"Caustic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... approvable business to win love incognito, according to the example of many ancient emperors, but in practice he had tripped over an ugly outgrowth from the legendary custom. The girl hated him, there was no doubt about it; and it was equally certain he loved her. Particularly caustic was the reflection that a twitch of his finger would get him Katharine as his wife, for before long the Queen-Regent was again attempting secret negotiations to bring this about. Yes, he could get the girl's body by a couple of pen-strokes, ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... better. Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty, and wastes upon mean motives and imperceptible "points of view" his neat literary style, his felicitous phrases, his swift and caustic satire. Mr. Hall Caine, it is true, aims at the grandiose, but then he writes at the top of his voice. He is so loud that one cannot bear what he says. Mr. James Payn is an adept in the art of concealing what is not worth finding. He hunts down the obvious with the enthusiasm of ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... stories brim over with quaint humor, caustic sarcasm, and concealed contempt for male folk ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... the operation of chairing Fenn up the steps occupied the active minds of the Kayites. When he had disappeared into the first eleven room, they turned their attention in other directions. Caustic and uncomplimentary remarks began to fly to and fro between the representatives of Kay's and Blackburn's. It is not known who actually administered the first blow. But, when Fenn came out of the pavilion with Kennedy and Silver, ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... a caustic smile. The latter shrugged his shoulders. "So long as you tie him neck and heels with a Campbell I am content," he answered. "Are you going? I'll just bar the windows and lock the door, and then I'll be off with yonder copper cadet of a French house. Good-day ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... my husband beam all over, and the house is deluged with Indian scents and soaps. Soaps indeed! They are more like lumps of caustic soda. And do I not know that what my sister-in-law uses on herself are the European soaps of old, while these are made over to the maids ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... he had led up to it, did not apparently enjoy it; on the contrary, she felt him gradually withdrawing and cooling, becoming a little dry and caustic, even satirical, as on the first afternoon of their acquaintance. So that after a while her gossip flagged; since the game wants two to play it. Then Anderson walked on with a furrowed brow, and raised colour; and she ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... brilliant charge and countercharge, of church and state power, unfortunately for its author in its "Introduction" was this sentence: "Each hour, as life advances, am I made to see how capricious and vulgar is the immortality conferred by a newspaper." This brought upon its writer a whirlwind of caustic criticism in the American papers, and soon became a challenge of battle by one who was to prove himself brave, able, fearless, and right through coming years of hot and bitter strife. By one of the leading editors the glove was taken up in these words: "The press has built ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... Was it possible that the mere fact of being engaged to a sweet-natured youth like Theo Joyselle could cause such a miracle as this before his eyes? What was the boy to change Brigit from a sullen, caustic woman into a charming, lovely ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... in a caustic voice, "but that is hardly the point. He has taken to ways of relieving his sufferings which make him quite ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... itself in Hazlitt precociously in the study of human nature. He characterized some of his schoolmates disdainfully as "fit only for fighting like stupid dogs and cats," and at the age of twelve, while on a visit, he communicated to his father a caustic sketch of some English ladies who "require an Horace or a Shakespeare to describe them," and whose "ceremonial unsociality" made him wish he were back in America. His metaphysical studies determined the direction which his observation of life should take. ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... solid, tenacious, fibrous material, and its density in the hoof varies in different situations. It is softened by alkalies, such as caustic potash or soda and ammonia, the parts first attacked being the commissures, then the frog, and afterwards the sole and wall. Strong acids, such as sulphuric acid and nitric acid, ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... give her a drink, to ease for a time the terrible gnawing at her breast. Might? Yes; but more likely she would be thrust out with jeers and curses, and, for some reason, old Marg was in no mood to use the caustic wit and ready tongue that were her only weapons. So she staggered on until the swarming tenement was reached, stumbled up the five flights of unillumined stairs, and almost fell headlong into the dismal garret which ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... killing trees by poison he uses two pounds white arsenic, one pound caustic soda ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... dispute. One party maintained that the possession of Port Egmont was of the utmost importance to England, and that by the secret article, which it was said existed in the convention, implying that after all we were to give it up, the national honour had been meanly sacrificed. The caustic Junius and other writers took this side of the question. Another party, however, at the head of whom Dr. Johnson may be reckoned, endeavoured to demonstrate that the whole group was worth little or nothing, and that it would have been absurd to go to war about them. Both parties adopted ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Whenever it is found that a portion of the lead lining requires repairing, before cutting away the lead it should be very carefully washed, for several feet on either side of the portion that it is intended to remove, with a solution of caustic soda or potash dissolved in methylated spirit and water, and afterwards with water alone. This decomposes the nitro-glycerine forming glycerine and potassium nitrate. It will be found that the mixed acids attack the lead rather quickly, forming sulphate and nitrate of lead, but ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... journey, and ranks the march as one of the greatest exploits in Roman military history. Described by the names known to modern geography, it was from the Gulf of Cabes to Cape Africa. Pope, in a letter to Henry Cromwell, dated November 11, 1710, makes some caustic remarks on the geography of this book. (See "Pope's Works", Vol. vi., 109; by Elwin & Courthope.) (31) See Line 444. (32) See Book IV., 65. (33) The "Palladium" or image of Pallas, preserved in the temple of ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... held me back—and presently I began to wonder whether I should attribute it to the influence of those with whom I was temporarily associated. I was almost confirmed in this impression when Mr. Harland's voice, harsh and caustic as it could be when he was irritated or worsted in an argument, broke ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... soda process, invented by M. Meliner in France in 1865, the chips from spruce and poplar logs are boiled under pressure in a strong solution of caustic soda. ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... make a glorious gallery of landscapes. He is, moreover, a charming poet, an eloquent debater, and has written many able and important works on politics; yet we never recollect, during the last twenty years, to have heard his name mentioned in English society except once, when an old and caustic, but most able judge, now no more, said, "I have been reading Lamartine's Travels in the East—it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... for surgical use must be free of caustic alkali; it must only contain 0.45% to 0.50 of hypochlorite. Under 0.45% it is not active enough and above 0.50 it is irritant. With chloride of lime (bleaching powder) having 25% of active chlorine, the quantities of necessary substances to ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... recalled my scathing comments at the time of the divorce proceedings. They were too caustic to be repeated here. It is only necessary to state that the proceedings came near to putting two friendly nations into very bad temper. Statesmen and diplomats were drawn into the mess, and jingo congressmen on our side of the water introduced sensational bills bearing specifically upon the ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... his cheerfulness throughout was wonderful. A certain grimmer shade, coming gradually over him, might perhaps be noticed in the concluding years; not impatience properly, yet the consciousness how much he needed patience; something more caustic in his tone of wit, more trenchant and indignant occasionally in his tone of speech: but at no moment was his activity bewildered or abated, nor did his composure ever give way. No; both his activity and his composure he bore with ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... people of this city. A self-convicted falsifier and cheat! A man who snaps his fingers in the face of the laws of the country! Isn't that a commentary on the workings of universal suffrage?" This was a caustic summing up on George's part of the story he had already told Miss Wellington piecemeal, and he looked at her as much as to ask if his dejection were ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... After the country of Leaphigh is reached the story is far less absurd and more entertaining; though (p. 135) Cooper's descriptions are of the nature of caricature rather than of satire. There are, however, many shrewd and caustic remarks scattered up and down the pages of the latter part of the work, but they will never be known to anybody, for nobody will read ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... neither bitter nor personal in the bad sense, though he had a good deal of caustic humour and knew how to make an effective use ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... rotten metope Express, as though they were an open tome Top-lined with caustic monitory gnome; "Dunces, Learn here to ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... visit, and that he should pay it with her. He gave way at last, and she allowed herself to be soothed and caressed. Then, when she seemed to have recovered herself, he gave her a tragic-comic account of the three weeks' engagement, and the manner in which it had been broken off: caustic enough, one might have thought, to satisfy the most unfriendly listener. ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... although she tipped the scales at a hundred and sixty, she was as slim and round as a reed, and it was well known that the grip of her firm fingers applied to the closed fist of any of the young fellows on the place would make him howl. She was an emotional creature, with a caustic tongue on occasion, and when it pleased her mood to look over her shoulder at one of her numerous admirers and to wither him with a look or a word, she did not hesitate to do it. For instance, when ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... experiments in which he attempted to extract the dust from the air of the Royal Institute by passing it through a tube containing fragments of glass wetted with concentrated sulphuric acid, and thence through a second tube containing fragments of marble wetted with a strong solution of caustic potash, which experiments were attended with perfect failure, the Professor continues, "I tried to intercept this floating matter in various ways; and on the day just mentioned, prior to sending the air through the drying apparatus, I carefully ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... biologic agents, with some practitioners; and as a result, more or less inflammation may occur. The author has observed and treated some twenty cases where an intensely painful infectious inflammation of the triceps brachii was caused by the intramuscular injection of a caustic solution by a cruel and unscrupulous empiric, whose object was ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... relationship between them. Barret, as Hemmingwell's chief assistant and supervisor of the project, was naturally superior in rank to Troy, and made the most of it. A placid, easy-going man, Troy took Barret's gibes and caustic comments in silence, doing his work and getting it finished on time. But occasionally he had difficulty in ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... University honors, that his scientific attainments are far from inconsiderable. He is well known to be the author of an essay in the Philosophical Transactions on the accurate rectification of a circular arc, and of an investigation of the equation of a lunar caustic—a problem likely to become of ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... pale and hollow-eyed face, and smiled a withering and commiserating smile. "Ye won't go north this week," he remarked—not without sympathy, for somehow he had taken a liking to me, which even prompted him off and on to favor me with caustic expressions of what he thought of the school board and the leading citizens of the town. I, of course, never encouraged him in his communicativeness which seemed to be just what he would expect, and no rebuff ever goaded him into the ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... movement, so far as history records their names, were Dr. Edwardes-Ker, an enthusiast both in theory and in practice, from whose caustic pen dissentients were wont to suffer periodical castigation; Mr. W. G. Weager, who has held office in the club for some twenty years; Mrs. Mayhew, who capably held her own amongst her fellow-members of the sterner ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... Charles De Jones, in bitter, caustic, scathing tones. "You've dodged me for a dozen weeks, but now—'tis the avenger speaks—you'll have to pay up what you owe, or to the county ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... the fourth and most malicious personage, his name will be enough—it was Bixiou! Not (alas!) the Bixiou of 1825, but the Bixiou of 1836, a misanthropic buffoon, acknowledged supreme, by reason of his energetic and caustic wit; a very fiend let loose now that he saw how he had squandered his intellect in pure waste; a Bixiou vexed by the thought that he had not come by his share of the wreckage in the last Revolution; a ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... preparations against it, were interpreted by some of his political enemies as a sign both of personal cowardice and of official self-glorification,—as is indicated by a letter written by the aged Landon Carter to General Washington, on the 31st of October, and filled with all manner of caustic garrulity and insinuation,—a letter from which it may be profitable for us to quote a few sentences, as qualifying somewhat that stream of honeyed testimony respecting Patrick Henry which commonly flows down upon us so copiously ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... of them very highly. It must be better to deal with the repeal of laws than the defending of criminals. But all this is papa's wisdom, not mine. Papa has never been in the Cabinet yet, and therefore of course he is a little caustic." ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... unto the illumination and purification of the whole being. A stray word, an unknown influence, a breath of the Spirit, is continually effecting such changes, such salvations. True, there are many fettered by vices, torn by sins, ploughed by the caustic shares of remorse, lost to peaceful freedom, lost to spiritual joys, lost to the sweet, calm raptures of religious belief and love, and, in that sense, plunged in damnation. But this, they say, is the only hell there is. At the longest, it can endure but for the night ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... has done good work," he said, when he had finished reading her pungent and caustic words; "and yet—" A thoughtful expression crossed his face, he was silent for a moment, then he looked up at the young man, ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... an occasion for so doing. But they were shy of him—he saw that. They went on past the little yellow pine office, on their mules, or their sorry nags, or in shackling waggons behind oxen, to lounge at Nancy Card's gate as of old, or sit upon her porch to swap news and listen to her caustic comments on neighbourhood happenings. And only an occasional glance over the shoulder, a backward nod of the head, or jerk of the thumb, told the young justice that he was present in ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... slightly at this caustic remark and the accompanying scorn on the high-bred face; and the flush which had risen to her cheek a moment before vanished, leaving her quite pale, although ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... at the Last Supper. Of garments purporting to be the seamless coat of Christ there were a considerable number shown in different places; but the most famous to this day remains the Holy Coat of Treves, which, in Dr. Robertson's caustic words, "the Empress Helena (the mother of Constantine) was said to have presented to an imaginary archbishop of her pretended birthplace, Treves." During the First Crusade the army before Antioch was only spurred on to the efforts which resulted in the capture of ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... upon his contemptuous lips responded to the eyes—black, brown, gray, blue, yellow—all turned with such affecting devotion to his own. Composing himself to an insouciant attitude, he began in a cool, indifferent voice, which had, however, certain caustic tones in it which stung me at ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... correct in his apprehension. The newspapers criticized his plan in caustic editorials and ridiculous cartoons as "Scott's Anaconda," and public opinion rejected it in an overwhelming demand for a prompt and energetic advance. Scott was correct in military theory, while the people and the administration were right in practice, under existing political ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... own reward; and our hero had, moreover, other stimulating motives for persevering in a display of affected composure and indifference to Flora's obvious unkindness. Pride, which supplies its caustic as an useful, though severe, remedy for the wounds of affection, came rapidly to his aid. Distinguished by the favour of a prince; destined, he had room to hope, to play a conspicuous part in the revolution which awaited a mighty kingdom; excelling, probably, in mental ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... gone, that dear companion of many years; she had practised faithfully until six months ago, when she had asked her teacher to tell her father that she could never become even a third-rate musician; and Don Roberto had, after a caustic hour, concluded that he would "throw no more good money after bad;" she had had long and meaning conferences with her mirror, conjuring up phantasms of the beautiful dead women of her race, and decided sadly that the worship of man was not for ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... story of the idle rich, and is a vivid and truthful picture of society and stage life written by one who is himself a conspicuous member of the Western millionaire class. Full of grim satire, caustic wit and flashing epigrams. "Is sensational to a degree in its theme, daring in its treatment, lashing society as it was never scourged ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... entertained the warmest regard, was Edwin Johnson,[2] Assistant-Adjutant-General of the Bengal Artillery, in which capacity he had accompanied Brigadier Wilson from Meerut. He had a peculiarly bright intellect—somewhat caustic, but always clever and amusing. He was a delightful companion, and invariably gained the confidence of ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... incomparably beautiful are our own meadows in June! But the glitter of the buttercup, which is as nothing to the glitter of a gold dollar in the eyes of a practical farmer, fills him with wrath when this immigrant takes possession of his pastures. Cattle will not eat the acrid, caustic plant—a sufficient reason for most members of the Ranunculaceae to stoop to the low trick of secreting poisonous or bitter juices. Self-preservation leads a cousin, the garden monk's hood, even to murderous ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... it into Garangula, under which high-sounding appellation Big Mouth has descended to posterity. He was an astute old savage, well trained in the arts of Iroquois rhetoric, and gifted with the power of strong and caustic sarcasm, which has marked more than one of the chief orators of the confederacy. He shared with most of his countrymen the conviction that the earth had nothing so great as the league of the Iroquois; but, if he could ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... absence of the regular physician, a country practitioner may, in cases of absolute necessity, be allowed to prescribe his nostrum to prevent the extension of so deplorable an epidemic, provided there be no quackery in his treatment of the malady. A caustic is here offered; as it is to be feared nothing short of actual cautery can recover the numerous patients afflicted with the present prevalent and distressing rabies for rhyming.—As to the' Edinburgh Reviewers', it would indeed require an Hercules to crush the Hydra; but if the Author succeeds ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... sisters, were so breezy and unrestrained that Mrs. Jackson generally felt it necessary to apply the closure. Indeed, Marjory Jackson, aged fourteen, had on three several occasions been fined pudding at lunch for her caustic comments on the batting of her brother Reggie in important fixtures. Cricket was a tradition in the family, and the ladies, unable to their sorrow to play the game themselves, were resolved that it should not be their fault if the standard was not ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... a substance sui generis [peculiar in kind], which he calls melania. "The melania is a tasteless, black powder, insoluble in alcohol, ether, and water, while cold, but soluble in hot water: the solution is black. Caustic alkalies form with it a solution even in the cold, from which the mineral acids precipitate it unchanged. It contains much azote: it dissolves in, and decomposes, sulphuric acid: it easily kindles at the flame of a candle: it has been found to succeed, as a pigment, in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... machinery, know nothing about electricity, and actually refuse to ride on a motorcycle because the throbbing engine scared him, was more than they could understand. They quickly decided that he was a coward and had already lost respect for him, as was evident from the caustic comments made by the group under the maple after he ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... of the Bachelors' Club remained motionless, his mouth still open, struggling to restrain those caustic and profane remarks which, in that presence, he dare not utter. He instinctively flung one hand back to his hip, only to remember that all guns had been left at the door. McNeil eyed him calmly, as he might eye a chained bear, his lips parted ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... premises and misstatements of fact and of law, which seem to show political motives and not infrequently personal animosity toward Mr. Wilson. The exaggerated statements and unfair arguments of some of the Senators, larded, as they often were, with caustic sarcasm and vindictive personalities, did much to prevent an honest and useful discussion of the merits and demerits of ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... the Bishops will not let be printed again All things to be managed with faction Being the people that, at last, will be found the wisest Business of abusing the Puritans begins to grow stale Cannot get suitably, without breach of his honour Caustic attack on Sir Robert Howard Doe from Cobham, when the season comes, bucks season being past Forgetting many things, which her master beat her for Glad to be at friendship with me, though we hate one another I away with great ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... taken in the 'laicisation' of the schools has been already revealed in the famous 'Article 7' of M. Ferry. M. Ferry is the true, though more or less occult, head of the present Administration in France. 'M. Ferry,' said a caustic French Radical to me in Paris, 'ought to be the mask of M. Carnot. Nature gave him a Carnival nose for that purpose. Everything is topsy-turvy now in France, and so M. Carnot is the mask of M. Ferry. But the nose will ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... past bring us very near to the heart and the life of Greece, and waken a kindly enthusiasm in every one who approaches them. In Humphrey Prideaux's letters there is not a trace of any such feeling. He does his business, but it is hack-work. In this he differs from the modern student, but in his caustic description of the rude and witless society of the place he is modern enough. In his letters to his friend, John Ellis, of the State Paper Office, it is plain that Prideaux wants to get preferment. ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... said, concealing her relieved elation under a slightly caustic manner. "How you will relish the situation when Emily tells you that he is like you, I can't be as sure as I should be of myself under the ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... dotted with men trying to get the maximum amount of water from the sea in a small bucket let down on a line from the moving ship. First efforts in this direction would have been amusing had it not been for the caustic eye of the 'Mate' on the bridge. If the reader ever gets the chance to try the experiment, especially in a swell, he will soon find himself with neither bucket nor water. The poor Mate was annoyed by ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Johnson’s heart a good one? In the course of many years’ personal acquaintance with him, I never knew a single instance in which the praise (from another’s lip) of any human being, excepting that of Mrs. Thrale, was not a caustic on his spirit; and this, whether their virtues or abilities were the subject of encomium.” His opinions of poetry were, she thought, “so absurd and inconsistent with each other, that, though almost any of his dogmas may be clearly and easily confronted, yet the attempt ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... author of many books of permanent value. My friendship with MacVeagh and White continued during their lives, that is, for nearly sixty years. MacVeagh was one of the readiest and most attractive of speakers I ever knew. He had a very sharp and caustic wit, which made him exceedingly popular as an after-dinner speaker and as a host in his own house. He made every evening when he entertained, for those who were fortunate enough to be his guests, an occasion memorable in ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... hydrate, caustic soda, or soda by lime, is made by treating a solution of Na2CO3 with milk of lime. CaCO3 is precipitated and al- lowed to settle, the solution is poured off, and NaOH is obtained by evaporating the water and running the residue ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... began to look thoughtful. Now, Eph did know how to say caustic things when occasion ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... were followed by the provincial elections in the ensuing month, and thus a favourable opportunity was presented of contrasting the working of the two systems. The grossly unfair results of the provincial elections drew forth from many journals most caustic criticism. Le Peuple expressed the hope that these provincial elections would be the last instance of the use of the majority system in Belgium. "Is it not," it proceeded, "absurd, stupid, detestable that the provincial councils are alone excluded from the system of proportional representation? ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... grave, and womanly. But toward the end of their journeying together, she felt more hopeful. Reticent as she was, Priscilla Gower was a very charming young person. She talked well, and with much clear, calm sense; she laughed musically when she laughed at all, and could make very telling, caustic speeches when occasion required; but still it was singular what a wide difference the difference of six years made in the two girls. As Lady Throckmorton had said, it was not a matter of age. At twenty-two ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... old Doctor, one morning, "after you've harnessed Caustic, come into the study a few ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... proof,—the printer was a little wrong-headed Scotchman,—had insisted at the last moment in heading his Tyrtean "Proem," a fine aerial trumpet-blast somewhat Shelleyan in style, with the word that was evidently intended, namely, "Poem." However, he was somewhat consoled by reading his caustic column of notes headed "The World outside Coalchester," the very heading of which was a revelation. Then, too, he very much enjoyed his article on "Bad Lighting in Coalchester," with its evident allegoric insinuation that Coalchester needed lighting in more ways ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... folly to select as the editor a certain Libri-Bagnano, a man of Italian extraction, who, as it was soon discovered by his opponents, had twice suffered heavy sentences in France as a forger. He was a brilliant and caustic writer, well able to carry the polemical war into his adversaries' camp. But his antecedents were against him, and he aroused a hatred second only to the aversion felt ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... peering through the gloom for some familiar landmark. The men, who for the most part would be completely lost in three minutes on their own, are critical and unsympathetic, and rightly, for this is what an officer is paid extra for. They whisper caustic comments in the rear. All sense of direction seems suddenly to fail the unhappy man, and he sinks into the depths of a misery which few others can equal. At last a light shines out ahead. Making towards it with a wild hope he sees the darker marks of bivouacs against ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... Eighteenth Century, the Broad Church Movement, Anglican Theology—the squire had his say about them all. And while the coolness and frankness of the method sent a shock of indignation and horror through the religious public, the subtle and caustic style, and the epigrams with which the book was strewn, forced both the religious and irreligious public to read, whether they would or no. A storm of controversy rose round the volumes, and some of the keenest observers of English life had said ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... says: "I heard John Randolph (who hated Jefferson) once describe, in his own biting, caustic manner, the delight expressed by him in a new model for the mould-board of ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... with water containing 10 parts in 100 of alcoholized caustic soda; at the expiration of one hour the envelopes of the pericarp, and of the testa Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, should be separated by friction in a coarse cloth, having been reduced by the action of the alkali to a pulpy state; each berry should then be opened separately to remove the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... proverbial, her popularity universal. The Leaf, the Fly, the Sylph, the Goddess, her friend calls her in turn, with many a light thrust at her volatile but loyal character. This brilliant, spirituelle, caustic woman was the wife of a cousin of the Marquis de Sevigne, who was as witty as herself and more inconsequent. Both were amiable, both sparkled with bons mots and epigrams, but they failed to entertain each other. The husband ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... on Frank, and he was glad that Sam was not there to improve the occasion with some further caustic remarks. ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... far, be produced at all by the ammonia-soda works. The bleaching powder trade has thus remained in the hands of the workers of the Leblanc process, and its sale has enabled them to cover much of the loss which they are suffering on the manufacture of soda ash and caustic soda. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... hard could be substituted for it? When plain, unembellished, unadorned, chaste could be substituted? When acute, violent, extreme, intense, sharp, distressing, afflictive could be substituted? When keen, cutting, biting, stinging, caustic, critical, trenchant ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... carriage, and there all your trouble ends. Why, Will,' he added, 'I have been yearning for you as if you were my own son; and of all the men that ever I came for in my long days, I have come for you most gladly. I am caustic, and sometimes offend people at first sight; but I am a good friend at heart to such ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... making his head ache badly and getting very cold, and being from time to time thrown off and jumped upon and going about in bandages, telling enquirers that he supposed he must have knocked against something somewhere, he didn't remember exactly. The energetic friend had been caustic. ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... sending its spray right over the rock at times, so that a landing on that side would have been impossible. On the lee side, however, the boat found a sort of temporary harbour. Here they landed, but not altogether without mishap. Isaac Dorkin, who had made himself conspicuous, during the row out, for caustic remarks, and a tendency to contradict, slipped his foot on a piece of seaweed and fell into the water, to the great glee of most ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... make him swell with manly pride; and should he show the least tendency to put upon his sisters and make them fetch and carry for him, as they are only too willing to do, you can easily put a stop to that by a few caustic remarks that you don't want savages in your house; and a pointed use of that delightful story in one of the White Cross papers,[25] of the Zulu chief to whom the Government sent a propitiatory present of wagons and wheelbarrows, thinking that it would be sure ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... of girls must depend upon their reading as much as upon the company they keep. Besides the intrinsic pleasure to be derived from solid knowledge, a woman ought to consider it as her best resource against poverty.' This is a somewhat caustic aphorism: 'A romantic woman is a troublesome friend, as she expects you to be as imprudent as herself, and is mortified at what she calls coldness and insensibility.' And this is admirable: 'The art of life is not to estrange oneself from society, ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... bit his lips to keep down his anger against an old man. Margaret felt very uneasy, knowing her grandfather so well, and not daring to guess what caustic remark might come next to irritate the young ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The couriers are respectful, but their faces wear a caustic expression. ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... (Md.) spoke strongly on A Case in Point. Mrs. Elizabeth Avery Meriwether, of St. Louis, devoted her remarks chiefly to a caustic criticism of Senator George G. Vest, who had recently declared himself uncompromisingly opposed to woman suffrage. He was made the target of a number of spicy remarks, and some of the newspaper correspondents insisted that the presence of the suffrage convention in the city was responsible ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... students for the caustic wit had in one of his classes, one year, a young man who was both ignorant and conceited. One morning he made a specially self-satisfied display of both these characteristics, and the professor said he would like to see him at the end of ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... facts of his disgrace at school and had added that he was truly sorry; the reply he received had been terse and rather stern but not unkind. Mr. Blake expressed much regret for his son's conduct and closed his epistle with the caustic comment that he should look for a proof of Van's desire to make good. That was all. Van knew that Dr. Maitland had also written; but what he did not know was that with the fearlessness so characteristic of him Bob Carlton had taken the time and trouble to pen a long note to Colorado as ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... at Bagnols, in the department of Var; famed for his caustic wit; was a Royalist emigrant at the time of the Revolution, and aided the cause by his pamphlets; he was styled by Burke "The Tacitus of the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... say nothing of Rivarol, a caustic wit of the revolutionary time, nor of Joubert, a writer of sayings of this century, of whom Mr. Matthew Arnold has said all that needs saying. He is delicate, refined, acute, but his thoughts were fostered in the hothouse of a coterie, and have none of the salt and ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... to whom suffering is degradation. Sympathy would burn them like caustic. They are dumb on the side which seeks promiscuous fellowship. They love one person, and live or die ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... believe," was the dry and caustic reply; "certainly the former, or the gentlemen of the long robe are ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Lord Cadurcis was at Brookes' dining at midnight, having risen since only a few hours. Being a malcontent, he had ceased to attend the Court, where his original reception had been most gracious, which he had returned by some factious votes, and a caustic lampoon. ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... at a disadvantage, and he grew fluent and caustic as he went on, almost changing places with Howard, who took the rake out of the boy's hands and followed, raking ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... which Raoul had so often heard the Comte de la Fere speak, except that its aspect had much changed since the period when Athos had himself been part of it; therefore everything which the Count de Guiche related was new to his traveling companion. The young count, witty and caustic, passed all the world in review; the queen herself was not spared, and Cardinal Mazarin came in for ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... emphasis. He enjoyed writing, and in the interview he attributed ideas to Bassett that would have been creditable to the most idealistic of statesmen. He based the editorial Bassett had suggested upon the interview; and he wrote half a dozen editorial paragraphs in a vein of caustic humor that the "Courier" affected. In the afternoon he copied his articles on a typewriter ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... possimus with the nominees and squatting members, most of whom, with Ebden at their head, would almost rather have endured a presentable Vandemonian expiree in the chair than the ultra-democratic Town Clerk and caustic ex-editor of the anti-squatter and anti-government "Argus". Some of the officials, however, were fairly up to their mark, notably our Attorney-General Stawell (now Sir William, the ex-Chief Justice), who, ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... searched far and wide without success. Then they sat down to rest and eat. While thus engaged, Krake and Tyrker returned to the subject of the reported noisiness of Turks, and the former became so caustic in his jests that the irascible little Tyrker lost temper, much to the amusement of ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... forming in mortal mind afterwards to appear on the body; but to do this requires attention. The thought of 198:15 disease is formed before one sees a doctor and before the doctor undertakes to dispel it by a counter-irritant, - perhaps by a blister, by the application of caustic or 198:18 croton oil, or by a surgical operation. Again, giving an- other direction to faith, the physician prescribes drugs, until the elasticity of mortal thought haply causes a 198:21 vigorous reaction upon itself, and reproduces ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... becomes a fresh centre of propagation. The vicinity of the ulcer is very tender, and it eats in frightfully if not allowed rest. Many slaves die of it, and its periodical discharges of bloody ichor makes me suspect it to be a development of fever. I have found lunar caustic useful: a plaister of wax, and a little finely-ground sulphate of copper is used by the Arabs, and so is cocoa-nut oil and butter. These ulcers are excessively intractable, there is no healing them before they eat into the bone, especially ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... contributed largely to the final overthrow of Sir Robert Walpole's government, and reached a circulation of 10,000 copies. For this success Amhurst's editorship was not perhaps chiefly responsible. It was the organ of Lord Bolingbroke and William Pulteney, the latter of whom was a frequent and caustic contributor. In 1737 an imaginary letter from Colley Cibber was inserted, in which he was made to suggest that many plays by Shakespeare and the older dramatists contained passages which might be regarded as seditious. He therefore desired ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... talk about his school life at all. The set of boys in which he lived was a curious one; they were fairly clever, but they must have been, I gathered afterwards, quite extraordinarily critical and quarrelsome. There was one boy in particular, a caustic, spiteful, and extremely mischief-making creature, who turned the set into a series of cliques and parties. Hugh used to say afterwards that he had never known anyone in his life with such an eye for other people's weaknesses, or with such a talent for putting them ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... horse-power is used in various electrolytic and electro-thermal processes in the immediate neighborhood. Some of the more important consumers of the electric power, named in the order of consumption, are for the manufacture of the following products: calcium carbide, aluminium, caustic soda and bleaching ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord |
