"Explode" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not a gentleman in other respects of exceptional brilliancy, possessed one quality that popularity-seekers might have envied him: the ability to explode on the slightest provocation into a laugh instinct with all the characteristics ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... moment! What if the chains should break under its enormous weight? The sudden fall of such a body would inevitably cause the gun-cotton to explode! ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... variety in the brilliancy of the shooting stars, from the weak telescopic sparks that vanish like a flash of lightning, to the incandescent bolides or fire-balls that explode in the atmosphere. ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... said Susanna. "You must n't faint, or explode, or anything—but the lady he's engaged to in England is your old friend—that bold adventuress, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... agreeable little device in clockwork. The tick, tick, tick suggested clockwork which had been planned to go a certain time, and then—then, for all I knew, ignite an explosive, and—blow up. It would be a charming solution to the puzzle if it were to explode while I stood there, in my nightshirt, looking on. It is true that the box weighed very little. Probably, as I have said, the whole affair would not have turned the scale at a couple of ounces. But then its very ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... machines can't take! It busts them. If it sort of explodes surges of current in 'em—Look! Any running machine is a dynamic system in a object. A jet-plane operating is that. So's a water-spout. So's a communicator. But if you explode surges of heavy current in a dynamic system in a operating machine—things get messed up. The operating habit is busted to hell. I'm saying that if this wave-type makes crazy surges of current start up—why—if the surges are strong enough they'll bust not ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Milagrosa and her consort would also be firing into each other. Too late he ordered his helmsman to put the tiller hard over and swing the ship to larboard, as a preliminary to manoeuvring for a less impossible position of attack. At that very moment the Arabella seemed to explode as she swept by. Eighteen guns from each of her flanks emptied themselves at that point-blank range into the hulls of the ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... of the bigger ones have a small wireless equipment. Sometimes they drop bombs, that make a smoky patch in the air when they explode—they drop them right over the place the artillery wants to hit, and then the men with the guns get their instruments and figure out just what the ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... brought up, the soldiers and some few citizens formed elbow to elbow, the guns were wheeled opposite the great drawbridge in the face of the musketry, and at that the Bastille gave up. De Launay made an attempt to explode his magazine, but was stopped by his men. The white flag was displayed, the drawbridge was let down, ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... saw with consternation the Spaniards establishing themselves upon the Lower Rhine; with still greater anxiety did the Roman Catholics see the Hollanders bursting through the frontiers of the empire. It was in the west that the mine was expected to explode which had long been dug under the whole of Germany. To the west, apprehension and anxiety turned; but the spark which kindled the flame came unexpectedly from ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... have frequently little or no connexion with the fable, and are nothing better than a mere episodical ornament, they therefore conclude that the Greeks had only to take one more step in the progress of dramatic art, to explode the Chorus altogether. To refute these superficial conjectures, it is only necessary to observe that Sophocles wrote a Treatise on the Chorus, in prose, in opposition to the principles of some other poets; and that, far from following blindly the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... himself out from under the car and got on his feet. He thrust his grimy hands deep into his pockets, stood for a moment contemplative and belligerent, as if undecided whether to explode or not, and then ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... it was found to be blocked; but a pound of powder well placed and provided with a slow match was left to explode, and as soon as the foul air had cleared away the place was found practicable, and the party descended to find enough cargo left to well lade ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... report of their special consulting engineer the nearest transcontinental railroad began to lay metals across the desert, to the mines. One day came strangers with picks and shovels, and the next day came more. And these began to scratch among the sage-brush and to explode sticks of dynamite against the faces of hills. Claims were staked; shanties built; a hotel with saloon attached, all of shining tin and tar paper, arose in the night. The first thing Barbara knew Wilmot began to talk of a stretch of sage-brush as Main Street. And the same day she heard a man ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... voice. "Who is here?" And the man, a workman, though Grandon does not recognize him, rushes through in dismay, but his presence of mind saves worse disaster. The hose in the engine-room is speedily put in motion, and the hissing flames seem to explode. ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... affirmed the belief of the seceders in the Mormon Bible and the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants," but declared their intention to "explode the vicious principles of Joseph Smith," adding, "We are aware, however, that we are hazarding every earthly blessing, particularly property, and probably life itself, in striking this blow at tyranny and oppression." Many of them, it was explained, had sought a reformation of the ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... too little to the great Loss of the Owner, and without this Knowledge a Brewer must go on by Guess; which is a hazard that every one ought to be free from that can; and therefore I have endeavor'd to explode the old Hour-glass way of Brewing, by reason of the several Uncertainties that attend such Methods and the hazard of spoiling both Malt and Drink; for in short where a Brewing is perform'd by Ladings over of scalding Water, there is no ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... had about reached the point on the Shore Lane where I first met her and Carver in the auto. The shaky bridge over Mullet's cranberry brook was just ahead. Then, without warning, the black night split wide open, a jagged streak of fire shot from heaven to earth and seemed to explode almost in our faces. I was almost knocked off my feet and my fingers tingled as if I had been holding the handles of an electric battery. The umbrella flew out of my hands and, so far as I was concerned, vanished utterly. I believe Elnathan picked up the ruin ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Mrs. Guthrie quietly. She rose from the bench on which she had been sitting, and drew up the chair opposite to Anna. "There were certainly bombs found in your room. It is a mercy they did not explode; if they had done, we should all ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... reinforcements and given them another volley. As I was reloading with feverish haste, I saw an Indian rush at Colonel Washington with raised tomahawk. Washington raised his pistol, coolly took aim, and pulled the trigger, but the powder flashed and did not explode. With the sweat starting from my forehead, I dashed some powder into the pan of my pistol, jerked it up, and fired. Ah, Captain Paul, how I blessed your lessons in that moment! for the ball went true, and the Indian rolled in the mud almost at Washington's feet. They had had enough, and those ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... is produced by alcohol, and we clamoured for dinner. Dinner under such circumstances produces a delusive feeling of sobriety, and men think that they have killed the alcohol; but the stuff is still there, and every molecule of it is ready, as it were, to explode and fly through the blood when a fresh draught is added. At eleven o'clock we were at cards with Mr. Coney. At one we went out to admire the moon, and though one of us saw two moons, he felt a dull pain at the heart as he remembered days ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... fired, an avalanche that would never fall. It was a nuisance, a stupidity, that kept Europe drilling and wasted enormous sums on unavoidable preparations; it hung up everything like a noisy argument in a drawing-room, but that human weakness and folly would ever let the mine actually explode he did not believe. He had been in France in 1911, he had seen how close things had come then to a conflict, and the fact that they had not come to a conflict had enormously strengthened his natural disposition to believe that at bottom Germany was sane and ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... we left the boat an' began to push through the bushes, we went straight for the line of my musket, as I had expected; but by some unlucky chance it didn't explode, for I saw the line torn away by the men's legs, and heard the click o' the lock; so I fancy the priming had got damp and didn't catch. I was in a great quandary now what to do, for I couldn't concoct in my mind, in the hurry, any good reason for firin' off my piece. But they say ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... between the stable and the unstable condition of the molecules of matter that life is born. The static condition to which all things tend is death. Matter in an unstable condition tends either to explode or to grow or to disintegrate. So that an explosion bears some analogy to life, only it is quickly over and the static state of the elements is restored. Life is an infinitely slower explosion, or a prolonged explosion, during which some matter of the organism is being constantly burned up, and ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... the tortures I endure. At night I am awakened with a start by one of my own sneezes. As I go to sleep my motions bring the grains of snuff scattered over the pillow under my nose, I inhale, and explode like a mine. It seems that Armand, the wretch, is used to these surprises, and doesn't wake up. I find tobacco everywhere, and I certainly didn't ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... the rate it is falling," replied Mark. "She will go all to pieces when she strikes the water, and she may explode!" ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... darkness, follow them up and unearth the shells. The prisoners reported the owner of one of the neighboring houses to be the principal person who had engaged in planting these shells, and I therefore directed that some of them be carried and placed in the cellar of his house, arranged to explode if the enemy's column came that way, while he and his family were brought off as prisoners and held ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... fidelity. Nevertheless it did not need great sagacity to foresee the perils reserved for the new establishment. The French regime disquieted interests too numerous and prejudices too powerful throughout the Peninsula not to explode at the first difficulty which it might encounter ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... embroiders to make up for it, but every now and then he appears to find it again, and his taste and expression are exquisite. To-night at a child's ball at Lady Williamson's, where I was introduced to Lord Cochrane, and had a great deal of talk with him; told him I thought things would explode at last in England, which he concurred in, and seemed to like the idea of it, in which we differ, owing probably to the difference of our positions; he has nothing, and I everything, to lose by ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... gradually rising wrath was to be brought by degrees to boiling-point through the spring of 1913, and to explode at last over an incident more tragic than any one of the five or six hundred cases of ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... sentries, and, not daring to breathe, I waited for one of them to challenge, but, except for the creaking of the stairs and of my ankle-bones, which seemed to explode like firecrackers, there was not a sound. I was afraid, and wished myself safely back in my cell, but I was more afraid of Rupert, and I kept on feeling my way until I had reached the garden. There some one spoke to me in French, and I ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... Rosalie Le Grange, "not a newspaper reporter. I can't tell my story in a headline before I git to it. I've got to go my own gait or I can't go at all. Now you listen and don't interrupt, or I'll explode. It goes back, anyhow, into our ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... perception. "Each section, when lighted, will burn for one hour, running along its groove but harmless until the end of the fuse is reached. If the entire fuse is lighted, it will require just six hours to explode the bomb, while if it is cut off to the last mark and then lighted, the bomb will explode in fifteen minutes. The operator can set it to ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... work of mining and pushing our position nearer to the enemy was prosecuted with vigor, and I determined to explode no more mines until we were ready to explode a number at different points and assault immediately after. We were up now at three different points, one in front of each corps, to where only the parapet of the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... bucket like a champagne-bottle in a cooler, and he could not have resented his predicament more if he had been set in crushed ice instead of warm water. Under the remorseless hands of Nicholas he began to splutter and choke, to fizz, and finally explode with astonishment and wrath. It was quite clear Nicholas was trying to drown him. He took the treatment so to heart, that he kept on howling dismally for some time after he was taken out, and dried, and linimented and dosed by Mac, whose treachery about the amulet he seemed to forgive, ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... brains out. Black Bill said that at this threat he drew his own pistol and snapped it at Gualtier. It would not go off. Gualtier then laughed, and said that pistols which had a needle run down the nipple did not generally explode—by which Black Bill saw that his ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... their hiding places must have produced appalling consequences. The sturdy Canadians did not relish this kind of work, but there was no alternative. For an hour they searched the mine shafts and galleries around Givenchy and destroyed them. Some Germans in the depths were killed before they could explode certain mines they had prepared under British positions. About fifty prisoners of the Eleventh Bavarian Regiment were captured who had fought in Russia, at Verdun, and ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... you can never enjoy the feeling of anxiety which gallops over me when I wake in the morning and wonder will the hard-boiled eggs explode before ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... moment, a graver suspicion crossed his mind: might not some detonating substance of a nature to explode when trodden upon, have been flung in? Hillsborough excelled in ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... three indians two Canadians and a French officer. Seeing they would shortly pass under our point of land we made ready to fire, and did deliver one fire as they came nigh, but the guns of our Mohigons failed to explode, they being old and well nigh useless, so that all the damage we did was to kill one indian and wound a Canadian, who was taken in hand by his companions who made off down the shore and went into the bush. We tried to head them ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... the water, at each end of which, on the shoulder as it were of the cigar, was a small hatch or opening, just large enough to allow a man to pop through it: from her bows projected a long iron outrigger, at the end of which there was fixed a torpedo that would explode on coming into contact with a ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... sisters—no, he couldn't shoot; it would be murder; it—and then a quick start, an upward movement of the lamp, a sharp question, told him the boy had seen. The Subaltern spoke softly in fairly good German. 'Run away, my boy. In an instant my mine will explode.' ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... was torn into foam by the projectiles. The bullets pattered against their sides, and, except where they were protected by steel plates, penetrated. One shell struck the Abu Klea on the water-line, and entered the magazine. Luckily it did not explode, the Dervishes having forgotten to set the fuse. Three shells struck the Metemma. On board the Tamai, which was leading, Commander Colville was severely wounded in the wrist; Armourer-Sergeant Richardson was killed at his Maxim gun, and on each ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... with anger and disgust over the whole situation, at what appeared to be the loss of the popular faith in himself, and the ridicule and abuse which had filled the columns of Freneau's paper that morning, that it was a relief to him to hear Hamilton explode. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... man, with a very commanding presence and a fiery temper, which, as we have seen, was apt to explode at trifles. He did not hesitate to launch the most virulent abuse at the heads of those who ventured to talk whilst he was conducting, and at such times not even the presence of royalty could make him restrain his anger. But when Handel raved the Princess of Wales would turn to her friends, and ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... will explode!" cried Shirley, desperately. Instead, she sprang into the bright room, espied the diabolical arrangement in the corner, and ran to pick it up. She saw the wire, and her deft fingers reached behind the clock to turn back its hands. Had ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... Sabado de Gloria, I could not persuade myself to go as far as the Plaza, to see the Iscariots explode. At a distance we listened to the hissing and crackling of the fireworks, the ringing of all the bells, and the thundering of artillery; and knew by the hum of busy voices, and the rolling of carriages, that the Holy Week ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... 234.] A locomotive engine was sent to McCoy on Sunday (16th), and with it he went on to Durham, taking his telegrapher along. Some torpedoes had been found on the road below, and McCoy diminished the risk from any others, by putting some empty cars ahead of the locomotive to explode them if there should be any. He got through safely, however, found Kilpatrick at Durham, opened telegraphic communication with headquarters at Raleigh, was authorized to read and transmit by the wire Johnston's reply, and so was able before night to give his impatiently ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... only to enhance the perfection of harmony. There certainly is some use even in defects. A faultless style sends you to sleep. Defects rouse and excite the sensibility to seek and appreciate excellences. Some of Shakspeare's finest passages explode all grammar and rhetoric like skyrockets—the thought blows ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... is to see the king to-morrow, when his majesty will inform him of his wishes respecting a certain marriage. Raoul, loving as he does, will get out of temper, and once in an angry mood, if he were to meet De Wardes, the shell would explode." ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... immediately, from these circumstances, detect the falsehood, and prove him a liar, with the same certainty as if he had stuffed his narration with stories of centaurs and dragons, miracles and prodigies. And if we would explode any forgery in history, we cannot make use of a more convincing argument, than to prove, that the actions ascribed to any person are directly contrary to the course of nature, and that no human motives, in such circumstances, could ever induce him to such a conduct. The veracity of Quintus Curtius ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... people more easy to be amused, more eager to laugh or sympathize. A gentleman's hat blows up in the air; hoots of laughter explode after it. It rolls under an express van; a dozen citizens spring to its rescue. Nerves are on edge. Stimulants are exciting keen brains. It is a trifle savage, this crowd. Look! See them hustle that masher! His hat's smashed already. The poor child he was persecuting is crying with ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... talking about the metre used by Martelli. What you are thinking of must be verses of fourteen syllables; without alternative masculine and feminine rhymes. However, I confess that he thinks he has imitated the French Alexandrines, and his preface made me explode with laughter. Did ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Winter, Guy Fawkes, an Englishman who had served in the Spanish army, John Wright, Thomas Percy, cousin of the Earl of Northumberland, Sir Everard Digby, and Francis Tresham. A mine was to be run under the House of Commons charged with gunpowder, which Fawkes undertook to explode. An adjoining house was secured, and the cellar stretching under the Parliament buildings was leased. Everything was arranged for the destruction of the king, lords and commons at the opening of Parliament fixed finally for ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... and then all was silence. I thought at the time that the Indians had taken their departure; but I knew not what had caused them to go off in such a hurry. I found out afterwards. Your conjecture was right. They had thrown one of the bombs into the fire, and the fuse catching, had caused it to explode, killing several of their number. As they believed it to be the hand of the Great Spirit, they had hastily gathered up such plunder as was most desirable to them, and ridden away from the spot. I did ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... see the style of chaff, and the line I took. I spoke at length against the petty princeling, with the result that he was utterly laughed out of court. Alarmed by this exhibition, as I said, Appius is making up to me. For nothing could be easier than to explode the rest of his proposals. But I will not go so far as to trip him up, lest he appeal to the god of hospitality, and summon all his Greeks—it is they who make us friends again. I will do what Theopompus wants. I had forgotten to write to you about Caesar: ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... a small rug slipped on polished parquetry of the landing. P. Sybarite's heels went up and his head down with a sickening thump. He heard his pistol explode once more, and again visioned a reeling firmament fugitively ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... Fort Hudson, Fort Pulaski, Fort Moultrie, Fort Sumter, Gibraltar, Sebastopol were taken. But Jesus is a castle into which the righteous runneth and is safe. No battering-ram can demolish its wall. No sappers or miners can explode its ramparts, no storm-bolt of perdition leap upon its towers. The weapons that guard this fort are omnipotent. Hell shall unlimber its great guns as death only to have them dismantled. In Christ our sins are pardoned, discomforted, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... knew of her escapade, that would at least shake him out of his soft and well-lined rut. Indeed, Io was frank enough with herself to admit that a perverse desire to explode a bomb under her imperturbable and too-assured suitor had been an element in her projected elopement. Never would that bomb explode. It would not even fizzle enough to alarm Eyre or her family. For not a soul knew of the frustrated scheme, except Holmesley and ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Gen. von Boyen," vol. ii., p. 254. This, and other facts that will later be set forth, explode the story foisted by the Prussian General von dem Knesebeck in his old age on Mueffling. Knesebeck declared that his mission early in 1812 to the Czar, which was to persuade him to a peaceful compromise with Napoleon, was directly controverted by the secret instructions which he bore ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... comment. Nobody seemed surprised. In fact, all the psychological areas which explode in surprise ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... bonheur seul, c'est au perfectionnement que notre destin nous appelle; et la liberte politique est le plus puissant, le plus energique moyen de perfectionnement que le ciel nous ait donne.—B. CONSTANT, Cours de Politique, ii. 559. To explode error, on whichever side it lies, is certainly to secure progress.—MARTINEAU, Essays, i. 114. Die sammtlichen Freiheitsrechte, welche der heutigen Menschheit so theuer sind, sind im Grunde nur Anwendungen den Rechts der Entwickelung. —BLUNTSCHLI, Kleine Schriften, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... be said to possess American characteristics. It is dashing and rapid, and as clear as the water in Southern seas. The man has a penchant for short and nervous sentences, but they are never jerky. They explode like so many firecrackers and remind one of the great national holiday!... Nevertheless Edgar Saltus should have ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... in Jerusalem we knew all about this coming conference. These folk are ready to explode. The only way to stop it is to pull the plug—The plug is Abdul Ali. We knew we could count on old Anazeh. But the puzzle was how to get him and his men into El-Kerak. When you told me ben Nazir had invited you, I saw the way to do it. There wasn't anybody else except Anazeh that ben Nazir ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... door of the hall, the petard was heard to explode, and he saw that it had succeeded; for the soldiers rushed, brandishing their swords and pistols, in at the postern of the turret, whose gate had been successfully forced. A thrill of exultation, but not unmingled with horror ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... one shell in twenty failed to explode; even those that fell in the water going off. It is worth noticing, that the bombs that fell in the ditches close to the walls of the fort and exploded there, shook the fort much more severely, than any of those that buried ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... happened. There had once been an earthquake in American City; could this be another one? Or had a volcano opened up in the midst of Main Street? Or could it have been a gas-main? And was this the end, or would it explode some more? Would the volcano go on erupting, and blow Peter and his frail packing-box thru the walls ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... fool you are, my simple king! You've got the things end foremost. Turn your head to the open air, for I go to light a cigarette, and if you breathe this way, there will be a grand explode." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... considered it a failure; they called a gas- well a blower, and give it up in disgust; the time wasn't ripe for gas yet. Now they bore away sometimes till they get half-way to China, and don't seem to strike anything worth speaking of. Then they put a dynamite torpedo down in the well and explode it. They have a little bar of iron that they call a Go-devil, and they just drop it down on the business end of the torpedo, and then stand from under, if you please! You hear a noise, and in about half a minute you begin to see one, and it begins to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... into the house, Eleanor whispered: "I know just what you are going to say, Goody-good! You were ready to explode because you had not told me any such things as I pretended you had. But, don't you see, I had to take lots of things for granted to put the plan over in a few seconds? Suppose I had started out ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... antiquity," (as Cambden says) will grant me their pardon, and perhaps may be induced to admit a force and propriety in it. A heavier objection may be adduced against the Author, that in these times of fear and expectation, when novelties 'explode' around us in all directions, he should presume to offer to the public a silly tale of old-fashioned love; and five years ago, I own, I should have allowed and felt the force of this objection. But, alas! explosion has succeeded explosion ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... explode and his face felt scorched, but he struck savagely, and something rattled upon the floor. The pistol had dropped and he was somewhat surprised to feel himself unhurt as he grappled with Daly. They reeled ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... started on that dismal voyage with two firebrands in his ship's company—and ship's companies of those days, without help from firebrands, were like enough to explode into mutiny of their own accord. I must repeat that the sailor-men of Hudson's time—and until long after Hudson's time—were little better than dangerous brutes; and the savage ferocity that was in them was kept in check only by meeting it with a more ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier
... himself with the body of the dead man. Duane saw red flashes, puffs of smoke; he heard quick reports. Something stung his left arm. Then a blow like wind, light of sound yet shocking in impact, struck him, staggered him. The hot rend of lead followed the blow. Duane's heart seemed to explode, yet his mind ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... the smooth skin-surface expressed throughout in marble, will excite admiration in all who are capable of appreciating this aspect of the statuary's art. Michelangelo produced nothing more finished in execution, if we except the Pieta at S. Peter's. His Bacchus alone is sufficient to explode a theory favoured by some critics, that, left to work unhindered, he would still have preferred a certain vagueness, a certain want ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... slipped under the stern—when, in the current, he should reach the rocks just after the wave had broken. The crew waited a long time. Many a glance was cast forward; it seemed to them all, such headway had the fire made, that the six kegs of powder must explode the very next instant. No sign came from the skipper; and no sight of him could be caught. They paid out the rope—and waited. The rope was for a long time ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... the bull's-eye threw ahead a soft circle of misty light the children followed it silently. Till, silently and suddenly, the light of the bull's-eye behaved as the flame of a candle does when you take it out into the sunlight to light a bonfire, or explode a train of gunpowder, or what not. Because now, with feelings mixed indeed, of wonder, and interest, and awe, but no fear, the children found themselves in a great hail, whose arched roof was held up by two rows of ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... balloon was over half filled and was swaying savagely at its anchorage. A strong wind was blowing, and Mr. Lawrence, who had charge of the ascension, was apprehensive. He feared to fill the balloon to its capacity lest the expansion of the gas due to the hot sun should explode it. ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... them on the heap of banana-leaves, and then rapidly applied a burning match to the dry growth, which still retained a sufficiency of inflammable oil to begin to flare at once, making the bamboos crackle and then explode with a series of little reports ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... popular superstitions about dynamite, and you show by your actions how necessary a lecture of this sort is in order that you may comprehend thoroughly the substance with which you have to deal. That brick is perfectly harmless, because it is frozen. Dynamite in its frozen state will not explode—a fact well understood by miners and all those who have to work with it, and who, as a rule, generally prefer to blow themselves to pieces trying to thaw the substance before a fire. Will you kindly bring that brick back to me, before it thaws out ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... to shriek and explode, now near, now far, Jerry investigated the happening. As surely as the house was gone, just as surely was Nalasu gone. Upon both had descended the ultimate nothingness. All the immediate world seemed doomed to nothingness. ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... cocked and capped, upon the top of our coach, with the muzzles pointed towards us. And indeed I may affirm here, that I never saw metallic cylinders with more menacing aspect, than those which lay quietly behind us, ready to explode—unconscious instruments as they were—and carry any of the party into the next world upon the slightest lurch ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... very well to take an opponent's speech and reply to it point by point, even to the last detail. It is vastly better, however, if you can lay your hands on the fundamental fallacy that underlies the whole case and explode that. ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... tubes to make sure they were clear. There were small single tubes on each side of the craft. A clogged one could explode and ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... no clearly cut outline in it, was not the typical face for passion; but she was capable of passion to an extraordinary degree, and what is more remarkable, it was not explosive passion, or rather it was not passion which she suffered to explode. I remember once when she was a little mite she was asked out somewhere to tea. She was dressed and ready, but it began to rain fast, and she was told she could not go. She besought, but it was in vain. We could not afford cabs, ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... Clay to Mr. Bray, "Your threats I do explode;— One who has been a volunteer Knows how ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... his question were so appalling that for some minutes the orator appeared unable to find words to go on, and his audience glared at him in dread anticipation, as though they expected him to explode like a bomb-shell, but were prepared to sit it out and take the consequences. And he did explode, after a fashion, for he suddenly raised his voice to a shout that startled even the sentinel on ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... water, for it only makes more heat. He knew that dried alum and sugar suitably mixed would burst into flame if exposed to the air; that nitric acid and oil of turpentine would take fire if mixed; that flint struck by steel would start fire enough to explode a powder magazine; and that Elijah called down from heaven a kind of fire that burned twelve "barrels" of water as easily as ordinary water puts out ordinary fire. But he had none of these ways of lighting his candle at ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... the girl. Then she added: "All men are. I declare, I think you to be the most incomprehensible creatures. One never knows what to expect of you. And you explode and go into rages and make yourselves utterly detestable over the most trivial matters and at the most unexpected times. You are ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... gunpowder; but he does not know how or by what means it does this. Suppose, then, he finds out the means, he is still just where he was; he must again ask how or by what means these discovered means explode the gunpowder; and so on ad infinitum. Now the mind may quibble with itself for ever, and make what difficulties it pleases in this way; but there is no real difficulty in the case. In considering any sequence, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... and tellingly said, but we must plead for a distinction. Everything depends on the reality of a poet's classic character. If he is a dubious classic, let us sift him; if he is a false classic, let us explode him. But if he is a real classic, if his work belongs to the class of the very best (for this is the true and right meaning of the word classic, classical), then the great thing for us is to feel and enjoy his work as deeply as ever we can, and to appreciate ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... us, in the woods. I did not at once learn that this first shot killed two of the Maine men, and wounded two more. This was fired wide, but the numerous shots which followed were admirably aimed, and seldom failed to fall or explode close ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... "She won't explode—though others may. A conscience? I think so. She couldn't do a mean thing. She keeps a promise: she has more sense of justice than most women. But you can't apply ordinary rules to her. She is of the blood royal: the Princess, we call her. Can't you see, Jim? You are man enough to take her ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... us and one narrowly missing our waiting carriage, besides three others falling in the mud almost at our feet, prompted our withdrawal. Fortunately the last three had fallen in the mud and did not explode. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... enable us to reply to an enemy thoroughly equipped with every contrivance for this sort of warfare became painfully apparent; while even our hand-grenades, by reason of their faulty construction, frequently did not explode. I was therefore compelled to conduct experiments in the field, and improvise new weapons as well as possible. For such work the Army had no organisation. In this I received invaluable assistance from my friend, George Moore. Mr. Moore ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... light and instantly recover its outline with the next gesture. Hedger's fingers curved as if he were holding a crayon; mentally he was doing the whole figure in a single running line, and the charcoal seemed to explode in his hand at the point where the energy of each gesture was discharged into the whirling disc of light, from a foot or shoulder, from the up-thrust chin ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... Mr. S—n in the third Number of his Criticism on our Author, takes great Pains to explode this Passage. It is, says he, difficult to guess what Giants are here meant, unless the Giant Despair in the Pilgrim's Progress, or the giant Greatness in the Royal Villain; for I have heard of no other sort of Giants in the Reign ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... introduce her to the king! I'll explode the whole affair, and Dunkirk may go to the devil before you shall introduce Betty to the king," ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... having taken refuge in the upper part of the harbour near and above the city. Therefore, as soon as it was light enough to make observations, Repeller No. 1 did not hesitate to discharge a motor-bomb into the harbour, a mile or more above where the first one had fallen. This was done in order to explode any torpedoes which might have been put into position since the discharge of the ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... the postal or money-order business. As it is, the government coins money and transfers money, but will not take it on storage, which is absurd, and forces the people to deposit with loan and discount concerns, liable to explode at any ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... venture to be seen, Since 'twill be Sunday, upon Shanks's green; There, with erected looks and phrase sublime, To talk of unity of place and time, And with much malice, mix'd with little satire, Explode the wits on t'other side o' th' water. Why has my Lord Godolphin's special grace Invested me with a queen's waiter's place, If I, debarr'd of festival delights, Am not allow'd to spend the perquisites? ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... was to fill a torpedo with Greek fire and poisonous and deadly missiles, attach it to a balloon, and then let it sail away over the hostile camp and explode at the right moment, when the time-fuse burned out. He intended to use this invention in the capture of St. Louis, exploding his torpedoes over the city, and raining destruction upon it until the army ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... which were not infrequent, his face turned a dull purple, while the top of his bald head shone by contrast like white marble, and the bags under his eyes swelled till it seemed they would presently explode with a pop. And at these times he presented a distinctly ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... would whilst they were seated at their work, or driving along on this happy journey, through fair landscapes in the sunshine, gave J. J. the keenest pleasure; his wit was a little slow, but he would laugh with his eyes at Clive's sallies, or ponder over them and explode with laughter presently, giving a new source of amusement to these merry travellers, and little Alfred would laugh at J. J.'s laughing; and so, with a hundred harmless jokes to enliven, and the ever-changing, ever-charming smiles of nature to cheer and accompany it, the happy day's journey ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... staggered to the bulwarks to ascertain what had happened, and a sufficiently disheartening spectacle met his eyes. Several shots from the last volley had evidently penetrated the plating of the steam launch's boiler, causing it to explode, blowing the frail sides of the little craft asunder and killing nearly every man of her crew. The Englishman was just in time to see her disappear below the surface of the river in a great cloud of steam, and to hear the shrieks of her wounded and dying ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... Now don't explode too suddenly. I wouldn't have him know that I suspect anything for the world. We won't name any names, but I keep my eyes about me, and I flatter ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... shot into The Barbarian's tankette before the other Leaguesman could fire. But Dugald was not aiming for The Barbarian. First he had to eliminate Geoffrey from the scene entirely. When he fired, at almost point-blank range, the world seemed to explode in Giulion's eyes. ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... what either is. History had no need to ask what either might be; all it needed to know was the admission of ignorance; the mere fact of multiplicity baffling science. Even as to the fact, science disputed, but radium happened to radiate something that seemed to explode the scientific magazine, bringing thought, for the time, to a standstill; though, in the line of thought-movement in history, radium was merely the next position, familiar and inexplicable since Zeno and his arrow: continuous ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... package which was placed in his room," he went on, "must have been a little infernal machine of glass, constructed so as to explode the moment the wrapper was broken. The flying pieces of glass injected the poison as by a myriad of hypodermic needles— the highly poisonous toxin of abrin, product of the jequirity, which is ordinarily destroyed ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... as the door closed behind them the four chums dropped into their chairs and stared at each other without speaking. Then Joy came to life with a dance. "Come on Kit, I just have to dance. If I don't I'll explode into a million pieces." ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... have been, or will be cast upon him (not only by malignant prelates, but even by the high fliers, or more corrupted part of the presbyterian persuasion) namely, on account of his firing at bishop Sharp; which, they think, is enough to explode, affront or bespatter all the faithful contendings of the true reformed and covenanted church of Scotland. But in this Mr. Mitchel stands in need of little or no vindication; for by this time the reader may ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... know the name of the vessel, but I bamboozled them, and gave them cigars and vodka, and they weren't long in forgetting about what had happened. I think there is no doubt about your being the cause of having the mines raised, as, to my certain knowledge, they tried to explode them the day after you left the port, and very few of them went off. Things were kept a bit quiet, but I can always get to know what is going on, and if the gunboats had been properly handled that night it would have been ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... to-morrow, when I am fit for it. I am dying to hear you. I will be fit for you in the morning. I will be civil, intelligent, communicative, in the morning. No more of it now. Away with the subject—the too exciting, the too interesting subject! I must compose myself or my brains will explode in my head. Music is the true narcotic for excitable brains. My ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... Rod saw something suddenly explode on the road exactly where the forks came. He knew full well it must be that second shrapnel shell, and only for their sudden change of base, which the gunner had not calculated on, it must have burst so near Hanky Panky that he might ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... as if she were afraid it might prick her or explode in her hand. Then she threw back her head ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... double-headed, and that the interior was filled with gunpowder and missiles of all sorts; that between the two heads there was a lock so contrived that on being opened it would fire a quick match and cause the whole to explode. ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... was possible to be bright and gay and unobtrusive in this place, too—if you were cold-blooded enough not to boil dry and explode before getting a drink—for under some trees lay, in the old-gold, yellow, black-shade-streaked, tawny-red grass, a sleek and glistening, banded, blotched, and spotted, newly painted python. Yes, sirs, a python snake; and you couldn't see it in its ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... appointed; the next man denies this totally. The Quaker denies what the disciple of Calvin or Knox believes, while the Universalist ignores what the latter professes; and now the Mormons, spiritual rappers, and Transcendentalists explode the Bible altogether. The Catholic church, with those countless millions of her children that constitute her body, has been reading the Bible and studying it these nineteen hundred years, and never yet, with ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... at whom our guns were firing a while ago dropped this," explained the civilian. "He pitched out a bomb that must have contained hundreds of these darts; and the bomb was timed to explode a thousand or more feet above the earth and scatter the darts. Some of them fell into a cavalry troop on the road leading to ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... through them. And here, in this desecrated resting-place of the village dead, where the shattered gravestones were mingled with barbed wire, death-dealing fragments of iron, and rusting stick-bombs that had failed to explode, was a wooden cross, on which was rudely written the name of Hans Siebert. Mouldering at the foot of the cross was a grey woollen German tunic from which ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... answered Herr Winckelkopf, contemplating his invention with a justifiable look of pride; 'let me know when you wish it to explode, and I will set the machine ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... in the narrowest part of the channel, dropping the anchor and handling the rudder so as to turn her across the stream. Her length was sufficient to close up completely the deeper channel. He would stop the engines, let fall the anchor, open the traps made for the sea-water to flow in, and explode the torpedoes. Ten of these lay on the port side of the ship, each containing eighty-two pounds of powder, and they were connected so that they could be fired in train. There were two men below, one to reverse the engines, the other to ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... much afraid of fireworks, and had never allowed the boys to bring gunpowder into the house. She was even afraid of torpedoes; they looked so much like sugar-plums she was sure some of the children would swallow them, and explode before anybody knew it. ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... recently, archery, in which the Tartars have always excelled, was regarded almost as a semi-divine accomplishment. Kite-flying has reached a high level of skill. Clever little "messengers" have been devised, which run up the string, carrying fire-crackers which explode at a great height. There is a game of shuttlecock, without the battledore, for which the feet are used as a substitute; and "diavolo," recently introduced into Europe, is an ancient Chinese pastime. A few ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... . . . We must make haste, or . . . I shall explode with impatience! Do you know who she is? You will never guess. The young wife of our old police superintendent, Yevgraf Kuzmitch, Olga Petrovna; that's who it is! She bought that box ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... being crept toward them from the darkness, uttering a prolonged and hearty groan, as if to explode at once the accumulations ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... themselves deluged with an odoriferous froth, which explained the cause of the explosion. A bottle of champagne, placed in one of the pockets of the carriage, had been uncorked; and the heat, added to the motion of the carriage, or rather the malice of the young traveler, had made it explode with a loud report. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... space. The woods, like a screen, hid the battery from view. Only the screaming and exploding shells could be seen. When the head of the Michigan column came into their line of vision, the confederate cannoneers trained one of their guns on the road and the shells began to explode in our faces. A right oblique movement took the column out ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... vault that overarches our heads. Suppose that solid roof should crumble down upon our heads! Other flashes with incessant play cross their vivid fires, while others again roll themselves into balls of living fire which explode like bombshells, but the music of which scarcely-adds to the din of the battle strife that almost deprives us of our senses of hearing and sight; the limit of intense loudness has been passed within which the human ear can distinguish ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... tricks or jokes are all based on the idea of pain or embarrassment. Tacks made of rubber, matches that explode or refuse to light, exploding cigars or cigarettes, fountain-pens that smear ink over the fingers immediately they are put to use, "electric" bells with pins secreted in their push buttons, and boutonnieres that squirt ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... Honorable James T. Austin, Attorney-General of the State. He was stout, florid, ready of tongue—a practical stump speaker and withal a good deal of a popular favorite. The crowd cheered him—he caught them from the start. His intent was to explode the whole thing in a laugh, or else end it in a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... away and several hundred feet of it crashed down the cliff. In places it appeared to be ten to forty feet thick. It must have weighed thousands of tons. It fell with a swishing roar, with occasional sharp reports, as loose rocks dropped to the clean-swept ledges of the cliff. It seemed to explode as it struck, to fly into powder which filled the gorge between Flat top and ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... in seeking for conclusive evidence against Mortimer he should prove him innocent? He was treading upon dangerous ground, pushing out of his path with a firebrand a fuse closely attached to a mine that might explode and ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... to be as careful of them as if they were my real brothers. And there I was trying to be, only she didn't understand. Then, another day, not long before, I coaxed some big boys who have a naphtha-launch to give the 'Balls a sail on it down the bay. The thing happened to explode, and, though nobody was hurt, she went on just terrible because I'd taken the children without asking her. How could I ask her when she was off shopping, or somewhere, just at the very moment the idea popped into my head? And nothing befell the ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... 1945, after Jumbo had already been built and transported (with great difficulty) to the Trinity Site by the Eichleay Corporation of Pittsburgh, it was decided not to explode the Trinity device inside of Jumbo after all. There were several reasons for this new decision: first, plutonium had become more readily (relatively) available; second, the Project scientists decided that the Trinity device would probably work as planned; and last, the scientists realized ...
— Trinity [Atomic Test] Site - The 50th Anniversary of the Atomic Bomb • The National Atomic Museum
... analysis, and find it to correspond to the formula C{6}, H{3}, O{3}, and NO{5}; it is well made nitro-glycerin; the substance freezes at about 46; it is made to decompose in a very peculiar way; on moistening paper with it it burns with rapidity; it does not explode when red-hot copper is placed in it; we tried it with the most intense heat—we can produce with a galvanic battery with two hundred cells holding a gallon and a half each; some nitro-glycerin was placed in ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... the cocked revolver in his hand, and, suddenly raising it, fired point-blank at his man, not fifteen feet away. The hammer snapped on the nipple, but the cartridge did not explode. Wilbur turned to the Chinaman next him ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... what's happened?" exclaimed Mamma. "If the thing's going to explode, do let us get ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... dish containing broad beans. Glare at him. No result. Planetary waiter has passed me twice—stop him angrily the third time. He is less busy now—he pauses. He thrusts bill of fare before me, and asks me "what I would please to want." Explode and shout in tones of thunder, "Liver and bacon!" He disappears, and comes back a few minutes later, saying, "Very sorry, but when I first ordered it, liver and bacon was on—now it's off. Will I have ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... his white face and listening to his tense voice, Jane felt as if she were standing at the edge of a mine that might explode ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... our pets in shape, and someone asked who would volunteer for water. We were all dirty, thirsty, greasy and tired, and I offered to go. I ambled over to the farmhouse, stopping to speak to the Captain for a moment on the way, when I heard a shell explode; it had ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... cubierto), to cover *dar dos pasos, to take a stroll *dar la lengua, to chat, to parley despejar, to clear devanarse los sesos, to rack one's brains difunto, late, deceased estallar, to burst, to explode, to break out formal, formal, respectable *ir repitiendo, etc., to keep repeating, etc. jefe del despacho, manager llevarse bien, to get on well together lograr, to contrive, to attain machacar, to hammer, to insist mandato, order, injunction melindroso, ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... Patrol, believe me. Then Mr. Ellsworth held up his hand in that quiet way he has. "This sounds like the Western Front or a Bolshevik meeting," he said, "and I'm afraid our young Raven, Mr. Pee-wee Harris, will presently explode and that would be an ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... would have been, had the gases been closely confined at the moment they were made to explode. If, for instance, we were to put in this bottle a mixture of hydrogen gas and atmospheric air; and if, after corking the bottle, we should kindle the mixture by a very small orifice, from the sudden ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... potash was at one time supposed to combine an enormous explosive power with perfect safety in carriage, as the detonating shells were proof against the blow of a hammer, and would only explode upon impact through the extreme velocity of their discharge from a rifle-barrel. These were useless against an elephant, as they had no power of penetration, and the shell destroyed itself by bursting upon the hard skin. I tried these ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... where he makes his garden, whether on a spot favoured, or abandoned, by the rural deities. If the latter, he invites them, or compels them to return. His point is to change every thing from what he found it, to explode the old fashion of the creation, and introduce novelty in every corner. If there be a waste, he adorns it with trees; if a dry desert, he waters it with a river, or floats it with a lake. If there be a smooth flat, he varies it ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... inclined to fancy it a bubble—one of those dazzling rainbow-tinted globes which look so bright dancing about in the sunshine, and explode into nothing directly they encounter any tangible substance. However, my dear Sheldon, if you really have any employment to offer to a versatile young man who is not overburdened with vulgar prejudices, you'd better put ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... ludicrous that the stranger could scarcely keep from laughing. He did not wish to be impolite, so he kept turning his face aside and pretending to cough. Fortunately for him, just as he thought he would surely explode with laughter, he recalled the warning the man had given him and rushed out of the house. The Man guessed what was the matter ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... to step on Italy. Germany has not yet answered our protest in the Lusitania matter. Neither has England answered our protest, sent some three months ago, against the invasion of our rights upon the seas. I was very glad to read the other day that while only eighty per cent of English-made shells explode, over ninety per cent of American-made ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... kissing my reddened eyelids. "Aren't you ever going to get used to mother's childish outbursts? You know she doesn't mean what she says in those tantrums of hers. She simply works herself up to a point where she's absolutely irresponsible, and she has to explode or burst. You wouldn't like to see a perfectly good mother-in-law strewn in fragment all over the room, simply because she had restrained her temper, would you?" he added, with the quick transition from hot anger to whimsical good nature ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... more thoroughly awakened. His object was to get out of the house and go through the night avoiding everything human, for he was big with information of a character that he knew to be of the nature of gunpowder, and he feared to explode. He crossed the hall. In the passage to the scullery he ran ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... investigation, and got into the newspapers, recalling the Cock Lane ghost, and many more less celebrated apparitions. Parties were organized to investigate it, but were baffled. Stokeman, on a bet of a box of cigars, volunteered to go out alone and explode the fraud; and did so, not only putting the restless spirit to flight, but capturing it and dragging it into town as the physical and indisputable witness both of the truth of his theory and of his ...
— The Spectre In The Cart - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... that I needed the time to let things happen the way Willy's influence makes them happen. I don't think Goil was totally convinced. But he must have been partly, at least, for with all the system's experts arguing about just exactly what made the ship explode, and with no two experts agreeing on an explanation, he might have given some benefit of the doubt to Willy. Anyway, he was so relieved that his interests in Mars were saved that he smiled for the next three days, dismissed ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell
... by the accurate and exact standard, viz. the enumeration of the minute indivisible parts, they both employ a standard, which is useless in practice, and actually establish the indivisibility of extension, which they endeavour to explode. Or if they employ, as is usual, the inaccurate standard, derived from a comparison of objects, upon their general appearance, corrected by measuring and juxtaposition; their first principles, though certain and infallible, are too coarse ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... and killed and wounded many of the boys. I lay in bed hanging onto the pillows and listened to the crash of the bombs, and the screams of the wounded. I hope I will never hear the like again. One of the bombs came through the tent I was in, but didn't explode. The minute the Huns were gone the doctors and nurses were around looking after the boys, soothing those who were shaken and attending the ones who were injured. There was no excuse for the bombing of this hospital; it was plainly marked with the ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... means is a big puzzle," Dick added. "If Rip and his crowd are or were in the cottage, they would hardly explode anything purposely and perhaps kill a man. That man appeared to be dead—-he must be dead. Rip and Dodge are mean fellows, but they're ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... dynamite explode—for, of course, that is what you intend. Would not some sort of wire or fuse he required for ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... the Union lines. Eighty cannons roared back at them with defiant thunder, and the blue sky became hidden by smoke. Among the Union batteries horses began to run loose, cannons to be splintered like fire-wood, and caissons to explode. At these moments men, horses, fragments of men and horses, stones, earth, and things living and things dead were hurled high into the air with great blasts of flame and smoke, and it was possible to hear miles of exultant yells from ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... his bloody death and sufferings, to the effect that he take vengeance for it even on thess that crucifies him afresh. The mother he brought on the stage as the embleme of mercy, crying imperiously, jure matris, I inhibite your justice, I explode your rigor, I discharge your severity. Let mercy alone triumph. Surely if this be not blasphemy I know not whats blasphemie. To make Christ only Justice fights diamettrally[129] wt the Aposle John, If any man hath sinned he has a Advocat with ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... to tell me my own business. People don't behave that way in real life; they don't explode under passion—not even jealousy or revenge; they are reserved. Reserve! That's the real thing; the other is ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... been badly hit; immediately after, with a terrific crash, a shell hits an ammunition-waggon fair. Those around hold their breath for a still greater explosion, but, wonderful to say, the ammunition does not explode. When the dust has cleared, however, the wheel of the waggon is found smashed to matchwood, and the vehicle lies helpless and useless on its side. But still steady as rocks sit the drivers facing the music. This is courage—the ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... and frequently four or five hundred huts in Kamrasi's large camp were destroyed by fire, and rebuilt in a few days. I was anxious concerning my powder, as, in the event of fire, the blaze of the straw hut was so instantaneous that nothing could be saved: should my powder explode, I should be entirely defenceless. Accordingly, after a conflagration in my neighbourhood, I insisted upon removing all huts within a circuit of thirty yards of my dwelling: the natives demurring, I at once ordered my men to pull down the houses, and ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... hour, and brought the train of seven cars to her destination at the Grand Trunk junction safely. But something occurred which was very much out of the ordinary. I was very much worried about the water, and I knew that if it got low the boiler was likely to explode. I hadn't gone twenty miles before black damp mud blew out of the stack and covered every part of the engine, including myself. I was about to awaken the fireman to find out the cause of this when it stopped. Then I approached a station ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... we're doing, Anthony and me. And we blew such beautiful ones to-day, and they'll explode and then we'll blow more and more, I guess—bubbles just as big and just as beautiful, until all the soap ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... not have actually to hit the U-boat; to explode one anywhere near is enough. When our fellows let go one of them, the ship has to be going 25 knots to be safe. One of our destroyers was making 11 knots one night—the best she could do under the weather conditions—and an ash-can was washed overboard by a heavy sea. Our destroyer's stern came ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly |
