"Brittle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arrows, fish, deer, antelope, horses, lizards and almost everything imagined was carved in this timber. Those parts not exposed directly to the elements were in a good state of preservation, while those pieces exposed to the weather were brittle and ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... numerous Crew, In Shirts and Drawers of (d) Scotch-cloth Blue With neither Stockings, Hat nor Shooe. These Sot-weed Planters Crowd the Shoar, In hue as tawny as a Moor: Figures so strange, no God design'd, To be a part of Humane kind: But wanton Nature, void of Rest, Moulded the brittle Clay in Jest. At last a Fancy very odd Took me, this was the Land of Nod; Planted at first, when Vagrant Cain, His Brother had unjustly slain; Then Conscious of the Crime he'd done From Vengeance dire, he hither run, And in a hut supinely dwelt, The first in Furs and Sot-weed dealt. ...
— The Sot-weed Factor: or, A Voyage to Maryland • Ebenezer Cook
... the spot, and picked it up where it lay, half-concealed among the brittle, dry scrub of milk-bushes. I examined the bearings carefully; though there were hoof-marks close by, it had received no hurt. I blew up the tire, which was somewhat flabby, and went on to untie my sturdy pony. The moment I looked at her I saw the poor little brute was wearied ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... undistinguished arrival; he had not come as a sandwich man between two signboards that labelled his past career and explained his path that was to be; he had been unaddressed to any destination. The only remark on his vague and undistinguished label had perhaps been of the nature of "Brittle. This side up with care." He had no fame at any game; he did not row; he was neither a sporting nor, in any marked degree, a reading man. He did a little work, but he was not very fond of it or very good. The only things one could say of him were that he seemed to have an immense faculty of enjoyment ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... mountain which buried Goldau was composed of a hard but brittle conglomerate, called nagelflue, resting on unctuous clay, and inclining rapidly towards the village. Much earth remained upon the rock, in irregular masses, but the woods had been felled, and the water had free access to the surface, and to the crevices which sun and frost had already produced ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... those of the oxygen and hydrogen which have given rise to it. At 32 deg. Fahrenheit, and far below that temperature, oxygen and hydrogen are elastic gaseous bodies, whose particles tend to rush away from one another with great force. Water, at the same temperature, is a strong though brittle solid, whose particles tend to cohere into definite geometrical shapes, and sometimes build up frosty imitations of the most complex ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... Through the dry brittle grass the man on horseback followed Dingwell to the scant pines where his cowpony was tethered. Fox dismounted and stood over his captive while the latter transferred the gunnysack and its contents to the other saddle. Never for an instant did the little spy let the other man ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... thy brittle shell, This human heart Thou croonest age on age, "Give and ask not, Help and blame not," Heeded less than large and mottled cowry The which at least some child may hold to ear ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... severely wounded the consul AEmilius himself. Then the Spanish and Gaulish horse charged the Romans front to front, and maintained a standing fight with them, many leaping off their horses and fighting on foot, till the Romans, outnumbered and badly armed, without cuirasses, with light and brittle spears, and with shields made only of ox-hide, were totally routed and driven off the field. Hasdrubal, who commanded the Gauls and Spaniards, followed up his work effectually; he chased the Romans along the river, till he had almost destroyed them, and then, riding ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... as large pieces as he thought he could conveniently handle. The ice was exceedingly hard and brittle. It had frozen centuries before, under the extremely low temperatures of the Arctic regions. It had its beginning, perhaps, in snow deposited in some far-off Greenland valley. Other snows had come upon it, and still other snows, until a tremendous ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... may be made that shall also act efficiently as flasks. Porous earthen jars are too brittle for long use, and their pores choke up if slimy water be put inside them. But the Arabs use a porous leather flask, called a Zemsemiya, which is hung on the shady side of the camel, and by evaporation keeps the water deliciously ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... drying a good many weeks. The leaves turned yellow and brown, and the little twigs and sticks became gradually dry and brittle. Rollo used to walk down there often, to see how the drying went on, and sometimes he would bring up a few of the bushes, and put them on the kitchen fire, to see whether they were dry enough ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... Town was opened by Mr. McGrath's Company of Comedians, with the celebrated comedy The Miser. This Company is by far the best that ever visited this town." Then on August 12 there was "The Beggars Opera and A Comedy of two acts, Barnaby Brittle or a Wife at her Wits End. Also in August Mr. McGrath's Company of Comedians gave The Tragedy of Douglas and Garrick's Comedy of Two Acts ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... husband and father, for, God knows, they have many peculiar cares. I cannot describe to you the anxious, sleepless hours these ties frequently give me. I see a train of helpless little folks; me and my exertions all their stay; and on what a brittle thread does the life of man hang! If I am nipt off at the command of Fate, even in all the vigour of manhood, as I am—such things happen every day—Gracious God! what would become of my little flock? 'Tis here that I envy your people of fortune. A father on ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... statement," said a brittle, harsh voice from above me. I looked up and saw a helmeted figure above us. He wasn't wearing the customary skin-tight pliable oxysuits we had. He wore an outmoded, bulky spacesuit and a fishbowl helmet, all but the face area opaque. The oxygen cannisters weren't attached to his back as expected, ...
— The Hunted Heroes • Robert Silverberg
... could find him, and it was to be the finest hen in all the country round. She was an old lady of infinite spirit, and daily, dragging the boy with her lest he again went a-fishing, she trudged to farms near and far to examine and feel their hens. She was a brittle old lady who creaked as she walked, and cracked like a whin-pod in the heat, but she did her dozen miles or more a day, and passed all the fowls in review, and could not be deceived by the craftiest of farmers' wives; and in the tail ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... important thing is that it did. It was all-metal, of course, tested and guaranteed. The guarantee isn't worth much here. A flaw in the forging, perhaps, that escaped detection. And this low temperature. Makes metal as brittle as glass. And the thing may have been crystallized ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... tempered is to be hardened by heating as much of it as is requisite among glowing Coals, till it be glowing hot, but it must not be quenched assoon as it is taken from the fire (for that would make it too brittle, and spoil it) but must be held over a bason of water, till it descend from a White heat to a Red one, which assoon as ever you perceive, you must immediately quench as much as you desire to harden in the cold water. The Steel thus hardened, will, if it be good, look somewhat ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... person in it but turned either her consoler, or fell into stories of the like misfortunes; and so we all became, for the rest of the evening, nothing but blundering footmen, and careless servants, or were turned into broken jars, plates, glasses, tea-cups, and such like brittle substances. And it affected me so much, that, when I came home, I went to bed, and dreamt, that Robin, with the handle of his whip, broke the fore glass of my chariot; and I was so solicitous, methought, to keep the good ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... by a correspondent of the Civil and Military Gazette in the issue of the 21st October, 1880: "The male dark earthy brown above, lighter below; rump lighter coloured; tail one inch; white ruff of long hairs on throat and chin; hair of body short, brittle, and close-set. The female darker coloured than the male, and may often be distinguished, when too far to see the horns, by the dark hue of the neck." Both male and female are horned; the horns of the former are very large, some are reported as being as much as four feet long, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... unsweetened chocolate, 2 pounds brown sugar, 1 cup milk, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 of molasses. Boil till brittle. Pour in pans and ...
— The Cookery Blue Book • Society for Christian Work of the First Unitarian Church, San
... two or three feet high, and has fine large leaves and tubers like those of the potato, but not so good when roasted. There is much gracefulness in the appearance of the plantain, or banana, which varies from twelve to fifteen feet in height, and has leaves like those of the palm, but a brittle reed-like stem, about eight inches in diameter. It attains its full growth in the first year, bears fruit in the second, and then dies. Thus its life is as brief ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... in. tall. Calyx of 2 to 4 early-falling white sepals; 4 or 5 oblong, scale-like petals; 8 or 10 tawny, hairy stamens; a 5-celled, egg-shaped ovary, narrowed into the short, thick style. Leaves: None. Roots: A mass of brittle fibres, from which usually a cluster of several white scapes arises. Fruit: A 5-valved, many-seeded, ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... natural weight and bitterness, let such show their skill in avoiding the causes and diverting the blow. What did King Cotys do? He paid liberally for the rich and beautiful vessel that had been presented to him, but, seeing it was exceedingly brittle, he immediately broke it betimes, to prevent so easy a matter of displeasure against his servants. In like manner, I have willingly avoided all confusion in my affairs, and never coveted to have my estate contiguous to those ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... brittle gods I make Of friendly clay and kindly stone,— Wrought with my hands, to serve or break, From crown to toe my work, my own. My eyes can see, my nose can smell, My fingers touch their painted face, They weave their little homely spell To warm me ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... herself cosey or not, as she chooses, in an abandoned hole. About her comfort he seems shamefully unconcerned. Intent only on his own, he drills a perfectly round hole, usually on the underside of a limb where neither snow nor wind can harm him, and digs out a horizontal tunnel in the dry, brittle wood in the very heart of the tree, before turning downward into the deep, pear-shaped chamber, where he lives in selfish solitude. But when the nesting season comes, how devoted he is temporarily to the mate ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... lay at the roadside on the other side of the railing, where the snow was clean, brittle and untrampled and glistened cheerfully in the bright atmosphere. There were three dead bodies, two men and a boy. The boy lay with his long soft neck stretched on the snow. The face of the man next to the boy was invisible. He had fallen face downward in a pool of ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... preparation for the bigger thing, a general uprising and war of extermination on the part of the Indians. From his recent visit to the reserves he was convinced that the loyalty of even the great Chiefs was becoming somewhat brittle and would not bear any sudden strain put upon it. A successful raid of cattle such as was being proposed escaping the notice of the Police, or in the teeth of the Police, would have a disastrous effect upon the prestige of the whole Force, already shaken by the Duck Lake reverse. ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... to him as the divining-rod of Aaron, blooming ever afresh with magic flowers. Now that the flame of pain and passion burned it up, and left a bare sear brittle ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... the cave floor. "The blizzard is gathering force and we have still some hours to ride. But," he continued, stepping close to Cameron and looking him in the eyes, "there must be no more nonsense. You can see my man is somewhat short in temper; and indeed mine is rather brittle at times." ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches, hot cocoa, cocoanut macaroons, vanilla ice-cream with chocolate nut sauce, and peanut brittle. ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... Song for Two Children Dicky The Three Drinkers The Boy out of Church After the Play One Hard Look True Johnny The Voice of Beauty Drowned The God Called Poetry Rocky Acres Advice to Lovers Nebuchadnezzar's Fall Give us Rain Allie Loving Henry Brittle Bones Apples and Water Manticor in Arabia Outlaws Baloo Loo for Jenny Hawk and Buckle The "Alice Jean" The Cupboard The Beacon Pot and Kettle Ghost Raddled Neglectful Edward The Well-dressed Children Thunder at Night To E.M.—A Ballad of Nursery Rhyme Jane ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... procure a good shoe dressing[15], neat's-foot oil or tallow are the best substitutes; either will soften the leather and preserve its pliability. Leather requires oil to preserve its pliability, and if not supplied will become brittle, crack, and break easily under strain. Inferior dressings are always harmful, and no dressing should be used which contains acid or varnish. Acid burns the leather as it would the skin, and polish containing ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... know," replied Tamada gravely. "Perhaps, if now we have morphine, presently we give him smaller dose every time, it will be all right." He lifted up the sick man's hand and examined the nails critically. They were broken, brittle. ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... are not closely grouped in lower life. The relation of the sexes, even when the human was reached, seems not to have carried with it a sense of the double obligation of parenthood. "Marriage was brittle in the early times," says Sir John Lubbock. The obvious relationship of mother and child, the lack of such irrefutable testimony to parenthood in the case of man, and other elements of primitive experience lending confusion ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... of those belonging to the touch, are heat and cold, and solidity: all the rest, consisting almost wholly in the sensible configuration, as smooth and rough; or else, more or less firm adhesion of the parts, as hard and soft, tough and brittle, are obvious enough. ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... was the most splendid in the world, all made of priceless porcelain, but so brittle and delicate that you had to take great care how you touched it. In the garden were the most beautiful flowers, and on the loveliest of them were tied silver bells which tinkled, so that if you passed you could not help looking at the flowers. ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... small twigs sprout out, two feet long and very close together, at the extremities of which grow hard round berries, about the size of cherries, which fall once a year on the ground, and are excellent food for hogs. The trunk has projecting rings half a foot asunder, the bark being thin and brittle, the wood hard and black, and the pith white. As the tree dies when deprived of its head, which is the cabbage, it is usually cut ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... it) is a fruit as big as a pomegranate, and much of the same colour. The outside husk, shell, or rind, is for substance and thickness between the shell of a pomegranate, and the peel of a seville orange; softer than this, yet more brittle than that. The coat or covering is also remarkable in that it is beset round with small regular knobs or risings; and the inside of the fruit is full of a white soft pulp, sweet and very pleasant, ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... were never very much valued among our people," replied Alex. "In the mountain tribes below here the women used to make very white, soft leather for their dresses out of sheep hides. The hair is coarse and brittle, however, and although it will do for a little while as a bed, I'm afraid you young gentlemen will throw away the hides when you finish ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... mebby bein' able to stand more bein' so sort o' withy and soft than if they wuz more hard and brittle, they could bend round considerable ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... early morning when we set out, disdaining our trim "Tree-with-Wings" from the deck of which Triplett watched our short three-mile swim across the still water. At every stroke flocks of iridescent dew-fish rose about us uttering their brittle note, "Klicketty-inkle! Klicketty-inkle!" [Footnote: One of the pleasantest sights imaginable is that of the natives gathering these little creatures as they rise to the surface at dawn. The dew-fish or kali-loa are similar to our white-bait, ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... more than a mile), the ground became more and more full of pitch, and the vegetation poorer and more rushy, till it resembled, on the whole, that of an English fen. An Ipomoea or two, and a scarlet-flowered dwarf Heliconia, kept up the tropic type, as does a stiff brittle fern about two feet high. {148a} We picked the weeds, which looked like English mint or basil, and found that most of them had three longitudinal nerves in each leaf, and were really Melastomas, though dwarfed into a far meaner habit than that of the ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... purpose in this depth of wood, and his disappointment was great when, underneath the planks, he came to a marble pavement which resisted his one tool. But he remembered having read of a general who had broken with an axe hard stones, which he first made brittle by vinegar, and this Casanova possessed. He poured a bottle of strong vinegar into the hole, and the next day, whether it was the effect of the vinegar or of his stronger resolution, he managed to loosen the cement which bound the pieces of marble together, and in four ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... would believe you ever danced in the wind, drank in the evening dews, and spread sweet fragrance on the air? A touch now breaks your brittle leaves. Your odors are like attic herbs, or green tea, or mouldy books. Your forms are bent and flattened into every ugly and distorted shape. Your lovely colors are faded,—white changed to black, yellow to dirty white, gorgeous scarlet to brick color, purple to ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... the British iron-plate committee fired with 68-pounders at many varieties of iron, cast-steel and puddled-steel plates, and combinations of hard and soft metals. The steel was too brittle, and crumbled, and the targets were injured in proportion to their hardness. An obvious conclusion from all subsequent firing at thick iron plates was, that, to avoid cracking on the one hand, and punching on the other, wrought-iron armor should resemble ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of nature's war, The winds and waters are at strife; And both with her contending for The brittle thread ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... food have eaten away a good deal of the inside of the tooth, the hard, shiny surface is left just like a thin shell; and one day you happen to bite down upon a piece of bone in your food, or try to crack a nut with your teeth, and "crack" goes this brittle shell of ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... are dingy and whitewashed. The wooden roof is peaked, with many cross-beams. High up on the walls are several small square lattices of wood. The floor is of discolored stone. Everywhere one sees wood wrought into lattices, crumbling carpets that look almost as frail and brittle and fatigued as wrappings of mummies, and worn-out matting that would surely become as the dust if one set his feet hard upon it. The structure of the building is basilican, and it contains some strange carvings of the Last Supper, the Nativity, and St. Demetrius. Around the nave there ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... room to where there stood on a shelf a little ebony cabinet, clamped with dull silver of foreign workmanship. He unlocked it, and withdrew from it a letter, the paper faintly yellowed and brittle ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... plunge into the wax. This hardens the extreme point of the drill very hard, so hard, in fact, that it will penetrate the hardest steel, but care must be exercised with such a drill because the mercury makes it not only very hard but very brittle. C, Fig. 24, shows a drill after it has been finished on the Arkansas stone. This shape of drill will withstand the pressure necessary to drill into hard steel. Many watchmakers reduce the temper of every staff before drilling. This, I think, is ...
— A Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting • Eugene E. Hall
... high, and brandishes a forbidding sceptre. All this seen from the front, but the rear view discloses the fact that the lady terminates in the tail of a fish which wriggles artistically in mid-air and is of a brittle sort, as it has evidently been ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... began to replace the stoppers in the decanters. I was feeling rather cross. I hate having my settled convictions tampered with. They are not elastic, and this makes them brittle, and I always feel nervous about their stability when the intellectual pressure of an argument ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... not in a tone To be o'erheard in what he inly said; Who thus foul scorn would to the rest have done. Both now had wheeled, and fierce encounter made. In the career Rinaldo was not thrown, Who all the banded kinsmen much outweighed; Their spears like brittle glass to pieces went, But not an inch the ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... advantage of being whiter than the pure sap. It was so firm that he used it as leather in the binding of a book. In a few weeks, however, he had the mortification of seeing his elegant white book-covers fermenting and softening. Afterwards, they grew as hard and brittle as shell, and so they ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... much money had been raised after 1849 for improvements, the condition of the Erie steadily grew worse. It soon became notorious for many accidents due to carelessness in running trains and to the breaking of the brittle iron rails. ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... great wonder; and everyone said, if the Devil had not assisted him, it was impossible the thing could have been done; for, in general, these ropes are so brittle, being made of green hay, that they will scarcely bear to be bound over the rick. And, the more to horrify the good people of this neighbourhood, the driver said, when he first came in view, he could almost give his oath that he saw two people busily engaged at ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... path ran across the fields not far from the house. It lay deep among tall grasses and the withered brittle stalks of last autumn's goldenrod, and here Gissing rambled in the green hush of twilight, after the puppies were in bed. In less responsible days he would have lain down on his back, with all four legs upward, and cheerily shrugged and rolled to and fro, as ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... was armed cap-a-pie with Grison stones, one chip whereof splintering abroad cut off Epistemon's neck clean and fair. For otherwise the most part of them were but lightly armed with a kind of sandy brittle stone, and the rest with slates. At last, when he saw that they were all dead, he threw the body of Loupgarou as hard as he could against the city, where falling like a frog upon his belly in the great Piazza thereof, he with the ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... That long will last if used with care, Nay, safe thro' all life's journey go, If packed and marked as "brittle ware,"— Just ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... slimy substance that will not easily part with its contents; the animal is oviparous, and these bubbles serve also as a nidus for its eggs. It is probable that it never goes down to the bottom, nor willingly approaches any shore; for the shell is exceedingly brittle, and that of few fresh-water snails is so thin: Every shell contains about a tea-spoonful of liquor, which it easily discharges upon being touched, and which is of the most beautiful red-purple that can be conceived. It dies linen cloth, and it may perhaps be ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... imagine a small roll of very dry film was put in to occupy a part of the space. Film is exceedingly inflammable, especially when old and brittle. In composition it is practically guncotton and so a high explosive. In this recent war, I remember, the Germans drained the neutral countries of film subjects until we woke up to what they were doing, while in this country scrap film commanded an amazing price ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... plenpota. Brine peklakvo. Bring alkonduki. Bring back rekonduki. Bring down (of prices) rabati. Bring forth (a child) naski. Bring up (a child) elnutri. Brink rando. Briny sala. Brisk (lively) vigla. Brisk (quick) rapida. Briskness rapideco. Bristle harego. Brittle facilrompa. Broach trapiki. Broad largxa. Brochure brosxuro. Broil rosti. Broker makleristo. Broker, to act as makleri. Brokerage maklero. Bromine bromo. Bronchitis bronkito. Bronchial bronka. Brooch brocxo. Brood (fowl) kovi. Brook rivereto. Broth buljono. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... is there a greater in the world than heading a party? The command of an army is without comparison of less intricacy, for there are wheels within wheels necessary for governing the State, but then they are not near so brittle and delicate. In a word, I am of opinion there are greater qualities necessary to make a good head of a party than to make an emperor who is to govern the whole world, and that resolution ought to run parallel with judgment,—I say, with heroic judgment, which is able to distinguish the extraordinary ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... inhabit residences composed of a brittle, transparent, silicious material, should refrain from forcibly casting ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... from Spanish ships in Western waters. And Francis Bacon expressed the belief of the age when he wrote that "money is the principal part of the greatness of Spain; for by that they maintain their veteran army. But in this part, of all others, is most to be considered the ticklish and brittle state of the greatness of Spain. Their greatness consisteth in their treasure, their treasure in the Indies, and their Indies (if it be well weighed) are indeed but an accession to such as are masters of ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... the fact, for the oxydasion of the iron it contains gives it that appearance, and colors the soil a reddish hue in its immediate vicinity. Wherever this rock abounds, the soil is durable and the crops are usually heavy. It is sometimes met with having a fine grain, and so very hard as to be almost brittle, though generally very difficult to break, and when broken strongly resembling cast-iron, and will sometimes ring, on being struck, almost as clearly. It was used very much formerly for making journals ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... his comrades came to him. The brittle blue line had withstood the blows and won. He grew bitter over it. It seemed that the blind ignorance and stupidity of those little pieces had betrayed him. He had been overturned and crushed by their lack of sense in holding the position, when intelligent deliberation ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... temporary bond was correct, or whether it had been developed to harden relentlessly only over unyielding surfaces of horn such as the termites' deadliest enemy, the ants, wear for armor, will never be known. But in a matter of moments it became apparent that it was going to prove too brittle to continue clamping flesh as elastic as that of ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... in a square yard, six inches deep, when picked out by hand, and cleaned as much as possible, weighed, in their natural state, 2 lbs. 11 oz.; and when dried on the top of a water-bath, for the purpose of getting them brittle and fit for reduction into fine powder, 1 lb. 12 oz. 31 grains. In this state they were submitted as before to analysis, when ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... are inseparable from the pluralistic philosophy. Only monistic dogmatism can say of any of its hypotheses, 'It is either that or nothing; take it or leave it just as it stands.' The type of monism prevalent at Oxford has kept this steep and brittle attitude, partly through the proverbial academic preference for thin and elegant logical solutions, partly from a mistaken notion that the only solidly grounded basis for religion was along those lines. If Oxford men could be ignorant of anything, it ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... on stout white wove paper, similar to that used for the Jubilee stamps and at some time or other a slightly thinner and more brittle paper seems to have been used. The paper for the 5c is of a distinctly bluish color—this being the first occasion on which colored paper was used for any of the postage stamps ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... beauties gone to dust, the month of the last, failing fight against the clutch of grim, all-destroying winter. And Fairchild was sagging in defeat just as the leaves were falling from the shaking aspens, as the moss tendrils were curling into brittle, brown things ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... stamp of Natal shown here was produced in this manner. The stamps of Scinde, issued in 1850, were embossed and for the red one large wafers, at that date in common use for sealing letters, were used. The brittle nature of this material is probably responsible for the scarcity of this stamp, especially of copies in ...
— What Philately Teaches • John N. Luff
... not played, and the business as in the rest of the world up and down, to wit, from the bottom of the cellar to the great chamber. A melancholy man would find here matter to work upon, to see heads as brittle as glasses, and often broken; men come hither to quarrel, and come hither to be made friends: and if Plutarch will lend me his simile, it is even Telephus's sword that makes wounds and cures them. It is the common consumption of the afternoon, and the murderer or maker-away ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... with, and can form some opinion as to the quantity of poles and charcoal that will be required to render it malleable, or, as it is termed, to bring it to the proper pitch. The copper in this state is what is termed dry: it is brittle, of a deep-red colour, inclining to purple, an open grain, and crystalline structure. In the process of toughening, the surface of the metal in the furnace is first well covered with charcoal; a pole, commonly of birch, is then held into the liquid metal, which causes considerable ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... with that first sphere. I found that metal pushed through the sphere will conduct an electrical current, which is pretty definite proof that the metal isn't within the sphere at all. Glass can be forced through it without breaking. Not flexible glass, but rods of plain old brittle glass. It turns without breaking, and it also loses some of its length. Water can be forced through a tube inserted in the sphere, but only when terrific pressure is applied. What that proves I can't ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... the soil a black, rich, though thin one; the sides of the hills covered with large trees, and very thick, growing to a great height before they branch off. They are all of the evergreen kind, different from any I ever saw; the wood is very brittle, and easily split; there is a very little variety of sorts, having seen but two. The leaves of one are long and narrow; and the seed (of which I got a few) is in the shape of a button, and has a very agreeable smell. The leaves of the other are like the bay, and it has a seed ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... stiffener. It makes each hair brittle enough to break off right at the surface of ...
— Junior Achievement • William Lee
... or Limoni of Linnaeus, contains, under a hard brittle shell, a lightly acid pulp, which cannot be eaten without sugar; and with it, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... young of few other birds are so completely housed from the elements, or protected from their natural enemies, the jays, hawks, and owls. A tree with a natural cavity is never selected, but one which has been dead just long enough to have become soft and brittle throughout. The bird goes in horizontally for a few inches, making a hole perfectly round and smooth and adapted to his size, then turns downward, gradually enlarging the hole, as he proceeds to the softness of the tree ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... Aberbrothok," cut the bell from its buoy only to be lost himself on the reef a year later. The abbey was founded by William the Lion in 1178, but war, fire and fanaticism have left it sadly fragmentary. Now it is the charge of the town, but the elements continue to war upon it and the brittle red sandstone of which it is built shows deeply the wear of the ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... Joris and I, Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... honour are besides A very brittle glass; And Time, in his unresting tides, Makes all things change and pass; Turns riches to a beggar's dole; Sets glory's race an ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... you seemed to hear the close-glittering heavens snapping with the light of the stars. Everything seemed charged with electric cold; the rich soil of the garden struck fire like flint beneath your feet; the tall hillside pines, as stiff as masts of steel, would suddenly crack in the brittle silence, with a sharp report; and at intervals throughout the taut boreal night you could hear a hollow rumbling running down the length of the pond—the ice being split with the wide iron wedge ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... to serve with a fish course in place of bread or rolls and a salad. Slice the cucumbers very thin and soak them in ice water for one or two hours. They must be crisp and brittle and made just at serving time. Beat together three tablespoonfuls of olive oil, one tablespoonful of vinegar, a saltspoonful of salt and a dash of pepper; stand this dressing on the ice until it thickens. Butter thin slices of bread, cover them with a layer of cucumbers ...
— Sandwiches • Sarah Tyson Heston Rorer
... wheel well," he said in a brittle tone. "It looks to me like a grenade. There's a string tied to it. At a guess, that sandy-haired guy set it up like that saboteur sergeant down in Brazil. Only—it rolled a little. And this one goes off when the wheels go down. I think, too, if we ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... some of the others, but may be readily distinguished by its tough long fibers, not brittle like natrolite. Datholite may generally be distinguished by the form of its crystals and their glassy appearance, with great hardness, and by tingeing the flame from the blowpipe of a true green color. Apopholite is distinguished from calcite, as noticed under ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... MARSHALL describes it as often growing to the size of a very large tree, 70 or 80 feet in height, and above 4 feet in diameter; he mentions two varieties, one with yellow and the other with white wood; that with yellow wood is soft and brittle, much used for boards, heels of shoes, also turned into bowls, trenchers, &c. the white is heavy, tough, and hard, and is sawed into joists, boards, &c. ...
— The Botanical Magazine Vol. 8 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... princess lives in a glass castle, that princess on a glass hill; this one sees all things in a mirror; they may all live in glass houses if they will not throw stones. For this thin glitter of glass everywhere is the expression of the fact that the happiness is bright but brittle, like the substance most easily smashed by a housemaid or a cat. And this fairy-tale sentiment also sank into me and became my sentiment towards the whole world. I felt and feel that life itself is as bright as the diamond, but as brittle as the window-pane; ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... the most beautiful palace in the world and it was a very costly one, for it was made of the finest porcelain, and was so brittle that you had to be very careful if you touched it. It was surrounded by such a large garden that the gardener himself did not quite know where it ended. Lovely flowers grew in luxuriance, and, lest people should pass the most beautiful without ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... with sea salt be used, it will be seen that the liquid immediately passes through the teguments Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5, and stops abruptly before the embryo membrane No. 6, which will remain quite dry and brittle for several days, the berry remaining all the time in the water. Should the water penetrate further after several days, it can be ascertained that the entrance was gained through the part No 10 free of this tissue, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... Vermont jurist, who said: "Gentlemen of the jury, I must explain to you that a prima facie case is a case that is very good in front, but may be very bad in the rear." So of our so much lauded and really lovely calf bindings: they develop qualities in use which give us pause. Calf is the most brittle of the leathers—hence it is always breaking at the hinges; it is a very smooth leather—hence it shows every scratch instantly; it is a light and delicate leather—hence it shows soils and stains more quickly than ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... there did appear to be some danger; for the wind that had loved Seth from the first was apparently jealous of Celia. It tore at her as though to toss her to unreachable distances in the way it ripped the tumbleweeds from their small brittle stems ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... three inches in diameter, covered with a thick spongy incrustation of lime, white or yellowish toward the base: sporangia convolute, the walls membranous, brittle, charged throughout with round white granules of lime, 1.5-2 mu in diameter: columella none: capillitium of delicate, colorless, anastomosing tubules, bearing toward the center large, white, branching ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... deliberation, as the man Were tasked to his full strength, absorbed and lost. Thus oft reclined at ease, I lose an hour At evening, till at length the freezing blast That sweeps the bolted shutter, summons home The recollected powers, and, snapping short The glassy threads with which the fancy weaves Her brittle toys, restores me to myself. How calm is my recess! and how the frost Raging abroad, and the rough wind, endear The silence and the warmth enjoyed within! I saw the woods and fields at close of day A variegated show; the meadows green Though faded, and the lands, where lately ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... wheel, was Captain Freeman, unconscious. His face was so blistered that his eyes were nearly shut. His hair was singed right down to the skull. His hands were raw an' bleedin'. His clothes were scorched into something that was black an' brittle. The harbor-master lifted him, an' laid him ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... and chop them fine. Fry two slices of salt pork in an iron pot. When the fat is fried out, take the brittle out, put into the fat 2 slices of onion, then a layer of sliced potatoes, then a layer of chopped clams, sprinkle well with salt and pepper, then a layer of onion, then the bits of fried pork, cut into small pieces, add a layer of broken crackers. Do this ...
— 365 Luncheon Dishes - A Luncheon Dish for Every Day in the Year • Anonymous
... felt the necessity of vindicating her character) Miss Minerva began a dissertation on cranes, suggested by the birds with the brittle-looking legs hopping up to her in expectation of something to eat. Ovid was absorbed in attending to his cousin; he had provided himself with some bread, and was helping Carmina to feed the birds. But one person noticed ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... with you, Mawley," said the vicar, "the truth is not so brittle that we should be afraid of handling it; if religion were more openly discussed and brought into our daily life, I believe we should be all the better ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... laws of glacier motion may be discovered by a study of Figures 96 and 97. It is important to remember that glaciers do not slide bodily over their beds, but urged by gravity move slowly down valley in somewhat the same way as would a stream of thick mud. Although small pieces of ice are brittle, the large mass of granular ice which composes a glacier ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... be ready to gather from October to January, when the ripe berries should be carefully picked from the trees by hand every morning, and dried in the shade, the sun being apt to make them too brittle; they must be carefully turned to prevent fermentation, and when sufficiently dry the husks must be removed, and the clean coffee separated from the broken berries. After being picked out and put aside, and then again dried, it is fit to pack. The first year's crop will be less than the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... "Rodman used a powder in grains as large as chestnuts, made of willow charcoal, simply rarefied in cast-iron pans. This powder was hard and shining, left no stain on the hands, contained a great proportion of hydrogen and oxygen, deflagrated instantaneously, and, though very brittle, did not much ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne |
