. Now, just look at our perfectly good seat turned into a beach fire! We had better rescue our socks. Maybe those sticks will explode under them, ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... in a single plea for the poor, little Lucy, dancing so gayly over the mine just ready to explode. She was purely selfish still, with all her qualms of conscience, and thought only of Anna, whom she would make happy at another's sacrifice. So she never hinted that it was possible for Arthur to keep his word pledged to Lucy Harcourt, and, as she finished her letter and placed it ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... fancy, the ebbs and the flows, And the beauty and wit of their belles and their beaux. But the world has spun round like a peg top since then, And imparted more knowledge to brutes and to men; New lights and perceptions old customs explode, And what is done now, must be done a-la-mode. Old fashions are fled, and what more can we say Than that Dorset and Roscoe might do for that day, But that Poets must deck in more dignified rhymes The wonderful deeds ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... saying that they were going to leave the place sooner than they had intended, and spelling it right. She gave the same account of the seals, and nothing ever seemed to disconcert her. My boys were so much excited about their 'own Miss Williams,' that I was quite afraid they would explode into ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there waiting for them and looked at Many Eyes critically, but they forebore to laugh at her. Sahwah felt as though she would explode if they made fun of her. But they made no disparaging remarks, although they both felt dubious about the flying qualities of a kite in the shape of a Primitive Woman. However, they were game and promised to shout for ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... war-horse made suddenly mad by smoke of battle, throwing caution and strategy to the winds, suddenly released a yell and began to lay about him. His appearance in the fray was like that of a bombshell timed to explode in its midst. The slugging gamblers turned in astonishment on the new fighting man, but they were not long left in doubt as to which cause he espoused. In the next instant they were actively dodging his flashing club, and the ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... most part she kept out of their way those first days. Max noticed it, and warned Wally that she was probably cooking up some mischief to explode on them. ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... "Don't explode, Simmy," she cried. "I wasn't intimating a thing. I was positively asserting it. But go on, please. You interest me. Don't try to look injured, Simmy. You can't manage it ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... in this performance made it actually painful since the feeling could not be expressed—since we knew that our father knew that we were only too liable to explode in the presence of an honoured guest, and nothing vexed him more. While in the room we dared not change glances or even smile; but after seeing and hearing the wonderful laugh a few times we would steal off and going to some quiet spot sit in a circle and start ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... fully ripe, by removing the seeds. It is of a horn-color, about three and a half inches wide and two high, and looks like a little striped melon. The ripe fruit, on taking out one of the twelve woody cells which compose it, will explode with a noise like a pistol, each cell giving a double report. This sometimes takes place while the fruit is hanging on the tree, and sometimes when it stands upon the table filled with sand. To prevent this, it is prettily hooped with gold, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... ammunition store blows up, or a railway station bursts into flames, or a train is swept off the rails and the lines cut, an airman can see enough to know he has succeeded. But if the bombs fall on something that does not explode or catch fire, it is almost impossible to note exactly what has been hit. Even a fire is hard to locate while one is running away from Archie and ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... said Mrs. Guthrie quietly. She rose from the bench on which she had been sitting, and drew up the chair opposite to Anna. "There were certainly bombs found in your room. It is a mercy they did not explode; if they had done, we should all ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... for it! The Protestants saw with consternation the Spaniards establishing themselves upon the Lower Rhine; with still greater anxiety did the Roman Catholics see the Hollanders bursting through the frontiers of the empire. It was in the west that the mine was expected to explode which had long been dug under the whole of Germany. To the west, apprehension and anxiety turned; but the spark which kindled the flame came unexpectedly ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... German militarism which the Sergeant was reproducing to the full, a sample of the preciseness of the Teuton. Keeping this elderly guard at attention till the poor fellow looked as though he would explode, he groped in the pocket in the tail of his tunic, and, producing a notebook, proceeded to extricate from it a sheet of paper on which were some typewritten lines; and then in a ponderous and somewhat menacing voice he read the orders—orders which set forth exactly and ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... sick with anger and disgust over the whole situation, at what appeared to be the loss of the popular faith in himself, and the ridicule and abuse which had filled the columns of Freneau's paper that morning, that it was a relief to him to hear Hamilton explode. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... an instant the clever, witty, canny woman in Madame Le Mois looked upon her son's renouncing the world of Paris, and holding to the glories of Dives and their famous inn in the light of a sacrifice? "Parbleu!" she would explode, when the subject was touched on, "it was a lucky thing for him that Paul had had an old mother to keep him from burning his fingers. Paris! What did the provinces want with Paris? Paris had need enough of them, the great, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... me, Hobbs, there's a good fellow. Tell the guards I wouldn't obey. That will let you out, my boy, and I'll do the rest. For Heaven's sake, Hobbs, don't burst! You'll explode sure if you hold in like that much longer. I'll be ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... their comrades, hurled themselves upon the palisades, attempting to tear them up. The supreme moment of the struggle has come; Dollard is aware of it. While his brothers in arms make frightful gaps in the ranks of the savages by well-directed shots, he loads with grape shot a musket which is to explode as it falls, and hurls it with all his might. Unhappily, the branch of a tree stays the passage of the terrible engine of destruction, which falls back upon the French and makes a bloody gap among them. "Surrender!" cries La Mouche to Anahotaha. "I have given my word to the French, I shall ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... barrage came down. It was like the Yellowstone Park when all the geysers are angry at the same time. Roofs, beams, chips of stone commenced to fly in every direction. In the middle of the hubbub a small dump of bombs was struck by a shell and started to explode behind me. The blast of the explosion caught me up and hurled me down fifteen stairs of the dug-out I had been trying to discover. I landed on all fours in a place full of darkness; a door banged behind me. I don't know how long I lay there. Something was squirming ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... professing Christians the duty of trine immersion and of anointing the sick; he had to prepare them for the Millennium, which, according to his calculations when he wrote his Memoirs, was to take place in twenty years from that time. But his great mission of all was to propagate Eusebianism and to explode the erroneous notions about the Trinity which were then unhappily current in the Church. His favourite theory on this subject may be found in almost all his works; but he propounded it in extenso in a work which he entitled 'Primitive Christianity revived.' Whiston vehemently repudiated the ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... through the night and vanished, and the spirit of all those watching batteries rose to a tense expectation. The Martians had but to advance into the line of fire, and instantly those motionless black forms of men, those guns glittering so darkly in the early night, would explode into ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... origin, and his heart misgave him, for he knew that such islands, created suddenly by a submarine upheaval, might just as suddenly be destroyed by an earthquake, or by sinking into the ocean. It was not a pleasant thought—it was like living over a mine, that might explode at any moment. But there was no help ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... punch, you would have fermented like a brewer's vat before you reached the end of the journey; and if you had not a boll imperial measure of carbonate of soda with you, the chances are you would explode like a catamaran, your head flying through some old woman's window, and capsizing her teapot on the one hand, while on the other your four quarters are scattered north, south, east, and west. But Gaudeamus, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... the cushion across the room and placed it, not where it had been hidden by the deer-hide, but in colorful prominence against the back of the chair. Long after he had crossed with Steve and Garry to their tents he continued to explode ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... he tied a sthring arround his finger f'r to remind him that he had to kill Ludwig. 'What have ye again' th' king?' says I. 'He is an opprissor iv th' poor,' he says. 'So ar-re ye,' I says, 'or ye'd mend boots free.' 'He's explodin' th' prolotoorio,' he says. 'Sure,' says I, 'th' prolotoorio can explode thimsilves pretty well,' says I. 'He oughtn't to be allowed to live in luxury while others starve,' he says. 'An' wud ye be killin' a man f'r holdin' a nice job?' says I. 'What good wud it do ye?' says I. 'I'd be th' emancipator iv th' people,' says he. 'Ye'd have th' wurred on ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... sanctimonious devotions of the adepts, may be accepted as the mark of the higher and highest grades. If a single member, for once only, were to achieve a success with an opera, it is more than probable that the entire "school" would explode. But, somehow, no such success has hitherto been achieved, and this keeps the school together; for, every attempt that happens to fail, can be made to appear as a conscious effort of abstinence, in the sense of the ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... air-cruise over Belgium. The airship took a conspicuous part in the attack on Liege, and was able to intervene in a markedly successful manner. Our first bomb was dropped from a height of 1,800 feet, but failed to explode. The ship then sank to 900 feet above the city, and a non-commissioned officer dropped twelve more bombs, all of which exploded, setting the city ablaze in ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... they should find themselves at the pole and still shut in by ice. They did not wish to get out into the open air at the point where they found themselves; and, moreover, it would not have been safe to explode their great bombs in such shallow water. A consultation was held, and it was agreed that the best thing to do was to diverge from the course they had steadily maintained, and try to find a deeper channel leading to the north. Accordingly they ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... if he could, and so did I for that matter. Well, the long and short of it was that we were both regularly engaged and had made all kinds of plans to be married at Christmas and go over to Tasmania or New Zealand, when this terrible blow fell upon us like a shell. I did see one explode at a review in Melbourne—and, my word! ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... woods. I did not at once learn that this first shot killed two of the Maine men, and wounded two more. This was fired wide, but the numerous shots which followed were admirably aimed, and seldom failed to fall or explode close to our ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... as the embleme of Justice ever minding his father of his bloody death and sufferings, to the effect that he take vengeance for it even on thess that crucifies him afresh. The mother he brought on the stage as the embleme of mercy, crying imperiously, jure matris, I inhibite your justice, I explode your rigor, I discharge your severity. Let mercy alone triumph. Surely if this be not blasphemy I know not whats blasphemie. To make Christ only Justice fights diamettrally[129] wt the Aposle John, ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... and gave them cigars and vodka, and they weren't long in forgetting about what had happened. I think there is no doubt about your being the cause of having the mines raised, as, to my certain knowledge, they tried to explode them the day after you left the port, and very few of them went off. Things were kept a bit quiet, but I can always get to know what is going on, and if the gunboats had been properly handled that night it would have been all ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... a good aim, Coxen pulled the trigger. The cap refused to explode. Angrily he lowered the gun, removed the cap and examined it. It looked all right, and there was plenty of priming in the tube. He turned the cap round, ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... What a fool you are, my simple king! You've got the things end foremost. Turn your head to the open air, for I go to light a cigarette, and if you breathe this way, there will be a grand explode." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... fallen violently forward, and at the same moment felt his revolver leap from his breast pocket like a living thing, and an instant after explode upon the rock where it struck, blindingly illuminating the declivity down which he was plunging. The sulphurous sting of burning powder was in his eyes and nose, yet in that swift revealing flash he had time to clutch ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... being the famous moonlighter his fancy had conjured up, and it is barely possible that he was disappointed at not having seen some more savage looking party, for he had speculated considerably about these people who explode ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... down-breaking, disruptive, chemical processes that go on in their respective bodies, the ratio for the plant would be much greater than the corresponding ratio for the animal. In other words, animals take the munitions which plants laboriously manufacture and explode them in locomotion and work; and the entire system of animate nature depends upon the photosynthesis that goes ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... is infatuated; he is absolutely bereaved of judgment by a perfidious, ungrateful, and cruel wretch. Let me vent my indignation to you, dear Margaret, or it will explode, perhaps, when it may do Leonora ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... enough, the hot soldier begins to explode. His pride is touched; he has not been received with due deference. If the prophet would have come out and chanted incantations over him, and made mystical motions of his hands above the shining patches of his leprous skin, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Besides, though he is to be a Lothario (in so far as we can manage it) he is not at present aware of this, and has made none of the necessary arrangements; if one of his lamps is knocked over it will certainly explode; and there cannot be a secret door without its leading into the adjoining house. (Theatres keep special kinds of architects to design their rooms.) There is indeed a little cupboard where his crockery is kept, and if Amy is ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... obvious that it was the one we would have taken up. Three of the gunners have already been badly hit; immediately after, with a terrific crash, a shell hits an ammunition-waggon fair. Those around hold their breath for a still greater explosion, but, wonderful to say, the ammunition does not explode. When the dust has cleared, however, the wheel of the waggon is found smashed to matchwood, and the vehicle lies helpless and useless on its side. But still steady as rocks sit the drivers facing the music. This is courage—the ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... now each volley of their shells came closer and closer. At this time my attention was attracted to the second piece, a few paces to our left, and I saw a shell plow into the ground under Lieutenant Brown's feet and explode. It tore a large hole, into which Brown sank, enveloped as he fell in smoke and dust. In an instant another shell burst at the trail of my gun, tearing the front half of Tom Williamson's shoe off, and wounding him sorely. A piece of it also broke James Ford's ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... the smallest data, unless by taking the thing for granted, or supposing that the present state of things is that former shape after which we inquire. Now, this is a species of reasoning that M. de Luc would certainly explode; for he admits, as we shall afterwards find, great changes among the mountains of the Alps, from the influences of the atmosphere, perhaps more rapid changes than we are disposed to allow. Therefore, to call in the aid of the ocean, for the degradation ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... knew that dried alum and sugar suitably mixed would burst into flame if exposed to the air; that nitric acid and oil of turpentine would take fire if mixed; that flint struck by steel would start fire enough to explode a powder magazine; and that Elijah called down from heaven a kind of fire that burned twelve "barrels" of water as easily as ordinary water puts out ordinary fire. But he had none of these ways of lighting his candle at ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... a certain property. When sulphur, charcoal, and nitre are put together in certain proportions and in a certain manner, the effect is, not an explosion, but that the mixture acquires a property by which, in given circumstances, it will explode. The various causes, natural and artificial, which educate the human body or the human mind, have for their principal effect, not to make the body or mind immediately do any thing, but to endow it with certain properties—in other words, to give assurance that ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... explained how a machine could be constructed to work with gunpowder as fuel. His arrangement was to explode the gunpowder in a closed vessel provided with valves, and cool the products of combustion, and so cause a partial vacuum to be formed. By the aid of such a machine, water could be raised. This inventor, however, does not seem to ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... souls out of an ink-bottle, but I ought to pardon a nihilist, that in the dead of night, cold with terror, confides some awful appointment he has had made him, to his nearest friend. I am the worst nihilist that ever existed, and the bomb I am throwing may explode and destroy the human race. But, on the other hand, the explosion might be of another kind. Suppose that suddenly a real woman's entire nature should be revealed to the world, might not the universe be enveloped in a rose glory and a love symphony? ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... water wheel Whistler had seen at the foot of the dam had probably furnished power for some machine that had been fixed on the face of the dam with a charge of dynamite. This invention had been rigged to explode the dynamite after a certain length of time—time enough, without doubt, to enable the inventor to get well away from the ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... above, and just beside the valley in which were the picnickers. The men about the post were summoned, burros were loaded, and at 2 P.M. the whole rain-making force was far up the foothills unloading and preparing to fly gigantic kites and explode in the upper vaults of the atmosphere bombs and rockets and all sorts of things to make ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... Anthony and me. And we blew such beautiful ones to-day, and they'll explode and then we'll blow more and more, I guess—bubbles just as big and just as beautiful, until all the soap ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... they were my real brothers. And there I was trying to be, only she didn't understand. Then, another day, not long before, I coaxed some big boys who have a naphtha-launch to give the 'Balls a sail on it down the bay. The thing happened to explode, and, though nobody was hurt, she went on just terrible because I'd taken the children without asking her. How could I ask her when she was off shopping, or somewhere, just at the very moment the idea popped into my head? And nothing befell the little ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... for half a minute, each, I have no doubt, controlling an impulse to explode. Relations between the colonies and England resembled an open powder-keg. With a bow that might indicate he desired to avoid a dangerous subject the governor shifted the conversation ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... but I knew not what had caused them to go off in such a hurry. I found out afterwards. Your conjecture was right. They had thrown one of the bombs into the fire, and the fuse catching, had caused it to explode, killing several of their number. As they believed it to be the hand of the Great Spirit, they had hastily gathered up such plunder as was most desirable to them, and ridden away from the spot. I did not know this at the time, and I lay still in my cave. For several hours all was silence; but, as ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... they are together. Twins who were unlike at birth ought to resemble each other more closely at 14 than they did at 9, since they have been for five additional years subjected to this supposedly potent but very mystical "molding force." Here again Professor Thorndike's exact measurements explode the fallacy. They are actually, measurably, less alike at the older age; their inborn natures are developing along predestined lines, with little regard to the identity of their surroundings. Heredity accounts easily for these facts, but they cannot be squared ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... Christopher had a violent headache, and complained to Ucatella. She told Phoebe, and they bound his brows with a wet handkerchief, and advised him to keep in-doors. He sat down in the coolest part of the house, and held his head with his hands, for it seemed as if it would explode into ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... three policemen constantly at Edenburn for Mr. Hussey's protection, but that a number of dogs were also kept on the premises, and it is, therefore, astonishing the care and caution which must have been resorted to in order to successfully lay and explode the destructive material. Some idea of the force of the explosion as well as the stability of the building which resisted it in a measure, may be gathered from the fact that it was distinctly heard in the town of Castleisland four miles away. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... expressed throughout in marble, will excite admiration in all who are capable of appreciating this aspect of the statuary's art. Michelangelo produced nothing more finished in execution, if we except the Pieta at S. Peter's. His Bacchus alone is sufficient to explode a theory favoured by some critics, that, left to work unhindered, he would still have preferred a certain vagueness, a certain want of polish ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... either, for that matter," Emmet remarked simply. "A politician is like a barkeeper; he can do his business better if he lets drink alone. As for cigars, try one of mine. They 're part of my stock in trade. I guess this one won't explode and set fire to ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... did not treat him properly and give him the right to get out into the air, after he had done his work, Stoom would explode, blow up and destroy everything. He could be made to sing, hiss, squeal, whistle, and make all kinds of sounds, but, unless the bands that held him in were strong enough, or if Vuur got too hot, or his mother would not give him drink enough, when the iron ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... mouse—and a still-born one at that. Beecher had not told on them; Beecher malignantly persisted in not telling on them. The opportunity was slipping away. Alas, for the humiliation of it, they had to come out and tell it themselves! And after all, their bombshell did not hurt anybody when they did explode it. They had ceased to be responsible to God for Beecher, and yet nobody seemed paralyzed about it. Somehow, it was not even of sufficient importance, apparently, to get into the papers, though ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Hydrogen mixed with Atmospheric air, in the proportion of two to five, will explode; but he does not mean to exhibit this peculiarity of Hydrogen. He shows us how the lime-light is obtained, and requests that the room may be darkened. Milburd and Layder, turn down the ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... "That's the thing you smash cars and explode ammunition with, eh? Do you think it ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... ammunition dump, and report after report rent the air as first one shell and then another would burst and go up in flame. It was fourteen hours going off and the military officer ordered the girls to their billets until it should be over. It was like this: First a couple of shells would explode, then there would be a second's quiet and a keg of powder would flare; then some boxes of ammunition would go off; then some more shells. It was a terrible pandemonium of sound. Thirty miles away in Gondrecourt they saw the fire and ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... that had filled the interval since we last met, and he told me something of his travels. He talked and I listened. But, so full was I of the horrid thing I had to tell that I made a poor listener. I was forever watching my opportunity to leap in and explode it ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... Seeing that he was getting angry and was like to explode, Esperance cried out, "Wait, godfather, you must let me try to convince my parents. Suppose, father, that I had chosen the same career as Maurice. What different armour ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... clearing out of its racing whirl, and became conscious of Joan's hand grasping his. Behind them the ammunition in the burning wagon began to explode, and Joan, shuddering as with cold, covered her white face with her ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... the door of the hall, the petard was heard to explode, and he saw that it had succeeded; for the soldiers rushed, brandishing their swords and pistols, in at the postern of the turret, whose gate had been successfully forced. A thrill of exultation, but not unmingled with horror shot across the veins ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... for the benefit of sufferers from a fire—somewhere or other. In our day multitudes of people fall victims to all kinds of dreadful disasters, explosions of boilers, explosions of fire-damp, of everything that can explode, for the agents of destruction seem to be in a state of unnatural excitement as well as human beings. Never before, perhaps, have inanimate things seemed so much in accordance with the spirit of the times. Fred found a superb placard, the work ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... with steady, alert eyes. He knew he stood on the edge of a volcano that might explode ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... called Prince Rupert's drops, explode when a small part of their tails are broken off, more suddenly indeed, but probably from the same cause. Are the internal particles of these elastic bodies kept so far from each other by the external crust that they are nearly in a state of repulsion into which state they ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... of evil is again envious of the spirit of right, so that the two do not harmonize. Just like wind, water, thunder and lightning, which, when they meet in the bowels of the earth, must necessarily, as they are both to dissolve and are likewise unable to yield, clash and explode to the end that they may at length exhaust themselves. Hence it is that these spirits have also forcibly to diffuse themselves into the human race to find an outlet, so that they may then completely disperse, with the result that men and women are suddenly imbued with these spirits ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... a most pious man, notwithstanding all the foul aspersions that have been, or will be cast upon him (not only by malignant prelates, but even by the high fliers, or more corrupted part of the presbyterian persuasion) namely, on account of his firing at bishop Sharp; which, they think, is enough to explode, affront or bespatter all the faithful contendings of the true reformed and covenanted church of Scotland. But in this Mr. Mitchel stands in need of little or no vindication; for by this time the reader may perceive, that he looked upon himself as in a state of war, and that, as Sharp was doubtless ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... handling the rudder so as to turn her across the stream. Her length was sufficient to close up completely the deeper channel. He would stop the engines, let fall the anchor, open the traps made for the sea-water to flow in, and explode the torpedoes. Ten of these lay on the port side of the ship, each containing eighty-two pounds of powder, and they were connected so that they could be fired in train. There were two men below, one to reverse the engines, the other to break open the sea-traps with a sledge hammer. Those on ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... breech-loading gun, carried at the requisite depth below the water level in a torpedo boat. This gun, having a feeble charge of powder at a low gravimetric density, fires the torpedo, and, it is said, succeeds in sending it many yards, and with a sufficient terminal velocity to explode the charge by impact. Also, in the United States, experiments have been made with a compressed air gun of 40 feet in length and 4 inches in diameter (probably by this time replaced by a gun of 8 inches in diameter), to propel a dart through the air, in the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... one time supposed to combine an enormous explosive power with perfect safety in carriage, as the detonating shells were proof against the blow of a hammer, and would only explode upon impact through the extreme velocity of their discharge from a rifle-barrel. These were useless against an elephant, as they had no power of penetration, and the shell destroyed itself by bursting upon the hard skin. I tried these shells against trees, but although the bark ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... that the long display of enmity to Spain was genuine, that the death of Coligny had been decided at the last moment, and that the rest was not the effect of design.[88] This opinion found friends at first in Spain. The General of the Franciscans undertook to explode it. He assured Philip that he had seen the King and the Queen-mother two years before, and had found them already so intent on the massacre that he wondered how anybody could have the courage to detract from their merit by denying it.[89] This ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... Fort Hudson, Fort Pulaski, Fort Moultrie, Fort Sumter, Gibraltar, Sebastopol were taken. But Jesus is a castle into which the righteous runneth and is safe. No battering-ram can demolish its wall. No sappers or miners can explode its ramparts, no storm-bolt of perdition leap upon its towers. The weapons that guard this fort are omnipotent. Hell shall unlimber its great guns as death only to have them dismantled. In Christ our sins are pardoned, discomforted, blotted out, forgiven. An ocean ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... powder, which could be set off by percussion. It was the plan to drop these down from the airship, into the midst of the savages. When the bomb struck the ground, or even on the bodies of the red dwarfs, it would explode. It was hoped that these would so dismay the little men that they would desert the village, and leave the way clear for a search to be made ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... little greenhorn, see if that will teach you better than to explode your infernal fire-crackers in my ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... advances there seems imminent danger that the fat little body will explode from curiosity and excitement. But suddenly the "dog" collapses in the strangest way and the marmot raises on the very tips of his toes to see what it is all about. Then there is a roar, a flash of fire and another skin is added to the millions ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... wonderfully to the good graces of the ladies, by letting them into all the gallantries, amours, debaucheries, and other topics of scandal of the court of Flora, has fallen upon a theory worthy of his combustible imagination. According to his opinion, the huge mass of chaos took a sudden occasion to explode, like a barrel of gunpowder, and in that act exploded the sun—which, in its flight, by a similar convulsion, exploded the earth, which in like guise exploded the moon—and thus, by a concatenation of explosions, the whole solar system ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... absolutely nothing. We are winning, and can afford to be generous. The Cardinal stands on the edge of a mine which will shortly explode. De Retz and your cousin Henri have made things certain this time; there ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... a direct attack again," replied the lieutenant. "Look out for a flank attack or from some new weapon. I don't like the way those bombs failed to explode the other day." ...
— The Solar Magnet • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... pleasant surprise," said the little boy to himself. "He's a sneak, and I suspect he was doing something sneaky. I've a great mind to tell Seabrooke to look in his trunk before he locks it. Perhaps he has put in something to explode or do some harm to the things in ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... time I discovered that there were certain compensating advantages in a slightly-built craft, as compared with one more substantial: the missiles never lodged in the vessel, but crashed through some thin partition as if it were paper, to explode beyond us, or fall harmless in the water. Splintering, the chief source of wounds and death in wooden ships, was thus entirely avoided; the danger was, that our machinery might be disabled, or that shots might strike below ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... prices, that should continue too. And that ought to make the Congress and the president feel better. Our goal is health insurance everybody can depend on—comprehensive benefits that cover preventive care and prescription drugs, health premiums that don't just explode when you get sick or you get older, the power—no matter how small your business is —to choose dependable insurance at the same competitive rates that governments and big business get today, one simple form for people who are sick, and most of all, the freedom to choose a plan and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... way," said Gazen to me, "I've got a new theory for the rising and sinking of the sun behind the cliffs at Womla—a theory that will simply explode Professor Possil, and shake the Royal Astronomical ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... the landing, where his command stood at arms all night. At eleven o'clock a heavy rain began to pour. All the National troops and most of the Confederate lay on the ground without shelter. The gunboats every fifteen minutes through the night fired a shell over the woods, to explode far inland and ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... between you and me, as Jeffrey might not like such a project: nor, indeed, might he himself like it. But I do think he only wants a pioneer and a spark or two to explode most gloriously." ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... of vexation run through him. He was ready to explode, but succeeded in showing a good exterior and said jokingly: "Suppose she came ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel |
