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Moisture   Listen
noun
Moisture  n.  
1.
A moderate degree of wetness.
2.
That which moistens or makes damp or wet; exuding fluid; liquid in small quantity. "All my body's moisture Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heat."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Moisture" Quotes from Famous Books



... Specimens that have got leggy may be cut back just before growth commences. The lowest temperature for them during the winter is about 35deg, and during their season of growth from 55deg to 65deg at night, and 75deg by day, the atmosphere being at the same time well charged with moisture. They are liable to the attacks of thrips and red spider, which do great mischief if not ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... eruption and efflorescence, the patient should spend the greater part of his time in the wet-sheet, which not only relieves the general symptoms, but especially the inflammation of the skin, and makes the poison less virulent, by constantly absorbing part of it, and by communicating part of its moisture to ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde

... last, stooped, and picked up a package which he tossed out on the gravel. There was a suspicious moisture in his eyes. ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... observed Roland with a suspicious moisture in his fine eyes, "it was the luckiest hour of my life when I ran across this bunch of royal good fellows. Why, only for you I'd as like as not have been ruined; because alone and single-handed I never could have stood out against ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie

... absence of iron, on which so great a theory of the stone, bronze, and iron ages as successive developments of civilization has been raised, is easily accounted for by the perishable nature of iron when exposed to moisture. But that this Celtic race used iron also, as well as bronze and stone, is proved incontestably by the discovery, in 1863, of the slag of their iron furnaces, among a number of flint weapons, and Celtic skulls, at Linhope, in Northumberland; the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... prettier too than I thought, the mountains and rocks are so peaked and pointed, and although the general effect is one of barrenness, still, if you look closely, every crack and crevice is full of something green. The soil, being of volcanic origin, is readily fertilised by moisture, and at once produces some kind of vegetation. This adds of course greatly to the effect of colour, which in the rocks themselves is extremely beautiful, especially at sunrise and sunset. The sea, too, is delightfully ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... turned and surveyed him with eyes brighter for their moisture. She then extended her hand to him, with a quick movement, and as he bent over it, with a grace taught to him by genuine emotion, she said, "And if you do, then, girl and child as I am, I shall think I have aided a brave heart in the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... its account of the Birth of the Gods will be found to correspond accurately with the summary from Berossus, who, in explaining the myth, refers to the Babylonian belief that the universe consisted at first of moisture in which living creatures, such as he had already described, were generated.(1) The primaeval waters are originally the source of life, not of destruction, and it is in them that the gods are born, as in Egyptian ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King

... was covered with an agreeable intermixture of grass and trees, and better adapted for cattle than any I have seen in so low a latitude. The soil, though not deep, would produce most things suited to the climate; for the heat and moisture do so much for vegetation, that very little earth seems necessary to its support. On the south side the trees are mostly different species of eucalyptus, growing tall and straight, though not large; whereas ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... other in the smoke of the fire. As the vervain dries up in the smoke, so the tumour will also dry up and disappear. If the patient should afterwards prove ungrateful to the good physician, the man of skill can avenge himself very easily by throwing the vervain into water; for as the root absorbs the moisture once more, the tumour will return. The same sapient writer recommends you, if you are troubled with pimples, to watch for a falling star, and then instantly, while the star is still shooting from the sky, to wipe ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... he thrust the blade of his stone knife, and as it became superheated he would withdraw it, touching a spot near the thin edge with a drop of moisture. Beneath the wetted area a little flake of the glassy material would crack and ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... of the dingle. Large drops of water, however, falling now and then upon the tent from the neighbouring trees, would have served, could we have forgotten it, to remind us of the recent storm, and also a certain chilliness in the atmosphere, unusual to the season, proceeding from the moisture with which the ground was saturated; yet these circumstances only served to make our party enjoy the charcoal fire the more. There we sat bending over it: Belle, with her long beautiful hair streaming over her magnificent shoulders; the postillion smoking his pipe, in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow

... for there is no partition. You may hear groans or other sounds of unendurable suffering from two or three of the cots, but in the main there is quiet—almost a painful absence of demonstration; but the pallid face, the dull'd eye, and the moisture of the lip, are demonstration enough. Most of these sick or hurt are evidently young fellows from the country, farmers' sons, and such like. Look at the fine large frames, the bright and broad countenances, and the many yet lingering proofs of strong constitution and physique. Look at the patient ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... man would have taken down the two bottles in question, and have examined the mouths of them for traces of moisture. Mr. Farmiloe, a victim of destiny, could do nothing so reasonable. Heedless of the fact that his shop remained unguarded, he seized his hat and rushed after the errand-boy. If he could only have a sniff at the mixture it would either confirm his fear or set his mind ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... cold rainy morning; the wind raged; and the very indifferent soles of Herbert's boots absorbed moisture like blotting-paper. Everything was against him. There was not a gleam of hope in the future, not a ray of light. His companions were surly, the manager was venomous, the bitter rain fell on. He was in debt and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various

... plastered and colored with some kind of blue wash, which, however, was so nearly obliterated with dirt and the damp of a southern climate, as to leave but little to show what its original color was. The walls were covered with the condensed moisture of the atmosphere, spiders hung their festooned network overhead, and cockroaches and ants, those domesticated pests of South Carolina, were running about the floor in swarms, and holding all legal ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... the place where I stood a few hours ago; yet one can feel that he is already in a dryer and altogether different climate. The great masses of clouds, travelling inward from the coast with their burdens of moisture, like messengers of peace with presents to a far country, being unable to surmount the great mountain barrier that towers skyward across their path, unload their precious cargoes on the mountains; and the parched plains of Nevada open their thirsty ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... in a deep or navigable water. True the whole of the drainage from Flinders range, as far as was yet known, emptied into its basin, but such was the arid and sandy nature of the region through which it passed, that a great part of the moisture was absorbed, whilst the low level of the basin of the lake, apparently the same as that of the sea itself, forbade even the most distant hope of the water being fresh, should any ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... noxious gases. Therefore, the air is less pure in the presence of candles, gas or coal fire, than otherwise, and the deterioration should be repaired by increased ventilation. The skin is a highly-organized membrane, full of minute pores, cells, blood-vessels, and nerves; it imbibes moisture or throws it off according to the state of the atmosphere or the temperature of the body. It also "breathes," like the lungs (though less actively). All the internal organs sympathize with the skin. Therefore, it ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... that phosphorus is changed by combustion into an extremely light, white, flakey matter; and its properties are entirely altered by this transformation: From being insoluble in water, it becomes not only soluble, but so greedy of moisture, as to attract the humidity of the air with astonishing rapidity; by this means it is converted into a liquid, considerably more dense, and of more specific gravity than water. In the state of phosphorus before combustion, it had scarcely any sensible taste, by its union with oxygen ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier

... another. The germ of the oak is in the acorn, but the acorn left to itself alone can never grow into the oak, any more than a body at rest can place itself in motion. Lay the acorn away in your closet, where it is absolutely deprived of air, heat, and moisture, and in vain will you watch for its germination. Germinate it cannot without some external influence, or communion, so to speak, with the elements from which it derives its sustenance ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... shaken up by his precipitation into this retreat, unheeding the creeping creatures under his feet, which made a furious rush to and fro, Jack groped his way further and further into the gloomy place. The damp, sweaty walls covering him with a slimy moisture. Now and then some of the loosened earth would fall upon him, adding to the uncanny ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood

... vain hope of seeing some signs of water. Now the great salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of savage mountains, without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which might indicate the presence of moisture. In all that broad landscape there was no gleam of hope. North, and east, and west he looked with wild questioning eyes, and then he realised that his wanderings had come to an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he was about to die. "Why not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle

... on in silence. The sweat stood out on their skin in myriads of tiny drops that ran together, forming blotches of moisture, which, in turn, coalesced into rivulets that dripped to the ground. They panted for breath, the old man's efforts being especially painful. A sea swept up the beach, licking around the trunks of the cocoanuts and subsiding almost at ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... on by himself, just in the rear of Miss Tresilyan and her clerical escort. He presented, in truth, a striking contrast to that over-tasked pedestrian—going easily, within himself, without a quickened breath, or a bead of moisture on his forehead. Shikari of the Upper Himalayas, gillies of Perthshire and the Western Highlands, chamois-hunters of the Tyrol, and guides of Chamounix or Courmayeur, could all have told tales of that long, slashing stride, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... right hand flying to his breast. There was a sudden pain there; such a pain as he had never experienced before. It was near his heart. With each heartbeat there came a twisting stab of agony. Presently the spasm passed, and he sank back, pale, shaking, his forehead damp with clammy moisture.... He tried to pull himself together. Perhaps it would be best to summon some one, but he did not want to do that. To have an employee find him so would be an invasion of his dignity. Nobody must see him. Nobody must ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... describe it? The polished marble floor, the dressers with glass doors like a bookcase, to keep the least particle of dust from the bright-polished utensils of brass and copper. The varnished mahogany handle of the brass spigot, lest the moisture of the hand in turning it should soil its polish, and, will you believe it, the very pothooks as well as the cranes (for there were two), in the fireplace were as ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... chastening power of that belief, transformed into the cheerful minister and willing slave of the weaklings whom he gathered into his home, and around whom the tendrils of his heart had entwined themselves, waxing closer and stronger in the moisture of his never-failing charity; because Henry Havelock, a man of the sword, whose duties have never been too propitious to the cultivation and fostering of the gentler virtues, lived and died a blameless hero, constrained by that faith to be one of its most illustrious exemplars; ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... the bean, "don't you know what growing means? I thought every thing knew how to grow. You see, when I grow, my root goes down into the soil to get moisture, and my stem goes up into the light to find heat. Heat and moisture are my food ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... bid a last farewell to his father. It had been a sad, weary, tear-laden performance,—the writing of that letter. She had resolved that no sign of a tear should be on the paper, and she had rubbed the moisture away from her eyes a dozen times during the work lest it should fall. There was but little of intended pathos in it; there were no expressions of love till she told him at the end that she would always love him dearly; there was no repining,—no ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... lovely of you!" Dolly cried. "Now, I sha'n't even want the others to handle them. I'm awfully selfish with what is really my own. Oh, you are too good!" Her richly mellow voice was full of genuine feeling, and a grateful moisture glistened in her shadowy eyes. Saunders heard, saw, and averted his ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... water, but the old Sault-au-Matelot still crouches and creeps along under the shelter of the city wall and the overhanging rock, which is thickly bearded with weeds and grass, and trickles with abundant moisture. It must be an ice pit in winter, and I should think it the last spot on the continent for the summer to find; but when the summer has at last found it, the old Sault-au-Matelot puts on a vagabond air of southern leisure and abandon, not to be matched ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... your mother forbid you that blessed comfort and relief, my Emmeline? Could you indeed accuse me of such cruelty?" replied Mrs. Hamilton, bending over her as she spoke, and removing from those flushed temples the hair which hung heavy with moisture upon them, and as she did so Emmeline felt the tears of her mother fall thick and fast on her own scorching brow. She started from her knees, gazed wildly and doubtingly upon her, and tottering from exhaustion, would have fallen, had ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... great frost continually the trees were splitting with loud, sudden reports. The cold had long since squeezed the last drops of moisture from the atmosphere. It was metallic, clear, hard as ice, brilliant as the stars, compressed with the freezing. The moon, the stars, the earth, the very heavens glistened like polished steel. Frost lay on the ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... rage against the Russians was extreme; and that of the Russians corresponded. Three of these grass-devil battalions, who stood nearest to Dohna's runaways, were natives of this same burnt-out Zorndorf Country; we may fancy the Platt-Teutsch hearts of them, and the sacred lightning, with a moisture to it, that was in their eyes. Platt-Teutsch platooning, bayonet-charging,—on such terms no Russian or mortal Quadrilateral can stand it. The Russian Minotaur goes all to shreds a second time; but will not ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... for my plans of conduct and action. Of all the climates of Europe, England seems to me most fitted for the activity of the mind, and the least suited to repose. The alterations of a climate so various and rapid continually awake new sensations; and the changes in the sky from dryness to moisture, from the blue ethereal to cloudiness and fogs, seem to keep the nervous system in a constant state of disturbance. In the mild climate of Nice, Naples, or Sicily, where even in winter it is possible to enjoy the warmth of the sunshine in the open air, beneath palm trees or amidst ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... Think not, then, of the red flower, exposed to the light and sun in conjunction with the vivid green of the foliage; think only of such a hue in the half-hidden iris, brilliant and moist with the eye's moisture, deep with the eye's depth, glorified by the outward look of a bright, beautiful soul. Most variable of all in colour was the hair, this being due to its extreme fineness and glossiness, and to its elasticity, which made ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... court expresses Arizona, New Mexico, Spain, Algiers,—lands of the Sun. The very flowers of its first gardens were desert blooms, brilliant in hue, on leafless stalks. There are orange trees, but they, also, are trees of the Sun, smooth of leaf, to retain moisture. ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... life, and their respective productions were mingled together. The depths of these forests were gloomy and obscure, and a thousand rivulets, undirected in their course by human industry, preserved in them a constant moisture. It was rare to meet with flowers, wild fruits, or birds beneath their shades. The fall of a tree overthrown by age, the rushing torrent of a cataract, the lowing of the buffalo, and the howling of the wind were the only sounds which broke the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... pounds of this powder, about three pounds of gypsum is added. The mixture is then put into the bags in which we see it for sale in the stores. This powder is so greedy for water that it will absorb the moisture from the air around it. Even in the bags, it begins to harden as soon as it gets some moisture; and as soon as it hardens, it is of no use. The moral of that is to keep your cement ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan

... they pressed on slowly through the dim shadow of great balsams, hemlocks, and Douglas firs, among which there sprang up thickets of tall green fern that were just then dripping with the dew. The stiff fronds brushed the moisture through the rags they wore and wet them to the skin; but they were used to that. It was the fallen trees that troubled them most. These lay in stupendous ruin, with their giant branches stretching far on either side, ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... topics in your book. I fear that you have quite upset the interpretation which I have given of the effects of cutting off the tips of horizontally extended roots, and of those laterally exposed to moisture; but I cannot persuade myself that the horizontal position of lateral branches and roots is due simply to their lessened power of growth. Nor when I think of my experiments with the cotyledons of Phalaris, can I give ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... cry of lamentation for their country that had fallen? Do you remember how, through the fury of men's anger, the storehouses of God were opened for that land? how the very sunshine gathered new splendors, the rains more fruitful moisture, until the earth poured forth an unknown fulness of life and beauty? Was there no promise there, no prophecy? Do you remember, while the very life of the people hung in doubt before them, while the angel of death came again to pass over the land, and there was no blood on any door-post to keep him ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... volume of the American Philosophical Transactions, in a letter from Dr. Franklin to Mr. Nairne, wherein he recommends to him to take up the principle therein explained, and endeavor to make an hygrometer, which, taking slowly the temperature of the atmosphere, shall give its mean degree of moisture, and enable us thus to make with more certainty a comparison between the humidities of different climates. May I presume to trouble you with an inquiry of Mr. Nairne, whether he has executed the Doctor's ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... to say, in regard to its use, that much time is saved and a more perfect action of the pump insured by fusing and boiling the potash as soon as, or even before, the pump settles down. If this course is not followed the sticks, as ordinarily employed, may give moisture off at a certain very slow rate, and the pump may work for many hours without reaching a very high vacuum. The potash was heated either by a spirit lamp or by passing a discharge through it, or by passing a current through a wire contained in ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla

... moistened, becomes of a weak and uncertain consistency, breaking down in unexpected places, retaining impressions but faintly, and preserving no strength or steadiness of character, so Mr Swiveller's clay, having imbibed a considerable quantity of moisture, was in a very loose and slippery state, insomuch that the various ideas impressed upon it were fast losing their distinctive character, and running into each other. It is not uncommon for human clay in this condition to ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... wice, and was so free from temper that a infant might ha' drove him, has been took at last with that 'ere unawoidable fit o' staggers as we all must come to, and gone off his feed for ever! I see him,' said the old gentleman, with a moisture in his eye, which could not be mistaken, - 'I see him gettin', every journey, more and more groggy; I says to Samivel, "My boy! the Grey's a-goin' at the knees;" and now my predilictions is fatally werified, ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens

... of the solemn pines opened to receive them, miners leaned upon their spades, and mechanics stopped in their toil to look after them. The critical eye of Red Dog, perhaps from the sun, perhaps from the fact that it had itself once been young and dissipated, took on a kindly moisture as it gazed. ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... and looked about us, at the same time listening for any sound which might proclaim the presence of the men we had come to meet; but save the sighing of the wind in the shrouds overhead, the dismal creaking of blocks, and the drip of moisture upon the deck, no sign was to be heard. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to make our way below as best we could. Fortunately I had had the forethought to bring with me a small piece of candle, which came in ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby

... little hand in mine, and shaking my head to clear the moisture from my eyes, said I, attempting to ...
— Jemmy Stubbins, or The Nailer Boy - Illustrations Of The Law Of Kindness • Unknown Author

... went out with me; he didn't want me to go anywhere alone. Callahan was holding two sheets up to the light when we went into his lab. He said, "Two identical sheets, except for the moisture content. Moisture is the devil. One of these is dry, the other contains three per cent moisture. Here's the dry one." He tore it in half effortlessly. "Here's the moist one." And he strained at it, ...
— The Professional Approach • Charles Leonard Harness

... detective enough for that," and Tom smiled. "Look here, the doors and windows are open. Now it rained last night, and there was quite a wind. If the windows had been open in the storm there'd be some traces of moisture in the rooms. But there isn't a drop. Consequently the windows have been ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton

... Polybius remarks (l.5,c.80), that Raphia was the first town of Syria, coming from Rhinocolura, which was considered an Egyptian town. Between Raphia and the easternmost inundations of the Nile, the only two places at which there is moisture sufficient to produce a degree of vegetation useful to man, are El Arish and Katieh. The whole tract between these places, except where it has been encroached upon by moving sands, is a plain strongly impregnated with salt, terminatig towards the sea in ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... here. You already have, I think, divined the rest. There's a prophetic moisture in your eyes:—yet, tears being blest And delicate nutrition, apt to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... kindled in new hearts, and new light and new discoveries vouchsafed to mankind. Doubtless, there were weeds, too, growing up together with the splendid wheat; but weeds have their uses, also; shade and moisture depend on their presence, and they will be separated from the wheat at harvest time. But there must be weeds, they are as inseparable from wheat as ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg

... these scattered debris of former life and habitation there was no noisome or unclean suggestion of decay. A faint spiced odor of desiccation filled the bare walls. There was no slime on stone or sun-dried brick. In place of fungus or discolored moisture the dust of efflorescence whitened in the obscured corners. The elements had picked clean the bones of the old and crumbling tenement ere they should finally ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... regain a path that he remembered to have crossed a few minutes before, but under the trees the gloom was too dense for profitable search. Moisture began to collect upon the leaf tips and to drip upon him. The dog did not answer to his whistle. There were no points of the compass; there was no view of the valley below. He was like a ship rudderless. He only knew of a surety that the earth was beneath his feet, and as night drew on, and ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... is taken up into the mass of the absorbing body, with which it may or may not permanently combine. Wood expands when it absorbs moisture, iron when it absorbs heat, the substance remaining perhaps otherwise substantially unchanged; quicklime, when it absorbs water, becomes a new substance with different qualities, hydrated or slaked lime. A substance is consumed which is destructively ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... aid, soldiers! (He draws his sword, and holds it before the lips of the wounded boy.) The blade is crystal clear; no moisture dims the cold and glittering steel! Breath and life already gone! O George, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... coins, but not paper money, because they have been cheated with wrappers from cigarette boxes, and besides, they have no means of keeping such money safe and sound from mice, moisture, etc. Among themselves a little trading goes on, the highlands obtaining from the barrancas in the west copal, chile, ari, ear ornaments made from shells, and goats, in exchange for corn and beans. The Indians from ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... April 1st. I opened my eyes and saw that there was a thaw. That was the first thing of which I was aware—that water was apparently dripping on every side of me. It is a strange sensation to lie on your bed very weak, and very indifferent, and to feel the world turning to moisture all about you.... My ramshackle habitation had never been a very strong defence against the outside world. It seemed now to have definitely decided to abandon the struggle. The water streamed down the panes of my window opposite my bed. One patch of my ceiling ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... spread between the courses, or handfuls of reeds would be strewn at intervals between the brickwork to increase the cohesion: more frequently the crude bricks were piled one upon another, and their natural softness and moisture brought about their rapid agglutination.** As the building proceeded, the weight of the courses served to increase still further the adherence of the layers: the walls soon became consolidated into a compact mass, in which the horizontal strata were distinguishable ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... stairs was another passage, darker and filthier than the one above; the walls were streaming with moisture, and the atmosphere almost unendurable. At that time the traffic in opium was receiving the serious attention of the authorities. Certain scandalous cases of bribery at the Custom House had stirred the ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... medicine-taking easy nowadays. The Egyptian doctor did not know a very great deal about medicine and sickness, but he made up for his ignorance by the nastiness of the doses which he gave to his patients. I don't think you would like to take pills made up of the moisture scraped from pig's ears, lizard's blood, bad meat, and decaying fat, to say nothing of still nastier things. Often the doctor would look very grave, and say, "The child is not ill; he is bewitched"; ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie

... way they arrived at Hook Castle, where the mice told Minecco Aniello to remain under some trees on the brink of a river, which like a leech drew the moisture from the land and discharged it into the sea. Then they went to seek the house of the magicians, and, observing that Jennarone never took the ring from his finger, they sought to gain the victory by ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... still only four o'clock. He did not feel sleepy. The punch was finished and there was still nothing to do. He rose, walked to and fro, put on a warm overcoat and a hat, and went out of the tent. The night was dark and damp, a scarcely perceptible moisture was descending from above. Near by, the campfires were dimly burning among the French Guards, and in the distance those of the Russian line shone through the smoke. The weather was calm, and the rustle and tramp of the French troops already beginning ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... seemed really at this stage of his history to have been alloyed by no human frailty or shortcoming. Mr. Lovel was sympathetic to the last degree—sighed in unison with his visitor, and brushed some stray drops of moisture from his own eyelids when Lady Laura wept. And then he went out to the carriage with my lady, and saw her drive away, with the blinds discreetly ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... first love, it was apparently quite secondary to that evidence of more serious ambition which dated from the family misfortune; indeed, Mr. Gascoigne was inclined to regard the little affair which had caused him so much anxiety the year before as an evaporation of superfluous moisture, a kind of finish to the baking process which the human dough demands. Rex had lately come down for a summer visit to the rectory, bringing Anna home, and while he showed nearly the old liveliness with his brothers and sisters, he continued in his holiday the habits of the eager student, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... Al,' he whispered, 'such remorse you never knew.' And again I tried to soothe him, but my eyes o'erbrimmed with tears; His were dry and clear, as brilliant as they were in college years. All the flush had left his features, he lay white as marble now; Tenderly I smoothed his pillow, wiped the moisture from his brow. Though I begged him to be quiet, he would talk of those old days, Brokenly at times, but always of 'the ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... moisture broke out on his face with that acute nervous strain. A lump rose chokingly in his throat. He stared out at the white-crested seas that came marching up the Gulf before a rising wind until his eyes grew misty. Then he slid down off the log and ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... forty or more feet, for it is nearly a hundred years since the young attorney went to the island and planted the first tree; to-day the churchyard where he lies is a bower of cool green, with the trees that he planted dropping their moisture on the lichen-covered ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... There is the more reason to be thankful for this, because the weather has been very rough, and rain has been falling continually. I had the same weather in the Banks Islands; scarcely a day for weeks without heavy rain. Here the sandy soil soon becomes dry again, it does not retain the moisture, and so far it has the advantage over the very ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... said Sam, "I would tell his bibulous majesty, if he were in the habit of imbibing moisture of a fiery kind, that on one of our long journeys with our dogs I had with me on my sled, for purposes that need not concern his majesty, a bottle of the strongest wine. One day, when no eyes were ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young

... He donned thick gloves, used a special set of tongs, and extracted a tiny block of plastic in which a sealed-tight phial of glass was embedded. It frosted instantly he took it out, and when the storage-box was closed again the block was covered with a thick and opaque coating of frozen moisture. ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster

... and steady spirit in all his undertakings; and, although of a strong and impulsive will, I never knew it misdirected in his required pursuit of study. He was a most orderly scholar. The future ramifications of that noble genius were then closely shut in the seed, and greedily drinking in the moisture which made it afterwards burst forth so kindly into ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... too much for my eager curiosity. We waited two days and still there was no evidence of life below. I knew there had been ample time for the gas from our bombs to have been dissipated, as it was decomposed by contact with moisture. A light was lowered, but this brought ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... the bricks, so with the mortar and the wood employed in building, they are rendered, as far as possible, free of moisture. Sea sand containing salt, and wood that has been saturated with sea water, two common commodities in badly built houses, find no place in ...
— Hygeia, a City of Health • Benjamin Ward Richardson

... of brilliant smoke; the moon, not yet at the full, shone with a steady gleam; its light flooded the blue sky in streams, and fell like a stain of smoky gold upon the thin cloudlets which floated past; the crispness of the air called forth a slight moisture in the eyes, caressingly enveloped all the limbs, poured in an abundant flood into the breast. Lavretzky enjoyed himself, and rejoiced at his enjoyment. "Come, life is still before us," he thought:—"it has not been completely ruined yet by...." He did not finish his sentence, and say who ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... persons, four handsful of the small, pale, mocha berry, little bigger than barley. These had been carefully picked and cleaned. She put them into an iron vessel, where, with admirable quickness and dexterity, they were roasted till their colour was somewhat darkened, and the moisture not exhaled. The over-roasted ones were picked out, and the remainder, while very hot, put into a large wooden mortar, where they were instantly pounded by another woman. This done, Kamalia passed the powder ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various

... government and the people, in James's reign, was the perpetual growth of the metropolis; and the nation, like an hypochondriac, was ludicrously terrified that their head was too monstrous for their body, and drew all the moisture of life from the remoter parts. It is amusing to observe the endless and vain precautions employed to stop all new buildings, and to force persons out of town to reside at their country mansions. Proclamations warned and exhorted, but the very interference of prohibition rendered the crowded town ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... knife-blade, it condenses in the same manner the moisture of the breath, and becomes covered ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring

... and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together, cheek by jowl, and feel each other's breath; but if we speak reservedly and thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, that all animal heat and moisture may have a chance to evaporate. If we would enjoy the most intimate society with that in each of us which is without, or above, being spoken to, we must not only be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot possibly hear each other's voice in any case. Referred to ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... the quick moisture rush to his eyes. There was something inexpressibly touching in those simple words as ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... with his own feelings, Grant had been unaware of his companion's. Her face had paled, and she stirred her drink absently. The reflections in her eyes were over-bright with moisture. ...
— A Fine Fix • R. C. Noll

... betaken themselves to bed were drenched with putrid ditch-water as they lay, and arose in great fright, muttering incoherent prayers, and exposing to the wondering eyes of the commissioners their linen all dripping with green moisture, and their knuckles red with the blows they had at the same time received from some invisible tormentors. While they were still speaking, there was a noise like the loudest thunder, or the firing of a whole park of artillery, upon which they all fell ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... which constitute the summer in Spain, the air here is somewhat cooler than for the rest of the year; and every day from sun-rise to noon there falls a light dew, somewhat like the mists at Valladolid in Old Spain. Far from being injurious to health, this slight moisture is reckoned an infallible cure for headaches. This part of the country produces the same kinds of fruit as are found in Spain, particularly oranges, citrons, and lemons of all kinds, both sweet and sour, with figs and pomegranates. It might assuredly have ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... of superficial water, the air is always charged with moisture; the consequence being a most equable temperature all the year round, and an extreme luxuriance of all vegetation. The climate is mild and comparatively healthy for a country situated within the tropics, and bathed by the waters of the Mexican Gulf. This mildness and healthiness ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon

... "see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river's bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe

... value it." (Loud and prolonged cheers.) The record of all these proceedings, faithfully set forth in the Rodhaven District Courier, formed the proudest and finest snippet in Mavis' bulging scrap album; and brought moisture to her eyes each time that she examined ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... these vessels is increased by moisture, and lessened by an active state of the lacteals. Observation shows that the ill-fed, and those persons that live in marshy districts, contract contagious diseases more readily than those individuals who are well fed, and breathe a dry and ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... brought into place and held together by the attractor. As the doors were opened, there was a screaming hiss as the air of the vessels escaped through the narrow crack between them. The passengers saw the moisture in the air turn into snow, and saw the air itself first liquefy and then freeze into a solid coating upon the metal around the orifices at the touch of the frightful cold outside—the absolute zero of interstellar space, about four hundred sixty degrees below zero ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... seed depends on conditions ab extra, and all germs are modified, in their development, by geographical and climatal surroundings. The development of the acorn into a mature and perfect oak greatly depends on the exterior conditions of soil, and moisture, light, and heat. By these it may be rendered luxuriant in its growth, or it may be stunted in its growth. It may barely exist under one class of conditions, or it may perish under another. The Brassica oleracea, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... As soon as I mentioned the matter his countenance changed and he became pensive. A far-off look came over him, which indicated that a tender chord had been touched. Obviously his thoughts were revisiting the scene of a fierce conflict for life. The sight was sublime, and when I saw the moisture come into his eyes and his breast heave with emotion, it made me wish that I had not reminded him of it. At length he began to unfold the awful story. He was master of a brig called the Ocean Queen. I think he said it was in the month of December, 1874. They sailed ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman

... well. The cisterns had to be filled laboriously. They are provided with bungholes for the purpose of occasional cleaning out. The walls are scored with concave grooves slanting downwards, uniting and leading into small basins. The moisture condensing on the sides trickled into these runnels and supplied the basins with drinking water. The mangers have holes bored in the stone through which passed the halters. There are indications that the cattle were hauled up by means ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... homes is made manifest in the residences, many of which are built in the middle of fields and orchards or large city blocks, and in the loving care with which these home grounds are planted. They are very beautiful. The fineness of the climate, with its copious measure of warm moisture distilling in dew and fog, and gentle, bathing, laving rain, give them a freshness and floweriness that is ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir

... blacksmith shop, a long, low stable, a shed, a windmill and pond-like reservoir, a whole system of corrals of different sizes, a walled-in vegetable garden—these gathered to themselves cottonwoods from the moisture of their being, and so added each a little to the green spot in the desert. In the smallest corral, between the stable and the shed, stood a buckboard and a heavy wagon, the only wheeled vehicles about the place. Under ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White

... efforts to escape, and though his hand was now blistered and sore, he worked for several hours. Then thirst attacked him; and he dug in the ground, but without avail, in the hope of finding moisture. Again he turned to the cutting of the log, but soon exhaustion weakened his exertions. Night came on again and with it came the bear; but this time he was glad to see the brute, for its presence made him feel less lonely and drove away despair. This time, too, the bear sat around ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... of land. Other rivers may add to the fertility of the country through which they pass, but the Nile is the absolute cause of that great fertility of the Lower Egypt, which would be all a desert, as bad as the most sandy parts of Africa without this river. It supplies it both with soil and moisture, and was therefore gratefully addressed, not merely as an ordinary river-god, but by its express title of the Egyptian Jupiter. The crosses, therefore, along the banks of the river would naturally share in the honour of the stream, and be the most expressive emblem of good fortune, peace, and plenty. ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... still beautiful, though it was a little severe. As the last shawl fell aside, and she stood dressed in a rich blue riding-habit, that fitted her form with the nicest exactness; her cheeks burning with roses, that bloomed the richer for the heat of the hall, and her eyes lightly suffused with moisture that rendered their ordinary beauty more dazzling, and with every feature of her speaking countenance illuminated by the lights that flared around her, Remarkable felt that her own ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... planted in the earth, but it cannot get food enough to continue growth unless it can thrust its roots into the earth. What enables it to grow at all on the cotton, since that does not supply food, but only holds the moisture, without which the bean could not sprout? There must be food somewhere, and it is found packed away in the thick seed-leaves, which contain a great deal of starch and a little of ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley

... of Millicent Chyne one misty morning while he walked slowly backwards and forwards before his tent. His knowledge of the country told him that the mist was nothing but the night's accumulation of moisture round the summit of the mountain—that down in the valleys it was clear, and that half an hour's sunshine would disperse all. He was waiting for this result when he heard a rifle-shot far away in the haze beneath him; and ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... if you want to get a good idea of what tropical heat and moisture will do for a country, slip your canoe from a Florida steamer into the Ocklawaha River. It is as odd as its name, and appears to be hopelessly undecided as to whether it had better continue in the fish and alligator and drainage business, or devote itself to raising live-oak ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various

... Another officina aeris, or manufacture of air, would seem to exist within the tropics or at the line, though in a much less quantity than at the poles, owing perhaps to the action of the sun's light on the moisture suspended in the air, as will also be spoken of hereafter; but in all other parts of the earth these absorptions and evolutions of air in a greater or less degree are perpetually going on in inconceivable abundance; increased probably, and diminished at different seasons of the year by ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... more especially, rather lonely young people. The main events of my short life filed past before me in review against the background of an exquisitely melancholy evening sky, illumined by one perfect star. Even this dim light was further softened for me presently by the moisture that gathered in my eyes; tears that pricked with a pain that was almost intolerably sweet. I recalled how, as a child, I had longed to see strange and far-off lands; how I had bragged to servants and childish companions that I would travel. And then, how I had ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... he embraced him A LA MODE FRANCAISE, and kissed him on both sides of his face; while the hardness of his grip, and the quantity of Scotch snuff which his ACCOLADE communicated, called corresponding drops of moisture to ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... perform'd, and whilest the Wood is sappy, the more solid parts may more easily shrink together, and contract the pores or interstitia between them, then in the rotten Wood, where that natural juice seems onely to be wash'd away by adventitious or unnatural moisture; and so though the natural juice be wasted from between the firm parts, yet those parts are kept asunder by the adventitious moystures, and so by degrees settled ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... James. The Tabernacle spread itself like a great circular web dark with moisture. Emeline was conscious of running across the gang-plank as a sailor stooped to draw it in. The bell was ringing and the boat was already in motion. It sidled and backed away from ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... one-story thermometer, With nothing but Zeros all ranged in a row! Oh for a big, double-barrelled hygrometer, To measure this moisture that rolls from ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various

... quality of the mushrooms, which he had swallowed in the evening. According to others, he was suffocated in his sleep by the vapor of charcoal, which extracted from the walls of the apartment the unwholesome moisture of the fresh plaster. But the want of a regular inquiry into the death of a prince, whose reign and person were soon forgotten, appears to have been the only circumstance which countenanced the malicious whispers of poison and domestic guilt. The ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... a subtle, strange fragrance in the air, as though a basket full of spring violets and daffodils had just been carried by; then, as her wandering gaze came back to the solitary woman in black, who still knelt motionless near her, a sort of choking sensation came into her throat and a stinging moisture struggled in her eyes. She strove to turn this hysterical sensation to a low ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various

... artificial moisture is provided, not only will the air be too dry for comfort and health, but an excessive degree of heat must be attained in order to warm the rooms, thus increasing the consumption of coal. A water ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... extra camp kettle; tin or gutta percha bucket for water—wood, being liable to shrink and fall to pieces, is not deemed suitable; an axe, hatchet, and spade will also be needed, with a mallet for driving picket-pins. Matches should be carried in bottles and corked tight, so as to exclude the moisture. ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... community life develop in that region, the land may take on great value because of its location in the community. The fertility value of land is that value which is due to natural endowment in the way of moisture, climate, and ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... of the Grimshaw gang, was a rocky gorge that had become the clandestine meeting place of the four who sought to break the yoke of Grimshaw's domination. Unlike the cave, the place was not suited to withstand a siege, but a water-hole supplied moisture for a considerable area of grass, and made a convenient place to turn the horses loose while the conspirators lay among the rocks and plotted the downfall of their chief. Purdy made straight for this gorge, and found ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx

... down came the rain in torrents, making the air, in a few minutes, cool and delicious as possible, and entirely altering the sultry temperature which had previously prevailed. The thirsty ground soaked up the moisture as if it had never tasted rain, and the trees came out as if retouched by Nature's brush; while as, for F. and myself, we turned the unwonted coolness to the best account we could, by setting ourselves to work to pull up all ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... the dewy morning hours, when the leaves were shining in the sunlight, and the birds were singing joyously; before the summer heat had dried the moisture, or had forced the feathered songsters to the shade. At noon, when the silence made the solitude oppressive; when the leaves hung wilting down, nor fluttered in the fainting wind: when the prairies were no longer waving like the sea, but trembling like the atmosphere around a heated ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... fanning her with "Muddie's" turkey-tail fan. He was in a glow of warmth and pleasure. His wonderful eyes shone like lamps. His pale cheeks were tinged with faint pink. While fanning Virginia with one hand he gently mopped the pleasant moisture from his brow with the other. Virginia's eyes shot sunshine. Her laughter bubbled up like a well-spring ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... the bursting of the moisture from its pores. Something was in the room beside me. A confused, indescribable sense of utter loneliness, and yet awful presence, was upon me, mingled with a dreary, hopeless desolation, as of burnt-out love and aimless life. All at once I found ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... fog a glowing spot appeared; the grey mass around grew alive, began to move, to redden, to thin out as if it were streaming up in flames. Ah! now he knew! It was the globe of the sun, rising out of the sea. On board, every point where the night's moisture had lodged began to shine in gold. Each moment it grew clearer and lighter, and the eye reached farther. And before he could take in what was happening, the grey darkness had rolled itself up into mounds, into mountains, that grew buoyant and floated aloft and melted ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer

... caught the glorious melody of 'Hear him! hear him!' Already I was practising how to steal a sidelong glance at the tears of generous approbation bubbling in the eyes of my little auditory,—never suspecting, alas! that a modern eye may have so little affinity with moisture, that the finest gunpowder may be dried upon it. I stood up; my mind was stored with about a folio volume of matter; but I wanted a preface, and for want of a preface, the volume was never published. I stood up, trembling through every fibre: but remembering that in this I was but imitating Tully, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... an evening in mid spring. Above, the sky was clear, washed by the rain that had fallen without intermission since early morning. Below, the chill of coming night, acting on the moisture-laden air, had covered the land with a white mist, that curled and heaved beneath the aeroplane in huge waves. It looked like a billowy sea of cotton-wool, but the airmen who had just emerged from it, had no comfort in its soft embrace. ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... Fertility caused by the Nile.—There is no country in the world where the soil is more fruitful than in Egypt; which is owing entirely to the Nile. For whereas other rivers, when they overflow lands, wash away and exhaust their vivific moisture; the Nile, on the contrary, by the excellent slime it brings along with it, fattens and enriches them in such a manner, as sufficiently compensates for what the foregoing harvest had impaired.(296) The husbandman, in this country, never tires himself with holding the plough, or breaking the ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... about her, patting her fair hair with that eminently feminine touch which is to be seen in every woman from the millionaire's wife down to the poorest emigrant. Then, with less delicacy, she lifted her apron and wiped the moisture from her round ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... excellent. The soup was truly a great work of art; the fried oysters dreamily delicious; and as to the coffee, Ned must have got the receipt for making it from the very angel who gave the beverage to Mahomet to restore that individual's decayed moisture. ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... after taking a draught, placed his flat hands together and pressed them hard between his knees, looking down at them with blear-eyed contemplation, as if the scorching power of Mrs. Dollop's speech had quite dried up and nullified his wits until they could be brought round again by further moisture. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... remember, when you came home after your wound, you said I—I mustn't—' and she fell into such a paroxysm of crying that he had quite to hold her up in his arms, and though his voice was merry, there was a moisture on his eyelashes. 'Oh, you Polly! You're a caution against deluding the infant mind! Was that all? Was that what made you distract them all? ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... is soon brought into a state of decomposition, when it becomes a very pure vegetable mould; and it is well known that very pure vegetable mould is the most proper of all materials for the growth of almost all kinds of plants. The moss would also not retain more moisture than precisely the quantity best adapted to the absorbent powers of the root—a condition which can scarcely be obtained with any certainty by the use ...
— Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... these words with a sorrowful voice, and the moisture gathering in her eyes, gave them additional brightness. The youth, after some commonplace remark upon the vast difference between moral and physical ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... moisture had stunted the growing crops, the sun had baked the ground under them, and every stem and blade had been scorched. Where, in former years, the oats had nodded heavy-headed stood a straight, scanty growth. The wheat showed naked spots ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... nodded and took himself off; and Lloyd Pryor, closing the door upon him, wiped the moisture from his forehead. "Alice, where ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... Where he was trained to hear the thunder talk, And meet the lightning, eye to eye; where last We spoke together, when I told him death Bestowed the brightest gem that graces life, Embraced for virtue's sake. He shed a tear! Now were he by, I'd talk to him, and his cheek Should never blanch, nor moisture dim his eye— I'd talk ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... plucky beast!" Quita murmured rebelliously. Her sympathies had been strangely stirred; and an unbidden moisture clouded her eyes. In that hapless drowned buffalo she beheld, not a mere dead animal, but one victim the more to the eternal law of sacrifice;—the law that makes one man's suffering the price of another man's gain;—the law that lies at the root of half the tragedy ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... satchel containing the gospel-book caught about the hoof of a cow, and so the cow dragged the book-satchel on her hoof as she came to land. And the gospel-book was found in the rotten leather satchel, perfectly dry and clean, without any moisture, as though it had been preserved in a book-case. Saint Kiaranus with his followers were ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... me, and you may now see a miracle," continued Carbonnell, as he pressed his hand to his eye, "the moisture of a tear on the cheek of a London roue, a man of the world, who has long lived for himself and for this world only. It never would be credited if asserted. Newland, there was a time when I was like yourself—the world took advantage of my ingenuousness and inexperience; ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... the snow was melted, and set aside for drinking water. The other was permitted to boil, tea was made, and then the fire was put out, for already the temperature inside the igloo had become so warm that presently there would be danger of the snow dripping moisture. ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... in broken words, the advocate proceeded to state his own indebtedness to the "small college," whose rights and privileges he was there to defend. Chief Justice Marshall's eyes were filled with tears; and the eyes of the other justices were suffused with a moisture similar to that which afflicted the eyes of the Chief. As the orator gradually recovered his accustomed stern composure of manner, he turned to the counsel on the other side,—one of whom, at least, was a graduate of Dartmouth,—and in his deepest and most thrilling tones, thus concluded his ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... and beard were soaked with moisture, and there were beads of wet all over his face. Otherwise he seemed little the worse for his long vigil. In his eyes, however, was ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... sooner swallowed a mouthful, than I thought my entrails were scorched, and endeavoured with a deluge of small-beer to allay the heat it occasioned. Supper being over, Mr. Morgan having smoked a couple of pipes, and supplied the moisture he had expended with as many cans of flip, of which we all partook, a certain yawning began to admonish me that it was high time to repair by sleep the injury I had suffered from want of rest the preceding night; which ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... very bulwarks I leaned against. Of a damp day, my heartless shipmates even used to stand up against me, so powerful was the capillary attraction between this luckless jacket of mine and all drops of moisture. I dripped like a turkey a roasting; and long after the rain storms were over, and the sun showed his face, I still stalked a Scotch mist; and when it was fair weather with others, alas! it was foul ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... to the engine, looking out over the flat meadow-land, with some moisture remarkably like a tear in either eye. The eyes were blue, deep, and dark like the eastern horizon when the sun is setting over the sea. The face was brown, and oval, and still. It looked like a face that ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... presented him with a sodden bouquet, by the hand of a dripping little girl in white that clung to her as a bathing gown. The President insisted on the maid being lifted to him into the carriage, where he hugged and kissed her, whilst the moisture ran out of her garments like a squeezed sponge, and this demonstration provoked ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... Ariphrades,[137] in no way resembles. He gloats in vice, is not merely a dissolute man and utterly debauched—but he has actually invented a new form of vice; for he pollutes his tongue with abominable pleasures in brothels licking up that nauseous moisture and befouling his beard as he tickles the lips of lewd women's private parts.[138] Whoever is not horrified at such a monster shall never drink from ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... potato plant were spotted in the same way; the stalk itself soon became discoloured—not completely, but in rings or patches; it got cankered through at those places, and would break short across at them like rotten wood. Moisture, it was observed, either brought on or increased the blight, yet the rainfall of 1846 rose very little above the average of other years; probably not more than from two to three inches; but the rain fell very irregularly, being most ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... his eye was continually roving about for signs of water. How gladly would he have welcomed the sight of even a little mossy pool, or some moisture in the crevice of a rock! He did not despair. He had hitherto only explored the shore; water might rise in the interior, and be lost in the sand before it reached the beach. "One thing I ought to have before night," he said,—for he had got into the way of talking aloud,—"that ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston

... cloth that had served to keep the moisture of the clay model from being exhaled. The sitting figure of a woman was seen. She was draped from head to foot in a costume minutely and scrupulously studied from that of ancient Egypt, as revealed by the strange sculpture of that country, its coins, drawings, painted mummy-cases, and whatever ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... One side of the gully in front of you is brown and bare, but in the bottom, and clinging to the other side, are patches of moist and half-melted snow, and on all sides you hear the drip of falling moisture and the ripple of little streams of water which are running away to swell the creeks and ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson

... neighbourhood for grain. Again, everything on his estate is made to perform at least three or four different functions. For instance, he makes his timber not only serve as timber, but also serve as a provider of moisture and shade to a given stretch of land, and then as a fertiliser with its fallen leaves. Consequently, when everywhere else there is drought, he still has water, and when everywhere else there has been a failure of the harvest, on his lands it will have proved a success. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... the child is laid forms a soft elastic bed which absorbs moisture very readily and affords such a protection from the cold of a rigorous winter that its place would be ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... which ever run the danger of being wrecked at El-Wijh; and it deserves more notice than we have hitherto vouchsafed to it. The weather also greatly improved on the next day (March 22nd): the cloud-canopy, the excessive moisture, and the still sultriness which had afflicted us since March 19th, were in process of being swept away by ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... and, as I saw the moisture veil her eyes, I felt that I, too, would like to cry. ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... Joe had never noticed, before, the minute noises of the air pressure apparatus strapped to his back. His exhaled breath went to a tiny pump that forced it through a hygroscopic filter which at once extracted excess moisture and removed carbon dioxide. The same pump carefully measured a volume of oxygen equal to the removed CO2 and added it to the air it released. The pump made very small sounds indeed, and the valves were almost noiseless, but ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster

... having to protect themselves against competing plants and against destructive animals, there is a yet deadlier enemy in the forces of inorganic nature. Each species can sustain a certain amount of heat and cold, each requires a certain amount of moisture at the right season, each wants a proper amount of light or of direct sunshine, each needs certain elements in the soil; the failure of a due proportion in these inorganic conditions causes weakness, and thus leads to speedy death. The struggle for existence in plants is, therefore, ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... been lost in countless passages, how often has my torch gone out, how often was I approaching an unseen precipice? I have passed many days in subterranean places, living on parched barley, licking the moisture from wet rocks, not knowing whether I should ever see ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... almost flung himself from rock to rock down the descent; but he had to pause to take off his fur coat, for in this sheltered spot the sun beat shadelessly, the snow melted as he passed, the stones ran with moisture, and in the crannies of the rocks young green things were everywhere starting into growth. The past storm of bitter cold had ended winter; spring had begun. And now the rushing torrent, escaping finally from its snowy blanket, dashed over the boulders beside ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel

... up the farm road, which was entirely sheltered between gentle slopes, the bright March sun felt almost hot upon his cheek. The snow road under his horse's hoofs was full of moisture, and the snowy slopes glistened with a coating of wet. He felt for the first time that the spring ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... and gone down the east road which wound through the sand and scrub. I could hear them calling to each other. The elder bushes did not grow back in the shady ravines between the bluffs, but in the hot, sandy bottoms along the stream, where their roots were always in moisture and their tops in the sun. The blossoms were unusually luxuriant and beautiful ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather

... The moisture gathered in the eyes of the banker as he listened to the innocent story. It touched his heart as nothing ever had before. He resolved that after this his education and wealth should at least help these little ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... cool air, lose their increased action sooner than the urinary or intestinal absorbents; which open into the warm cavities of the bladder and intestines; but which are nevertheless often affected by their sympathy with the cutaneous absorbents. Hence few fevers terminate without a moisture of the skin; whence arose the fatal practice of forcing sweats by the external warmth of air or bedclothes in fevers; for external warmth increases the action of the cutaneous capillaries more than that of the other secerning vessels; because the latter are habituated ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... water, nor, if it be old enough, allowed to stand or sit in the tub. It is well also to have a warm blanket in which to receive the child as it comes dripping from the bath. It should be wrapped up in this for a few minutes, to absorb a part of the moisture. Then a portion of the body should be uncovered at a time, and dried ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... driven in. Even the door, consisting of two or three vertical planks set in grooved timbers, is laboriously wedged the same way. The building is rodent proof, and, because of its wide, projecting roof and the fact that it sets off the earth, it is practically moisture proof. ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... entered the river at precisely the right time of the year to behold it at its brightest and best, for the spring rains had only recently set in, and all Nature was rioting in the refreshment of the welcome moisture and bursting forth into a joyous prodigality of leaf and blossom, of colour and perfume, of life and glad activity. The forest rang with the calls and cries of pairing birds; flocks of parrots, ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... looking down into the reservoir, which was almost full of water, but which was slowly running out through the different gates, some to concrete drinking troughs where thirsty cattle congregated, and some to distant meadows where it supplied moisture for the grass on which the steers of Diamond X Second fed. From the slightly ruffled surface of the reservoir, as the evening wind blew across the water, the gazes of Bud, Nort and Dick sought the faces ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... would have liked to be here on such a morning!" thought Macey, and a peculiar moisture, which he hastily dashed away, gathered in his eyes and excused ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... pursuit of the shells which lay along the sand, positively studding it, like jewels, with colour. The tide had recently gone down over the shore where we walked and left them radiant, gleaming with moisture in the low light of the sun, pink and scarlet, deepest purple and gold. She ran ahead of me, picking them up and filling her basket rapidly. I walked on slowly, thinking, while my eyes wandered over that shining, palpitating, gently heaving violet sea. She ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross

... shaken so often and so hard that his fingers were numbed. A little moisture gathered on the eyelids of the sensitive boy when he saw how glad they were to ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler



Words linked to "Moisture" :   wet, wetness, moisturise, moisten



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