"Volatile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... expressions are the best. A distant friend, upon one of these occasions, wrote a letter as brief as brief might be, but of its kind altogether perfect. It ran thus: "I have heard of your great grief, and I send you a simple pressure of the hand." Coming from a gay and volatile person, it had for the mourner great consolation; pious quotations, and even the commonplaces of condolence, would have seemed forced. Undoubtedly those persons do us great good, or they wish to, who tell us to be resigned—that we have deserved this affliction; that we suffer now, but that our ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... conversation with the philosopher. After some talk, Euthyphro says, 'You will think me mad when I tell you whom I am prosecuting and pursuing!' 'Why, has the fugitive wings?' asks Socrates. 'Nay, he is not very volatile at his time of life!' 'Who is he?' 'My father.' 'Good heavens! you don't mean that. What is he accused of?' 'Murder, Socrates.' Then Euthyphro explains the case, which quaintly illustrates Greek civilisation. Euthyphro's father ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... ado each with other in the house of misericord where this learningknight lay by cause the traveller Leopold came there to be healed for he was sore wounded in his breast by a spear wherewith a horrible and dreadful dragon was smitten him for which he did do make a salve of volatile salt and chrism as much as he might suffice. And he said now that he should go in to that castle for to make merry with them that were there. And the traveller Leopold said that he should go otherwhither for he was a man of cautels and a subtile. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... of troops may go along into the field. Only the man versed in statecraft should be allowed to participate in the talk about the results of war. Not he who has out yonder proved an unworthy diplomat, nor the dilettante loafer sprayed with the perfume of volatile emotions. Manhood liability to military service requires manhood suffrage? That question may rest for the time being; likewise the desire for equality of that right shall not be argued today. But common sense should ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... young, and content with the unbounded indulgence of those bodily faculties with which he was largely endowed. He is described as extremely handsome, and above the average stature; with an acute mind, somewhat too volatile; and more prone by nature to the exercises of the field than to the deliberations of the cabinet. But neither was the son of Safdar Jang likely to be brought up wholly without lessons in that base and tortuous ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... around the periphery of his central circle—incessant is the smacking of his whip—not this time directed against Mr Merriman, who at his ease is enjoying a swim upon the sawdust—and lo! the grooms rush in, six bars are elevated in a trice, and over them all bounds the volatile Signora like a panther, nor pauses until with airy somersets she has passed twice through the purgatory of the blazing hoop, and then, drooping and exhausted, sinks like a Sabine into the arms of the Herculean master, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... could not see her clearly, for the cloud in front of his eyes. "I'm not well, I want some sal volatile." ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the countess, as it was covered with a thin veil she had put on her head, and which fell over her features in misty folds, but it seemed to him as though her voice had altered. He could distinguish amid the perfumes of the roses and heliotropes in the flower-stands, the sharp and fragrant odor of volatile salts, and he noticed in one of the chased cups on the mantle-piece the countess's smelling-bottle, taken from its shagreen case, and exclaimed in a tone of uneasiness, as he entered,—"My dear mother, have you been ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... tried to raise himself from this rank to that of a journalist, and succeeded; he sent all sorts of articles to three newspapers. From his twenty-first to his twenty-fourth year he wrote for the daily papers, and wrote gay accounts of the volatile lives of young Italian journalists with the ladies of the theatres. Then he fell in love with the lady who later became his wife (known as a novelist under the pseudonym of Ludovico de Rosa), and from that time forth ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... partage of the French—bating the 'etourderie of the mousquetaires and of a high-dried petit-maitre or two, they appear to me more lifeless than Germans. I cannot comprehend how they came by the character of a lively people. Charles Townshend has more sal volatile in him than the whole nation. Their King is taciturnity itself, Mirepoix was a walking mummy, Nivernois his about as much life as a sick favourite child, and M. Dusson is a good-humoured country gentleman, who has been drunk the day before, and is ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... she left me. She was very erratic, and before she left the room she had quite got over her depression. The sun shone out, and with the gleam of brightness her volatile spirits rose. ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... in almost every kingdom of animated nature. From certain cloistered old authors I have gathered that this same sea-unicorn's horn was in ancient days regarded as the great antidote against poison, and as such, preparations of it brought immense prices. It was also distilled to a volatile salts for fainting ladies, the same way that the horns of the male deer are manufactured into hartshorn. Originally it was in itself accounted an object of great curiosity. Black Letter tells me that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that voyage, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the solution of a radium salt. The emanation comes away, and the activity of the deposit which it leaves behind decays rapidly to a small fraction of its initial value. Again, some of the active deposits of the emanation are more volatile than others, and can be separated from them by the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... employing themselves. It happens often that this sort of Man is heavy enough in his Nature to be a good Proficient in such Matters as are attainable by Industry; but alas! he has such an ardent Desire to be what he is not, to be too volatile, to have the Faults of a Person of Spirit, that he professes himself the most unfit Man living for any manner of Application. When this Humour enters into the Head of a Female, she gently professes Sickness upon all Occasions, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... a dozen of them, they were secured against drunkenness, however deeply they might imbibe. Almonds, however, are considered as very indigestible. The bitter contain, too, principles which produce two violent poisons,—prussic acid and a kind of volatile oil. It is consequently dangerous to eat them in large quantities. Almonds pounded together with a little sugar and water, however, produce a milk similar to that which is yielded by animals. Their oil is used for making fine soap, and their cake as ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... really makes, though not the splendour, the felicity of life, and that which every wise man will choose for his final and lasting companion in the languor of age, in the quiet of privacy, when he departs weary and disgusted from the ostentatious, the volatile, and the vain. Of such a character, which the dull overlook and the gay despise, it was fit that the value should be made known and the dignity established. Domestic virtue, as it is exerted without great occasions, or conspicuous consequences, in an even unnoted tenor, required the genius of Pope ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... accuracy of a people who, though now in their decadence, have played an immense and still play a not wholly insignificant part in the complex drama of Asiatic politics. It is the picture of a people, light-hearted, nimble-witted, and volatile, but subtle, hypocritical, and insincere; metaphysicians and casuists, courtiers and rogues, gentlemen and liars, hommes d'esprit and yet incurable cowards. To explain the history and to elucidate ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... resulted in nothing but the production of exactly a hundred and fifty thousand unusable bricks: the four oxen, Tug, Lug, Haul and Crawl, who were to be the instruments of another economy and proved to be, at least in Sydneian language, equal to nothing but the consumption of "buckets of sal volatile:" the entry of the distracted mother of the household on her new domains with a baby clutched in her arms and one shoe left in the circumambient mud: the great folks of the neighbourhood (Lord and Lady Carlisle) coming to call graciously ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... his years wary as well as enterprising, calm as well as ardent, quite as rich in patience as in promptitude and vigour. But Alec Bolt was a headlong youth, volatile, hot, and hasty, fit only to fish the Maelstrom, or a torrent of new lava. And the moment he had laid that wager he expected his crown piece; though time, as the lawyers phrase it, was "expressly of the ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... attractive to Hester. Brought up among Quakers, although not one herself, she admired and respected the staidness and outward peacefulness common amongst the young women of that sect. Sylvia, whom she had expected to find volatile, talkative, vain, and wilful, was quiet and still, as if she had been born a Friend: she seemed to have no will of her own; she served her mother and child for love; she obeyed her husband in all things, and never appeared to pine after gaiety or pleasure. And yet at times ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... friend, it is de fortune of war. Why you so sad?" exclaimed the volatile Frenchman. "Another day we take two English ship, and then make all right. Have you never been in England? Fine country, but not equal to 'la belle France;' too much ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... might even affect the happiness of the newly-married pair; but John did not wish to hint at these graver views of the subject; he was afraid to give them too much importance, and he confidently reckoned on Valentine's volatile disposition to stand his friend, and soon enable him to get over his attachment. All that seemed wanting was some degree ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... worst offences had been impertinent jokes, white lies, and short fits of pettishness ending in sunny good humour. But he was gone; and she was left an opulent widow of forty, with strong sensibility, volatile fancy, and slender judgment. She soon fell in love with a music-master from Brescia, in whom nobody but herself could discover anything to admire. Her pride, and perhaps some better feelings, struggled hard against this degrading passion. But ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... descent, Judge Le Grande possessed in an eminent degree the peculiarities of his gay, volatile ancestry. Proud of his children, and ambitious for their future, in his lavish bounty he withheld nothing he deemed necessary ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... process of the vinous and acetous stages of fermentation, are interesting, beyond comparison, to the brewer, malt and molasses distillers, vintager, cider and vinegar maker, &c. The elastic fluids and volatile principles that are extricated and escape, formerly so little attended to, are now better understood. The method of commodiously saving, and advantageously applying them, and other volatile products, to the improvement of the fermenting and other fluids, will, ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... out with keeping everything to herself, and trying to spare us pain,' Mrs. Ross said to her husband, as she recounted this little scene to him. 'I never knew Audrey hysterical before; I was obliged to give her some sal volatile. I think she is ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... 'wore a white greatcoat, and consequently talked loud'—(there is something very delicious in that CONSEQUENTLY). He wore his hat on one side. He was active, volatile, and went to the top of Arthur's Seat on the Sunday forenoon. He was as quiet in a debating society as he was loud in the streets. He was reckless and imprudent: yesterday he insisted on your sharing a bottle of claret with him (and claret was claret then, before the ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that the poet paints a life which does not exist. He only extracts and concentrates, as it were, life's ethereal essence, arrests and condenses its volatile fragrance, brings together its scattered beauties, and prolongs its more refined but evanescent joys: and in this he does well; for it is good to feel that life is not wholly usurped by cares for subsistence and physical gratifications, but admits, in measures which may be indefinitely enlarged, ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... he was naughty, and said we must not suffer merit to think itself neglected. Clifton began to sing Britons strike home; which he soon changed to Rule Britannia: sure tokens that he was not pleased; for these are the tunes with which he always sings away his volatile choler. But one of the columns, on which I raise my system is a determination to persist in the right. Frank Henley was therefore ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... has hitherto been impossible to penetrate the economy of the invisible, men have sought to interpret this unknown mechanism through that with which they were already familiar, and have considered the nerves as a canal conducting an excessively fine, volatile, and active fluid, which in rapidity of motion and fineness was held to excel ether and the electric spark. This fluid was held to be the principle and author of our sensibility and power of motion, and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... treatment has met with the same success in other places, and if any of your readers are troubled with gapes and will try it, I shall be pleased to see the results narrated in the columns of the Country Gentleman. Garlic in this case is undoubtedly the active ingredient, and as it is volatile, when taken into the stomach the breath is charged with it, and in this way (for garlic is a powerful vermifuge) ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... more of this," said Dr. May, seeing that the discussion was injuring Margaret more and more. "Go away to my study, sir, and wait till I come to you. All of you out of the room. Flora, fetch the sal volatile." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... not be now. The volatile bridegroom had upset the wisely conceived plan, and "all the fat was in the fire," as Margaret philosophically put it. Mr. O'Rourke had been fully instructed in the part he was to play, and, to do him justice, had honestly intended to play it; but destiny was against ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the petroleum seems to have been separated and condensed again in superior strata, and a still finer kind of oil, as naphtha, has probably had the same origin. Some of these liquid oils have again lost their more volatile parts, and become cannel-coal, asphaltum, jet, and amber, according to the purity of the original fossil oil. Dr. Priestley has shewn, that essential oils long exposed to the atmosphere absorb both the vital and phlogistic part of it; whence it is probable their becoming solid may in great ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... periods of life, the sensation affects the organ of smell, much more powerfully, than after the repeated habits of smelling has inured it to odours of common strength: and in our adult years, the stronger smells, though they are at the same time agreeable to us, as of volatile spirits, continue to produce ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... the greatest repute; it is made by adding a decoction of the needles or young shoots of firs and pines. Fir wood oil (a mixture of ethereal oils) or the tincture of an alcoholic extract acts equally well. The volatile ethereal constituents are supposed to penetrate the skin and to stimulate the cutaneous [v.03 p.0284] circulation and peripheral nerves, being eliminated later by the ordinary channels. Similar effects follow ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... have been all right," growled Bertie, vicious as a chained dog who has lost his bone. And then Lady Turnour had hysterics all over again, and Sir Samuel told Bertie that he was an ungrateful young brute. The three raged together, and I could not go, because I had to hold sal-volatile under her ladyship's nose. Lady Turnour said that the marquise was no lidy, and for her part she was glad she wasn't going to have that cat of a sister in her family. She'd leave the beastly chattoe that night, if she could; but anyhow, she'd go the first thing in the morning as ever was, so there! ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... that, and then rush off again. Now, all the time they are away from the sun they are invisible. It is only as they get near him that they begin to expand and throw off tails and other appendages. The sun's heat is evidently evaporating them, and driving away a cloud of mist and volatile matter. This is when they can be seen. The comet is most gorgeous when it is near the sun, and as soon as it gets a reasonable distance away from him ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... was," declared Dot, who had been listening, open-eyed and open-mouthed, to this harangue of the volatile sister. "She was Noah's wife—and he built a big boat, and put horses and bears and pigs and goats on it so they wouldn't be drowned—and dogs and cats. And they were fruitful and multiplied ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... My father was an officer in the army, and commanded a regiment in the West Indies, where I was born. I was an only child, and very much indulged by both my parents. I lost them while I was a mere child, and was sent to Scotland to be educated by my grandmother. I was an irritable, volatile, spoilt child, and expected that everybody would yield to me, as readily as my slave attendants had done in Jamaica. In this I was disappointed. My grandmother was a proud, ambitious woman, and a strict disciplinarian; and it was a constant battle between us who should be master. I ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... shoulders. Sigurd's death had shocked him considerably by its suddenness, but he was too much of a volatile Frenchman to be morbidly anxious ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... changed by the fermentation; it contains no longer the same principles, but has acquired those which it had not, which are volatile, and evaporate easily. They must therefore be managed carefully, in order not to lose the fruits of an already tedious labor. The spirit already created in the fermented liquor, must be collected by the distillation; ...
— The Art of Making Whiskey • Anthony Boucherie
... raised an unknown musician from penury and obscurity to affluence and fame. In the face of such an experience it was scarcely to be wondered at that judgment was flung to the winds and that the most volatile of musical nations and the staidest alike hailed the young composer as the successor of Verdi, the regenerator of operatic Italy, and the pioneer of a new school which should revitalize opera and make unnecessary the hopeless task ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... obtainable gases, the processes which were most largely adopted for its preparation in laboratories were:-first, the decomposition of ethylene bromide by dropping it slowly into a boiling solution of alcoholic potash, and purifying the evolved gas from the volatile bromethylene by washing it through a second flask containing a boiling solution of alcoholic potash, or by passing it over moderately heated soda lime; and, second, the more ordinarily adopted process of passing the products of incomplete combustion from a Bunsen burner, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the peninsula, Major Lumley had lately sent her a parcel of old Spanish songs, among which she had found a little piece, a mere fragment, but exquisitely touching in melody and sentiment. Her father had been much taken with it, but no one else had heard it from her lips. Like a volatile perfume, that escapes in the attempt to pour it from one vessel to another, such things defy translation. How, too, Lady Mabel gave it vocal life, may be imagined, not described. She sang it with a truthfulness of feeling that ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... way responsible for the old man, perhaps that is your duty," replied Trenholme, secretly thinking that on such roads and under such skies the volatile youth would ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... characteristics of her peculiar, changing population. The blue-eyed Arcadian of her western plateaus, yet dreaming upon his more northern freedom; the royalist planter of the Mississippi bottoms, proud of those broad acres granted him by letters-patent of the King; the gay, volatile, passionate Creole of the town, one day a thoughtless lover of pleasure, the next a truculent wielder of the sword; the daring smugglers of Barataria, already rapidly drifting into open defiance of all legal restraint; together with the quiet ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... prosperity of Glaucus—not Glaucus himself, she felt no affection for a disgraced man—nay, she almost rejoiced in the disgrace that humbled the hated Ione. If Glaucus could not be her slave, neither could he be the adorer of her rival. This was sufficient consolation for any regret at his fate. Volatile and fickle, she began again to be moved by the sudden and earnest suit of Clodius, and was not willing to hazard the loss of an alliance with that base but high-born noble by any public exposure of her past weakness and immodest passion for another. All things then smiled upon Arbaces—all ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... party to: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Sulphur 85, Air Pollution-Sulphur 94, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... women are volatile. She was the next moment laughing at something she had heard with the largest part of her ear, and she thought the worthy gentleman too simple, though she knew him for one who had amassed wealth. Captain Con and Dr. Forbery had driven the Unicorn to shelter, and were now baiting the Lion. The ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... toiling by the hour at shop needlework, or hawking fruit and vegetables about the Liverpool streets, she did a little better than anybody else; but as she would never sell her gift of song, and as her nature was in several respects, notwithstanding its real depth and earnestness, volatile, she could never keep very long to the same mode of earning her bread. A month or two of needlework would be followed by a month or two of hawking: she did not earn more than enough to keep soul and body together by either of these trades; but money and creature comforts were alike matters ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... the way, and as I should have said before, I had still further enlarged my staff by one art director of the most flamboyant and erratic character, a genius of sorts, volatile, restless, emotional, colorful, a veritable Verlaine-Baudelaire-Rops soul, who, not content to arrange and decorate the magazine each month, must needs wish to write, paint, compose verse and music and stage plays, as well as move in an upper social world, entree to which was ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... summer to do rather a foolish thing for a middle-aged spinster—I undertook to chaperon a volatile young niece upon a continental tour. We travelled the usual course up the Rhine into Switzerland, which we enjoyed rapturously. Then passing the Alps, we spent a few days at Milan, and next proceeded to Verona. In all this journey, nothing ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... another stirs it round till it is thoroughly mixed. Our black companions were very fond of it; but while we could obtain more substantial food, few of our party would condescend to eat it, except now and then as a change. The poison is of so volatile a nature that it is quickly got rid of by heat. Timbo made the meal into thin cakes, which, when baked on an iron plate, were pronounced very good. David told us that it was called cassava, as well as manioc, and that its scientific name was Jatropha manihot. After a few ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... Nature had willed him so, I do not think we should have had the Nocturnes, which are clearly the outcome of a highly-strung, bloodless nature whetted on the whetstone of its own weakness to an exasperated sense of volatile colour and evanescent light. It is hardly possible to doubt that this is so when we look on these canvases, where, in all the stages of her repose, the night dozes and dreams upon our river—a creole in Nocturne 34, upon whose trembling eyelids the lustral moon is shining; ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... betokened intelligence, conceit, and a keen sense of sardonic humour; still, there was nothing in it positively forbidding. To those whom he took a fancy to, he was doubtless loyal and kind, albeit his temperament was of a fiery and volatile nature. In this he showed the Gallic side of his origin. It was very evident that, despite his inconsiderable size, his hulking and sulky neighbour stood in ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... inability to suppress the rebellion, called in Rezin to help him. The latter was already on the way when Jotham was laid with his fathers (736 B.C.), and it was Ahaz, the son of Jotham, who had to bear the brant of the assault. He was barely twenty years old, a volatile, presumptuous, and daring youth, who was not much dismayed by his position.** Jotham had repaired the fortifications of Jerusalem, which had been left in a lamentable state ever since the damage done to them in the reign of Amaziah;*** his successor ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... volatile child, as the door closed after him. "He spoke as solemn as a minister; but I suppose that's the way with Yankees. I think cher papa likes to ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... The greatest illuminating effect from a given bulk of gas is obtained by mixing it with the requisite proportion of oxygen, and holding in the flame of the burning mixture a piece of some solid infusible and non-volatile substance, such as lime. This becomes heated to whiteness, and emits an intense light know as the Drummond light, used already for special purposes of illumination. By supplying oxygen in pipes laid by the side of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... composition, and in proportion to my own increasing admiration of its beauties, is the diffidence I feel lest I may have failed to infuse any of the poetry of the original into the present version. Translation of poetry must, at the best, resemble the process of pouring a highly volatile and evanescent spirit from one receptacle into another. The original fluid will always suffer a certain amount of ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... hopeful, lively, fertile in expedients, and gay as a lark; if one scheme failed another was sure to present itself. Pierre and Duncan were admirably suited to be friends and neighbours. The steady perseverance of the Scot helped to temper the volatile temperament of the Frenchman. They generally contrived to compass the same end by different means, as two streams descending from opposite hills will meet in one broad river in ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... events or impressions might dictate. To collect beautiful things was a passion with him, and he was proud of the natural taste and instinct, which generally led him right. But for 'aesthetics'—the philosophy of art—he had nothing but contempt. The volatile, restless mind escaped at once from the concentration asked of it; and fell back on what the Buddhist calls 'Maia,' the gay and changing appearances of things, which were all he wanted. And it was because the war had interfered ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... England, in the midst of a winter storm, bringing all the aid she could to her unfortunate consort, those who witnessed this appearance of energy imagined that her character was equally powerful in the cabinet. Yet Henrietta, after all, was nothing more than a volatile woman; one who had never studied, never reflected, and whom nature had formed to be charming and haughty, but whose vivacity could not retain even a state-secret for an hour, and whose talents were quite opposite to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... as you like, all equally pliant and supple, at the service of the strongest against the weakest, ready to swing round at once on the wind changing, but all joined together and working to one common end through physical instinct, the only one that lasts in the immoral, adroit and volatile being who circulates nimbly about, with no other aim than self-preservation, and to amuse himself.[3276]—In his dressing-gown, early in the morning, he receives a crowd of solicitors, and, with the ways of a "dandified ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... threatens to come, holding in his hand a packet of leaves and bark which derive a similar cloud-compelling virtue, not from their chemical composition, but from their names, which happen to signify something dry or volatile. If clouds should appear in the sky while he is at work, he takes lime in the hollow of his hand and blows it towards them. The lime, being so very dry, is obviously well adapted to disperse the damp clouds. Should rain afterwards be wanted, he has ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... western continent, they will set apart seasons for innocent mirth, in which they enter into its spirit with a joyousness totally devoid of calculation or of care. I love this trait in their character, because, perhaps, my own spirits incline to the volatile. I like not that puritanical coldness of intercourse which acts upon men as the winter winds do upon the surface of the mountain streams, freezing them into immovable propriety; and less do I delight in that festivity where ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... place under the sun to expect to find the murderer of John Randolph. Except during such interruptions, Fortune lolled about the cabin, playing long games of solitaire and smoking endless cigarettes. Though his volatile nature loved geniality and play of words and laughter, he quickly accommodated himself to Uri's taciturnity. Beyond the actions and plans of his pursuers, the state of the trails, and the price of dogs, they never talked; and these things were only ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... along the paths of song. The reality of the inspiration is indubitable. These Bacchanalian choruses have been indited in the tavern, with a crowd of topers round the poet, with the rattle of the dice-box ringing in his ears, and with the facile maidens of his volatile amours draining the wine-cup ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... which he promises to be a distinguished ornament. He haunts the Piccadilly stands, and has what he calls ''stablish'd a raw' on Mr. Sponge to the extent of three-and-six-pence a week, under threats of exposing the robbery Sponge committed on our friend Mr. Waffles. That volatile genius, we are happy to add, is quite well, and open to the attentions of any young lady who thinks she can tame a wild young man. His financial ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Elder, or Morrison," continued the Colonel, "or Drummond, of Wrayford's; but he is too volatile. Roberts would be a splendid fellow for the task, for, like Drummond, he is strong amongst ice and snow, and my messenger will have to take to the snow nearly all the way to ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... mass of contradictions to those who do not understand her—now in the clouds, now in the depths. Bad weather depresses her; so does a sad story, the death of a kitten, solemn music. She is correspondingly volatile in the opposite direction and often laughs at real calamities with wonderful courage. She has a fund of romance in her nature which has led her to the pass she now is in. She is clever, too, at introspection and analysis—of herself chiefly. ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... together over a late breakfast. "It would have been a miracle if she had not; but if I had known the interview was to be followed by such unpleasant consequences I shouldn't have asked her down. I was wandering about for hours looking for an imaginary bottle of sal-volatile Jane described as being in her sitting-room: and Jane herself was up till late—or rather early—this morning, trying to soothe Mrs. Molyneux, who does not appear to have found the ghost quite such pleasant company as she expected. Oh yes, Jane is down; she breakfasted in her own room. ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... disgusted at the appearance, language, and manner of Mary Almira, and he was borne out in his impression of her character by the admission of one brother that she was "a giddy, inconsistent, unprincipled girl," and by that of another that "she was a volatile coquette, who did not know her own mind from day ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... two was a small phial containing spirits of hartshorn, sal volatile, very strong, that would stab through the nostrils, like a stiletto, deep into the gray kernels that lie in the core of the brain. Excellent in cases of sudden syncope or fainting, such as sometimes require the opening of windows, the dashing ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Briton is scarcely less susceptible to the "jazz" than his volatile French brother, for when another colored band from "The States" went to London to head a parade of American and English soldiers, and halted at Buckingham Palace, it is said that King George V and Queen Mary heard the lively airs with undisguised enthusiasm and were loath to have the ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... Oil" had early become familiar with the problems of supplying large communities—cities—with gas light; and with the advent of water-gas, as sellers of petroleum they controlled an important factor in the production of that volatile commodity. All the talent of the "System," trained in "handling" municipal authorities, came into play in this big new business of lighting cities—a business which perforce became a monopoly as soon as the powerful tentacles grasping it ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... pious and well-regulated household, where the Bible was perused and spoken of with an interest that indicated a genuine hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and where the name of JESUS sounded often and sweetly on the ear. Under such training, Harry, though naturally of a wild, volatile disposition, was deeply and irresistibly impressed with a reverence for sacred things, which, now that he was thousands of miles away from his peaceful home, clung to him with the force of old habit and association, despite the jeers of comrades ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... rebuffs him; Till making a fool of the pedants; Till tried and hung. Strauss's liking to present, by musical pictures, sometimes a character, sometimes a dialogue, or a situation, or a landscape, or an idea—that is to say, the most volatile and varied impressions of his capricious spirit—is very marked here. It is true that he falls back on several popular subjects, whose meaning would be very easily grasped in Germany; and that he develops them, not quite in the strict form of a rondeau, as he pretends, but still with ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... so be it; a scaffold is easily constructed. And M. de Guise is an amateur of exile and of beggary: truly it were a pity to thwart his fancy; and France can well spare a prince or two without making bankrupt of her dignity. Bassompierre, the volatile and restless Bassompierre, the hero of the Court dames, and the idol of the Court ballets, favours the seclusion of a prison; there is space enough for him in the one which he has selected, and his gorgeous habiliments will produce the happiest ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... in a breast so steady as yours, would never be extinguished but with life. I am of another and more volatile temper, and though I shall open your next with a trembling hand and uncertain heart, yet let it bring a frank confession that this fair unknown has made a deeper impression on your gravity than you reckoned for, and ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... poets of the kosmos concentre in the real body, and in the pleasure of things, they possess the superiority of genuineness over all fiction and romance. As they emit themselves, facts are shower'd over with light—the daylight is lit with more volatile light—the deep between the setting and rising sun goes deeper many fold. Each precise object or condition or combination or process exhibits a beauty—the multiplication table its—old age its —the carpenter's trade its—the grand opera its—the huge-hull'd clean-shap'd New York ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... makes his pile in the fish business, but it is not monumental; it will not live after him in memorial grandeur, and the business itself is far from imposing—the phosphate of ammonia and its volatile allies passing even from the recollection of reminiscent contemporaries. The people with rare collections to sell work among that class of trade represented by Tescheron, a man with money seeking to benefit mankind in some ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... and taking the latch-key of the street-door, he went to his chemist's in Dover Street and bought some potassium bromide and sal volatile. When he came ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... united attractions captivate foreigners, and induce them to squander considerable sums of money in the country. Hence, were the opera-house shut up, commerce would suffer; there would be an absolute void in the pleasures of the Parisians; and, as experience proves, these volatile people would sooner resign every thing most valuable than any portion of their amusements. Besides, without such an establishment, the talents of singers and dancers could not be maintained in their present perfection. It holds out to ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... to labour the moment he entered, and he never ceased, except during a short period for "kroust," until it was time to shoulder his tools, and mount to the regions of light. Above ground, he was as ready to skylark as the most volatile of his companions, but underground he was a pattern of perseverance—a true Cornish miner in miniature. His energy of character was doubtless due to his reckless father, but his steadiness was the result of ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... Matthews, the veteran English comedian, came over to act at Mr. Daly's. His was a graceful, polished, volatile style of acting, and he had a high opinion of his power as a maker of fun; so that he was considerably annoyed one night when he discovered that one of his auditors would not laugh. Laugh? would not even smile ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... going to die, and expected no other result, the same effect was produced on his own mind. As soon as hope sprang up in the breasts of all around him, his spirit also caught the contagion. As a rule, he would now make an effort to articulate. I would then administer a good dose of sal volatile, brandy, eau-de-luce, or other strong stimulant, cut into the supposed bite, and apply strong nitric acid to the wound. This generally made him wince, and I would hail it as a token of certain recovery. By this time some confidence would return, and the supposed dying man would ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... they in vain. For, sooner than expected, the volatile fluid— or whatever it may be—passes out of their veins, and their nervous strength returns; even Ludwig saying he is himself again, though he ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... False and the volatile Mrs. Giddy, who figure in the pages of seventeenth and eighteenth century fiction, are not tolerated in modern novels and plays. Steal the burglar and Palette the artist have ceased to be. A name indicating the quality or ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the clothing. It is useful when an alkali is required to soften water for coloured clothes or woollens. It also has a tendency to keep white clothes a good colour. (b) Ammonia.—This also is a mild alkali, but is apt to "yellow" white materials. As it is very volatile, it should not be used unless the washing can be done quickly. (c) Washing soda.—This is a cheap substance and stronger than borax or ammonia. It should be made into a solution before it is used, for fear ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Management • Ministry of Education
... travelled as if in a dream, taking little notice of, or interest in, anything, and replying to questions in mere monosyllables. His companions seemed to be similarly affected, for they spoke very little. Even the volatile spirit of Moses appeared to be subdued, and it was not till they had reached nearly the end of their journey that their usual flow ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... cotton wool and laid it on the man's lips. Presently it moved; he was breathing, though very faintly. Bickley took more cotton wool and having poured something from his medicine-chest on to it, placed it over the mouth beneath the man's nostrils—I believe it was sal volatile. ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... much virtue in horsehair. Few who attended the informal opening of the Third Parliament of KING GEORGE THE FIFTH would have guessed that under the full-bottomed wig and gorgeous black-and-gold robes of the dignified figure on the Woolsack lay the volatile personality of "F. E." He played his new part nobly. A trifling error in the setting of his three-cornered hat, whose rakish cock was for the moment reminiscent of the "Galloper," was quickly corrected on the advice of one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... defined first, by discovering (a task which is already quite difficult enough) the clue that leads from one form to the other. By that very operation wit will have been analysed, and will then appear as nothing more than the comic in a highly volatile state. To follow the opposite plan, however, and attempt directly to evolve a formula for wit, would be courting certain failure. What should we think of a chemist who, having ever so many jars of a certain substance in his ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... a strain of music feared then lest he should speak extravagantly any more forever? In view of the future or possible, we should live quite laxly and undefined in front, our outlines dim and misty on that side; as our shadows reveal an insensible perspiration toward the sun. The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement. Their truth is instantly translated; its literal monument alone remains. The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... fellow, about twenty-five years of age, and keeps house with two maiden sisters, who are professed devotees. The brother is a little libertine, good natured and obliging; but a true Frenchman in vanity, which is undoubtedly the ruling passion of this volatile people. He has an inconsiderable place under the government, in consequence of which he is permitted to wear a sword, a privilege which he does not fail to use. He is likewise receiver of the tythes of the clergy ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... is simply fresh butter clarified by melting, and is used as a dressing for the meal of rice. Butter, though counted as a pure fat, is in reality made up of at least six fatty principles, there being sixty-eight per cent of margarine and thirty per cent of oleine, the remainder being volatile compounds of fatty acids. In the best specimens of butter there is a slight amount of caseine, not over five per cent at most, though in poor there is much more. It is the only fat which may be constantly eaten without ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... the growing of grasses. In some instances, however, these are not sufficiently available, especially is this true of potash. Gypsum or land plaster has been often used to correct this condition, and frequently with excellent results. It also aids in fixing volatile and escaping carbonates of ammonia, and conveys them to the roots of the clover plants. It is applied in the ground form by sowing it over the land, and more commonly just when the clover is beginning ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... stimulant. It is a singular fact, observes Dr. Jameson, that tea, coffee, cacao, mate, and guayusa contain the same alkaloid caffeine. The last, however, contains only one fifteenth as much of the active principle as tea, and no volatile oil. Herndon found ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... is meant the exposure of a substance to such a degree of heat, that it glows or emits light, or becomes red-hot. Its greatest value is in the separation of a volatile substance from one less volatile, or one which is entirely fixed at the temperature of the flame. In this case we only take cognizance of the latter or fixed substance, although in many instances we make use of ignition for the purpose of changing the ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... that I met Aunt Carola in that unfitting spirit, that volatile mood, which, as I have said already, her remarks often rouse ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... Figaro: a character impossible for northern people to place outside of a madhouse, yet daily to be found in southern Europe. Rash, headstrong, full of deviltry, splendid appetite, and not much conscience—volatile, mocking, irrepressible. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... consult. I'm going to take the ten cents I've saved and spend it in raisins. I can get a good many if Cephas gives me wholesale price, with family discount subtracted from that. Cephas would treat me to candy in a minute, but if I let him we'd have to ask him to the picnic! Good-bye!" And the volatile creature darted down the hill singing, "There'll be something in heaven for children to do," at the top of her healthy ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... gravel arise from various viscous superfluities in the kidneys and bladder, which occasion difficulty in micturition. Stone is produced by the action of heat upon viscous moisture, sublimating the volatile elements and condensing the denser portions. Putrefication of stone in the bladder is the result of three causes, viz., consuming heat, viscous matter and stricture of the meatus. For consuming heat acting on viscous material ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... found it cool, restful, and, in spite of the dust, absolutely clean, and, but for the scent of heliotrope, entirely inodorous. The dry air seemed to dissipate all noxious emanations and decay—the very dust itself in its fine impalpability was volatile with a spicelike piquancy, and left ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... to Mike, meeting him at the station in the family motor on the Monday, 'is a man of vast but volatile brain. He has not that calm, dispassionate outlook on life which marks your true philosopher, such as ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... observed, the charming gradations by which the ensnared volatile has been brought to bear with its new condition? how, at first, refusing all sustenance, it beats and bruises itself against its wires, till it makes its gay plumage fly about, and over-spread its well-secured cage. Now it gets out its head; sticking only at its beautiful ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... our younger men of letters actively concerned with the present condition of literary criticism. This is a novel preoccupation for them and one which is, we believe, symptomatic of a general hesitancy and expectation. In the world of letters everything is a little up in the air, volatile and uncrystallised. It is a world of rejections and velleities; in spite of outward similarities, a strangely different world from that of half a dozen years ago. Then one had a tolerable certainty that the new star, if the new star was ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... races of people have characteristic odors. Negroes have a rank ammoniacal odor, unmitigated by cleanliness; according to Pruner-Bey it is due to a volatile oil set free by the sebaceous follicles. The Esquimaux and Greenlanders have the odors of their greasy and oily foods, and it is said that the Cossacks, who live much with their horses, and who are principally vegetarians, will leave the atmosphere charged ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... in the front door of Brotherton's store, gazing into Market Street. He saw Daniel Sands and Kyle Perry and Tom Van Dorn walking out of one store and into the next. He saw John Kollander in a new blue soldier uniform stalking through the street. He saw the merchants gathering in small, volatile groups that kept forming and re-forming, and he knew that Mr. Brotherton's classic language was approximately correct when he said there was a hen on. Grant eyed the crowd that was hurrying past him to the meeting ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... feelings of severity. Don Pedro regretted his misconduct, and being lifted up for the moment above his ordinary view, perceived that he might have done better, and shaped the pattern of his tongue to it. Firm, hearing this, had good hopes of him; yet knowing how volatile repentance is, he strove to form a well-marked track for it. And when the captain ceased to receive cowhide, he must have had it long enough ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... teeth hard. A strange light gleamed in the blue of her eyes. She moved across to the washing-stand and poured out a stiff dose of sal volatile. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... thermal. V. be light &c adj.; float, rise, swim, be buoyed up. render light &c adj.; lighten, leaven. Adj. light, subtile, airy; imponderous^, imponderable; astatic^, weightless, ethereal, sublimated; gossamery; suberose^, suberous^; uncompressed, volatile; buoyant, floating &c v.; portable. light as a feather, light as a thistle, light as air; lighter than air; rise like a balloon, float ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Martin?" cried the volatile hunchback, all else forgotten in the excitement of the instant. "By Jove, the entire fifteen hundred pounds, or I'll eat this lantern! Phew—it hasn't lost any of ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer |
