"Precipitate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... too precipitate in either extreme, either with profuseness or with parsimony too great. Into the same error will you fall from the one side as from the other. In the first place, formerly, rather than allow your son to visit a young woman, who was then content ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... More than once he paused, prepared for precipitate retreat, but still he heard no sound, and gradually a certain desperate hope came to him. Perhaps Dicky was asleep! Perhaps the power that drove him would be satisfied if he collected some things on a tray and left them in the little hall for Dicky to find when he finally came up! If this could ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... upon the day as one of business, and not of pleasure, and had methodized a system of callmaking, which was submitted to his companions, and highly approved by them. The order of exercises was as follows: First, a jerk at the doorbell; second, precipitate entrance, hat in hand; third, "Happy New Year," remark on fine weather, and introduction of friends; fourth, a second remark on fine weather, or any other one remark which might occur to friends on inspiration of moment; fifth, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... conscious of the relenting and compassionate looks of Capitola, but he did not know that they were only the pitying regards of a noble and victorious nature over a vanquished and suffering wrong-doer. However, he still determined to be cautious, and not ruin his prospects by precipitate action, but to ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... presence seemed about to precipitate a terrible mischief, and she stood because flight would but leave that mischief to do its worst. Through this glaring show of likeness she seemed to be in the keenest danger of betraying back into slavery on the spot this poor, intrepid ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... would peer through his all-scrutinising spectacles with an air of excessive penetration or too extreme unconsciousness. And there were times—later on—when an avalanche of aunts and uncles would precipitate itself on Wimpole Street—perspicacious aunts and amiable uncles who were wished as far off as Seringapatam, and who wrung from an impatient niece—to whom indeed they were dear—the cry "The barbarians are upon us." Miss Barrett's sisters, ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... of the King thence marched to Eulenburg. The Austrian troops that had encamped in that vicinity retired, through Mochrena to Torgau, with so much precipitate haste that they abandoned a part of their tents. The army encamped with the right at Thalwitz and the left at Eulenburg. Hulsen was obliged to pass the Mulde with some battalions. He took a position between Belzen and Gostevra, opposite the Prince de Deuxponts, whose army was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... a year after this marriage that Will was awakened late one night by the sound of a horse galloping on the road, followed by precipitate knocking at the inn-door. He opened his window and saw a farm servant, mounted and holding a led horse by the bridle, who told him to make what haste he could and go along with him; for Marjory was ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... may be less mortal than I contemplated. Then what may I not have to fear? His dead body will be an incumbrance to me. It must be moved from the place where it lies. It must be buried. How is all this to be done by me? By one precipitate act, I have involved myself in a long train of loathsome and ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... spots secure them from all their enemies, and the only danger is in wandering among these precipices, where we should suppose it scarcely possible for any animal to stand; a single false step would precipitate them at least five hundred feet into the water. At one mile and a quarter we passed another single cliff on the left; at the same distance beyond which is the mouth of a large river emptying itself from the north. It is a handsome, bold, and clear stream, eighty yards wide, that is nearly ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... by which atonement was made. The word rendered 'to make atonement' means 'to cover'; and the idea conveyed is that the blood, which is the life of the sacrifice, covers the sins of the offerer, so as to make them powerless to dam back the love or to precipitate ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... a sudden impulse to precipitate matters, he drew his left hand from his pocket. The diamonds ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... were forced to give way. The Old Guard held their ground against overwhelming numbers. Finally, when five squares were broken, the Emperor gave the order to "fall back." The cry "The Guard is repulsed" spread consternation through the French army and threatened to turn retreat into precipitate flight. Napoleon, seeing this, reformed the Guard in order to give a rallying point for the fugitives. Failing in this, he declared that he would die within the square, but Marshal Soult hurried him away. The heroic band, surrounded, was bidden to surrender. "The Old Guard dies, but never ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... had filled her ears had gone to her brain like wine. She felt intoxicated with the atmosphere of mystery, of selfless patriotism, of great and fallen fortunes, with which he knew so well how to surround himself. Mayhap, that in her innermost heart now there was a scarce conscious desire to precipitate a crisis, to challenge discovery, to step boldly before her guardian, avowing her love, demanding ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... inmates the least idea of his purpose. And then,—as he said to himself,—matrimony is honest. He was in all worldly respects a fit match for the young lady. To his own thinking there was nothing preposterous in the nature of his request, though it might have been made with some precipitate informality. He did not regard himself exactly as the lady regarded him, and therefore, though he saw her surprise, he still hoped that he might be able to convince her that in all that he was doing he was as anxious for the welfare of her child as ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... water fit for washing linen at sea, a quantity of soda should be kept at hand, and used for that purpose, as often as occasion requires. As much soda should be put into sea water as will render it turbid, and completely precipitate the lime and magnesia which it contains. The water will then become sufficiently alkaline for ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... him to the door when he made his rather precipitate departure and stood, after she had waved him a temporary farewell, gazing up at the soft sun-bathed slope with its aisles of gnarled trees. She smiled at the sight of a decrepit long-handled wooden pump. ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... love for her young children, added, tenderly, "And how do you like babies, Mr. Lamb?" His answer, immediate, almost precipitate, was "Boi-boi-boiled, ma'am." ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... dangerous and degrading fall,—a fall from the clouds to the clods, producing both humiliation and misery. It is indeed a fearful leap,—a leap without judgment or forethought; and, therefore, a leap in the dark. It is too precipitate, and shows the infatuation of the victim. Falling in love is not always falling in the embraces of domestic felicity. Such leaping is an act of intoxication. The drunkard, falling in the mire, often thinks that he is embracing his best friend, whereas it is but descending to fellowship ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... down the steps into a snowstorm. Even during his precipitate retreat he had realized the advisability of telephoning for a taxi, but had been incapable of the anti-climax. He pulled his hat over his eyes, turned up the collar of his coat, and made his way hastily toward Park Avenue. There was not a cab in sight. Nor was there a rumble in the tunnel; ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the South, whether they were the mouthpieces of the ideas and passions of their constituents, or were, as Webster probably thought, more or less responsible for their foolishness and bitterness, were ever eager to precipitate a conflict, which Webster was as eager to prevent, or at least to postpone. It was fortunate for the North, that the inevitable conflict did not come in 1850, when the free States were unprepared for it. Ten years of discussion and preparation were allowed; ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... shirt sleeves was viewing a too precipitate world from behind his counter. "I'd like some marshmallows, ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... of our precipitate flight from that horrible place—on the extinction of all human sentiment in that tumultuous, mad scramble up the damp and mouldy stairs—slipping, falling, pulling one another down and clambering over one another's back—the lights extinguished, babes trampled beneath the feet ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... case, she leaves an aperture so that if and when it should become necessary for the queen to kill her, the sovereign would not injure her sting and be unable to kill the other individuals who might become aspirants for the throne and so precipitate a civil war! As in the case of the self-destructive act on the part of a stinging cell in Hydra, altruistic subservience to the interests of the colony ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... resistance shall have departed; it is inconceivable but that, in their present temper, ignorant as they are of the real resources of the whites, and conscious that they can still bring eight thousand warriors into the field, they would precipitate a contest which, though it would involve untold misery to our border population, must inevitably ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... fever-fits of passion, we can give them nothing but a compassionate smile. But we look with a kind of awe on a spirit in which the seed of a great destiny has been sown, which must abide the unfolding of the germ, and neither dare nor can do anything to precipitate either the good or the ill, either the happiness or the misery, which is to arise ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... establishment being a protection to the loyal population, it seemed more likely, judging by what had occurred in other States, that it would serve as a temptation to the secession mob that was evidently gathering head for mischief, and that the desire to take it would precipitate the outbreak. The Unionists felt their danger; the rebels saw their opportunity. Already the latter were boasting that they would in a short time occupy this post, and not a few of the prominent Union citizens of the town ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... that which is false? how shall I not turn away from the truth? If a man be of such a good disposition as to be anxious about these things I will remind him of this: Why are you anxious? The thing is in your own power, be assured; do not be precipitate in assenting before you apply the natural rule. On the other side, if a man is anxious (uneasy) about desire, lest it fail in its purpose and miss its end, and with respect to the avoidance of things, lest he should fall into that which he would avoid, I will first ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... run, but she restrained it, dreading lest she might precipitate the disaster she feared. Hudson must not suspect her intention, must not know of the panic ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... are required to be built in the structure, and allowed to harden in moist sand, or, if this is impracticable, the blocks should be kept in the air and thoroughly wetted each day. On placing cement or concrete blocks in sea water a white precipitate is formed on their surfaces, which shows that there is some slight chemical action, but if the mixture is dense this action is restricted to the outside, and does not harm ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... month or two after her departure from Lynbrook, Wyant had married a Clifton girl—a pretty piece of flaunting innocence, whom she remembered about the lanes, generally with a young man in a buggy. There had evidently been something obscure and precipitate about the marriage, which was a strange one for the ambitious young doctor. Justine conjectured that it might have been the cause of his leaving Clifton—or or perhaps he had already succumbed to the fatal habit she had suspected in him. At any rate he seemed, in some mysterious ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... army is now stronger and better disciplined, and more full of determination to conquer, than any French army has ever been before. But no ruler of France can be anxious to precipitate a war with Germany; and judging from the present state of feeling among the French, there appear to be no serious political breakers ahead. Of course in France the unexpected is always to be expected, and what a day may bring ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... Room, we have hung about this invisible and silent woman to learn what she knows. Our desires, our wish to know must be a torment to her. Who can tell that, should we learn the secret of her mystery, it would not precipitate a tragedy more terrible than that which had already been enacted here? Who can tell if it might not mean her death? Yet it had brought her close to death,—and we still knew nothing. Or, rather, there are some of us who know nothing. But I—if I knew who, I should know all. Who?—Who?—Not ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... this to him whom we perceive to be a lover of wicked courses, until we precipitate him into misfortune, so that he may learn to ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... of the blood sample from the jar which the coroner had brought into a clean tube and added a few drops of the spirits of turpentine. A cloudy, dark precipitate formed. He smiled quietly, and said, half to ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... precipitate departure, went up to the attic, and, from behind the shelter of the skylight, perceived her master striding rapidly along the road to Planche-au-Vacher. There she lost sight of him—the underwood was too thick. ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... was certain that his theory was correct, and that, distasteful and dangerous as it might be, the time had come for him to leave the river. To continue further would be to precipitate a collision in which there was no possibility of the good fortune that had followed him in the first place. Besides this the night was so far advanced and the moon so high up in the sky, that the shadow had narrowed to a band which was ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... those ten minutes neither could tell afterward. The same idea was in both their minds—that unless the attention of the Indians could be held until the train arrived, its approach would only precipitate their own fate by impelling the savages to carry out whatever designs of murder, insult or capture they might have. Under the influence of the intense excitement of this critical interval it is to be feared that the performance degenerated from a high-toned ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... antagonist; and tho his reasoning might be faulty, he would frequently gain his cause by a flash of wit that took the public, and, as it were, hustled his adversary out of court. But he was not always a victorious polemic. His vehemence in controversy was sometimes too precipitate for his prudence; he would rush into a fight with his armor unfastened, and with only a part of the necessary weapons; and as the late Washington Hunt[44] once exprest it, he could be more damaging to his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... tanks and reservoirs of the interior diffuse a healthful coolness around, the running water of the rivers is prolific of fevers; and in some seasons so deadly is the pestilence that the Malabar coolies, as well as the native peasantry, betake themselves to precipitate flight.[1] ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... of Clamanges was a field hospital which had been established by the Germans when they first occupied the place on the night of September 7th. They had held it until their retreat on the 10th, when their retirement was so precipitate that they had been unable to take with them ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... devoted to the general subject of reconstruction, since he regarded the pending measure as one of a series looking to the ultimate restoration of the late rebel States. He was opposed to undue haste in this important work. He said: "The danger is of precipitate action. Delay is now what we need. The infant in its tiny fingers plays to-day with a handful of acorns, but two hundred years hence, by the efflux of time, those acorns are the mighty material out of which navies ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... cataracts; those demure gardens have flirted with the Isle of Flowers (Elephantina), five hundred miles away; and those very pyramids have floated down the waves of Nile. In short, to speak chemically, that river is a solution of Ethiopia's richest regions, and that vast country is merely a precipitate. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... with the faded facts of her person. She was not infirm, like her aunt, but she struck me as still more helpless, because her inefficiency was spiritual, which was not the case with Miss Bordereau's. I waited to see if she would offer to show me the rest of the house, but I did not precipitate the question, inasmuch as my plan was from this moment to spend as much of my time as possible in her society. I only observed at ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... Wellington could bring up his reserves. The conscripts, however, were not equally steady, and when Hill, advancing from the extreme right, pressed upon the French left, Soult's orderly retreat became a precipitate flight. The French loss greatly exceeded the British, and was soon afterwards swelled by wholesale desertions; the road to Bordeaux was thrown open, and the royalist reaction against Napoleon, stimulated by the depredation of the French ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... relationship. The traitor disfigured the portrait to injure Chaoukeun—then deserted his sovereign, and stole over to me, whom he prevailed on to demand the lady in marriage. How little did I think that she would thus precipitate herself into the stream, and perish!—In vain did my spirit melt at the sight of her! But if I detained this profligate and traitorous rebel, he would certainly prove to us a root of misfortune: it is better to deliver him for his reward to the Emperor of Han, with whom I will renew, ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... second growth, or skirting hills where dead sticks stand forlorn and only the fireweed blooms. Of rememberable roads the last stage of our journey to the Great Water is the one I have now in mind. It is the longest carry, two miles or less, sharply down hill, though less precipitate than the river, which, after many days of idling, now flings itself impatiently toward the shore. We linger where it makes its first great leap. Many have come thus far from the south, and, looking on the shallow pool beyond, have decided that there ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... intelligence of his approach, raised the siege and proceeded in quest of their new enemy. According to Josephus a battle was fought, in which the Egyptians were defeated; but it is perhaps more probable that they avoided an engagement by a precipitate retreat into their own country. At any rate the attempt effectually to relieve Jerusalem failed. After a brief interval the siege was renewed; a complete blockade was established; and in a year and a half from the time of the second investment, the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... at the time with the promise given him by Lord Hartledon to see the debt paid—given also in the presence of the Rector—and took his departure in the train, just as Pike had subsequently told Mr. Elster. But ere he had gone two stages on his journey, he began to think he might have been too precipitate, and to ask himself whether his employers would not tell him so when he appeared before them, unbacked by any guarantee from Lord Hartledon; for this, by a strange oversight, he had omitted to ask for. He halted at once, and went back by the next return train. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... that yet, my good fellow," said Mr. M'Leod, who went on methodically; "if you are precipitate, you will spoil all. Go home to your forge, and work as usual, and leave the rest to us; and I promise that you shall have your share, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... quarters of sentiment, but who can no more co-ordinate the movements of their affections than of their thoughts. In a word, they are incomplete. Unite a fine intelligence with a dwarfed intelligence and you precipitate a disaster; for it is necessary that equilibrium be preserved ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Then presently their horses began a steep shelving descent which required great caution to negotiate. And as they proceeded the darkness closed in upon them, until they appeared to be making an almost precipitate descent into a vast black pit. There was no light here at all except for the stars above, for the last glow of twilight was completely shut off by the great wall they were ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... called a prig by those who did not know him well. He had a trick of starting subjects suddenly, and he very often made his friends very uncomfortable by the precipitate introduction, without any warning, of remarks upon serious matters. Once even, shocking to say, he quite unexpectedly at a tea-party made an observation about God. Really, however, he was not a prig. He was very ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... immediately read a first time; and the Duke of Wellington then moved that it should be read a second time on the 2nd of April. This motion was opposed by Lord Bexley and the Earl of Malmesbury, as too precipitate, urging that on all former occasions a longer time had been allowed for consideration, and that breathless haste was the conduct of men called upon to decide as another dictated, rather than of legislators called to deliberate on a grave matter of public policy. Lord Holland, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... neglect and vice come to this. The young, the weak and the proud have to guard themselves against these dangers, hey work slowly, imperceptibly, but surely. Two things increase the peril and tend to precipitate matters; reading and companionship. The ignorant are often anxious to know the other side, when they do not know their own. The consequence is that they will not understand fully the question; and ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... Blaine"—Morrow's words came with a rush, as if he was glad, now that the issue had been raised, to meet it squarely—"I love Emily Brunell. Whatever her father is, or has done, she is guiltless of any complicity, and I can't stand by and see her suffer, much less be the one to precipitate her grief by bringing her father to justice. I told you the truth when I said that the cipher letter was an enigma to me. I could not solve the cryptogram, nor will I be the means of bringing it to the hands of those who might ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... at first discern its worth, it suggests a Titan in commotion. It is Titanic; the torso of some Faust-like dream, it is Chopin's Faust. A macabre march, containing some dangerous dissonances, gravely ushers us to ascending staircases of triplets, only to precipitate us to the very abysses of the piano. That first subject, is it not almost as ethically puissant and passionate as Beethoven in his F minor Sonata? Chopin's lack of tenaciousness is visible here. Beethoven would have built a cathedral on such a foundational scheme, but Chopin, ever prodigal in his ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... of provocation. But it is in the speeches of the heroine that the language reaches its highest development. She can emphatically be said to talk like a book. She does not guess, she hazards conjectures. She playfully addresses her father as "thoughtless, precipitate parent." When she is asked what she thinks of the country now that an attempt was made to take possession of the Point, she describes her character, as drawn in this novel, as no words of another can. "Miss Effingham," she says, "has been grieved, disappointed, ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... Hungarian when he sat upon the sidewalk in 56th Street, and tried to pacify certain outraged blood-vessels in the nasal region. Of course, the curtain had been up some time, but, so far as he was concerned, the incidents which followed his precipitate descent from the automobile were merely catastrophic. He had seen a vivid, violet-colored star close to his eyes, had felt a crushing blow, had heard his own voice vaguely; and then he awoke to a singular sense of personal dis-ease, and ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... that friendship, true as the hills, constrains me to deal openly with you. No, my divine Sister, I shall conceal nothing from you that I intend to do; all my thoughts, all my resolutions shall be open and known to you in time. I will precipitate nothing: but also it will be impossible for me ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... Swamp, where sharp skirmishing took place in the night between advanced parties of the Americans and the British. On the 16th of August, 1780, the unfortunate battle of Camden was fought. A contagious panic seized most of the militia early in the action, and a precipitate retreat was the natural consequence. The regulars of Maryland and Delaware, with a small portion of the North Carolina militia, firmly stood their ground until surrounded with overwhelming numbers. The subject of this sketch was there made a ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... happy there in the last few weeks, why not try if you can be happy there always? There is a house in Cavendish Square whose master would be proud to make you its mistress. Ida, we have seen very little of each other, and I may be precipitate in hazarding this offer; but I am as fond of you as if I had known you half a lifetime, and I believe that I could ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... the emotion which had been accumulating in his breast as the bottled-up effect of solitude and the poetized locality he dwelt in, insensibly began to precipitate itself on this half-visionary form; and he perceived that, whatever his obedient wish in a contrary direction, he would soon be unable to resist the desire to make ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... discussing the slavery question. Mr. Hunter said, substantially, that the slaves, always accustomed to an overseer, and to work upon compulsion, suddenly freed, as they would be if the South should consent to peace on the basis of the 'Emancipation Proclamation,' would precipitate not only themselves, but the entire Southern society, into irremediable ruin. No work would be done, nothing would be cultivated, and both blacks and whites ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... socket, to put in a handle: then a number of people on horseback to go in quest of a herd of buffaloes, and always attack them with the wind in their backs. As soon as they smell a man, it is true, they run away; but at the sight of the horses they will moderate their fears, and thus not precipitate their flight; whereas the report of a gun frightens them so as to make them run at full speed. In this chace, the lightest would run fast enough; but the oldest, and even the young of two or three years old, are so fat, that their weight would make them soon ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... up handfuls of dirt in the extravagance of their delight, and before Bill could realize the enormity of the sell one of his own partisans rose up and kicked the cracker box out from under him in token of utter defeat. For an hour after their precipitate retreat the visitors could hear the whoops and gibes of the cowboys, the loud-mouthed and indignant retorts of Lightfoot, and the soothing remonstrances of Jefferson Creede—and from the house Kitty the irrepressible, added ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... abrupt departure she had followed him to the station but the train was gone; and in travelling to Baden in search of him she had met his rival, whose reproaches led to an altercation, and the death of both. Of that precipitate scene of passion and crime Fitzpiers had known nothing till he saw an account of it in the papers, where, fortunately for himself, no mention was made of his prior acquaintance with the unhappy lady; nor was there any allusion to him in the subsequent ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... number, at a rather greater distance; but they did not like having their mustaches singed by our powder; and after a moment's wavering and hesitation, they shouted out "Diabolos! Diabolos!" and throwing away their muskets, broke into precipitate flight. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... circular-scattering, auctioneering, humbuging world! And you would thus prove Association to be also a windbag and a lie! Just in so far as Association has been rash and precipitate, and swollen with promises and dizzy in its towering pretensions, it has been truly ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... table, for Phillis, in her precipitate disappearance, had forgotten it. Dr. Grey put it ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... for this expedition. The success of the enterprise was, however, frustrated by one of the company, through whom the inhabitants were placed on the alert. The only damage they succeeded in doing was the setting fire to three ships, one of which was burnt. They were obliged to make a precipitate retreat, and, having spiked the guns of the battery, they escaped unhurt to the coast of Scotland, where they plundered the house of the Earl of Selkirk." Among the principal residences in the neighbourhood ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... the health of Samaritan women, or how much it has shaken the social basis, "My wife is my shoe," I have had no very late opportunities for learning; but, judging from the effects of learning the alphabet in other places, I cannot doubt that this innovation, seeing it did not precipitate the world out of its course, has been followed by others, less startling, perhaps, but tending the same way. Be this as it may, this initiate of an educational revolution in Sychar has its ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... of the same year Gay, the most unpretending of all the wits whom he knew, and the one with whom he had at one time been domesticated, expired, after an illness of three days, which Dr. Arbuthnot declares to have been "the most precipitate" he ever knew. But in fact Gay had long been decaying, from the ignoble vice of too much and too luxurious eating. Six months after this loss, which greatly affected Pope, came the last deadly wound which this life could inflict, in the death of his mother. She had ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... the luxury of a lucid interval. But these vicissitudes of intellectual obscurity and lustre have no real existence;—they are not the offsprings of observation and experience, but the abortions of hypothesis and precipitate deduction. Lunatics, from the excitation of various causes, become at times more violent or desponding, and these exacerbations are often succeeded by tranquillity and cheerfulness, they are more tractable, and less impelled to urge the subjects of their prevailing delusions: ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam
... foundations rested. He would take care to be seen first by the workmen who had cut down his wood. He could then climb to the step some distance up which bore the flag staff displayed on fete days. He would smash this pole with a shake and precipitate it along ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... no stranger to these forests. Its presence, in every turn of the trail, filled her with awe. A single misstep, a little instant of hesitation in a crisis, might precipitate her a thousand feet down the canyon to her death. Dead trees swayed, threatening to fall; snow slides roared and rumbled on the far steeps; the quagmire sucked with greedy lips, the trail wandered dimly,—as if it were trying to decoy her away into the fastnesses where the ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... my Lord, I would not wilfully raise objections, nor do I desire to appear insensible of the honour of your good opinion;-but there is something in this plan-so very hasty-so unreasonably precipitate:-besides, I shall have no time to hear from Berry Hill;-and believe me, my Lord, I should be for ever miserable, were I, in an affair so important, to act without the sanction ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... expectations that it was very widely distributed over the Atlantic bottom, falsified in 1879 by the researches of the "Challenger" expedition, but the behaviour of certain deep-sea specimens gave good ground for suspecting that what had been sent home before as genuine deep-sea mud, was a precipitate due to the action on the specimens of the spirit in which they were preserved. Though Haeckel, with his special experience of Monera, refused to desert Bathybius, a close parallel to which was found off Greenland in 1876, the rest ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... then, to my infinite relief, I heard at a short distance a steady regular fire of musketry. It was the infantry, advancing to our support. The Arabs heard it also, and having had, for one day, a sufficient taste of French lead, beat a precipitate retreat, scouring away like phantoms, and disappearing in the gloom of the desert. I was triply recompensed for my share in this action, by honourable mention in general orders, by promotion to the rank of marechal des logis—equivalent to troop sergeant-major ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... open, made stealthy descents upon the premises without first having duly observed these quarantine regulations; whereupon he was attacked by Caddy, who, with the assistance of the minions under her command, so shook and pummelled him as to cause his precipitate retreat through the same opening by which he had entered, and that, too, in so short a space of time as to make the whole manoeuvre appear to him in the light of a well-executed but involuntary feat of ground and lofty tumbling. One afternoon ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... I could make sure of putting my hand on Magda when he comes," grumbled Lady Arabella. "That's the hitch I'm afraid of! If only she hadn't been so precipitate—only waited a bit for him to come ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... inevitable, and must not be too severely scanned. You cannot stand chaffering at a bargain as to the cheapest mode of extinguishing a fire kindled by a red-hot cannon-ball at the door of the magazine. But the crisis and the necessity for precipitate action are past. The rebellion, dragged to the light of day, has assumed definite proportions. The means for its suppression are ample, and nothing is requisite but the firmness and sagacity to apply them. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... agitated for fifteen or twenty minutes in the battery, by taking a little of the liquor up in a plate it will appear full of small grain or curdled; then you are to let in a quantity of lime-water kept in a vat for the purpose, to augment and precipitate the faeculae, still continuing to stir and beat vehemently the indigo water, till it becomes of a strong purple colour, and the grain hardly perceptible. Then it must be left to settle, which it will do in eight or ten hours. After which the water must be gently drawn out of the battery ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... being affected by the causeless fear. At one moment the assailants were enthusiastic with expectation of success. Not many minutes afterwards they were so overcome with unreasoning terror that an insane order was given to burn the batteries, and these were fired with such precipitate haste that the crews were allowed no time to escape. More of the men were saved by their enemies, who came with generous intrepidity to their aid, than by their own ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... acid, there is not a trace of the potash or ammonia removed. Sulphate of alumina has also been used, both alone and in conjunction with lime. The advantage claimed by it over lime is, that the resulting precipitate is much less bulky. In other respects, however, it does not seem to be any more efficient as a precipitant. In the well-known A, B, C process, a mixture of alum, clay, lime, charcoal, blood, and alkaline salts, in different ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... diet by his presence, to aid them by his wisdom and intrepidity, and to take the helm of the tempest-tossed vessel of state. He was also commissioned to inform His Holiness of their determination to elect a new king. The Pope, in reply, conjured them not to be precipitate, and to wait ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... bent over her work and only bird and insect notes and occasionally Belshazzar's excited bark broke the silence. The Harvester stretched on the ground, his eyes feasting on the Girl. Intensely he watched every movement. If a squirrel barked she gave a nervous start, so precipitate it seemed as if it must hurt. If a windfall came rattling down she appeared ready to fly in headlong terror in any direction. At last she dropped her pencil and looked ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... instant, neither He nor the Universe would exist an instant afterward. To expect of the Divine Free-Will an effect whose cause is unacknowledged or does not exist, is what is termed tempting God. It is to precipitate one's self ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... masses in the depths of the ocean and to consist of undifferentiated protoplasm, the exhaustless fountain from which all other forms of life had been derived. Not long after Huxley had given it a formal scientific name in 1868, it was discovered to be merely a precipitate of gypsum thrown down from sea water by alcohol, and thus a product of clumsy manipulation in the laboratory, instead of a natural product of the deep sea. The disappointment of those opposing biogenesis was severe; but the lesson is still of value ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... hour, when a bell announced that dinner was ready, and we repaired to the dining-room, where a meal was served, simply, but most tastefully. "Now," said Mr. Gault, as we rose from the table, "perhaps you have in mind the promised explanation of my rather precipitate departure from this attractive region some time ago; and, if Mrs. Gault will excuse us, we will ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... me. "You mustn't do it, Matt!" he exclaimed. "You'll precipitate a riot, Crawford, ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... that in a hundred years the continent would be all Russian or all Republican—by which he meant that unless this nation of savages in esse and Vandals in posse were stamped out it would imitate the example of Alaric and Attila and precipitate such another intellectual night as that known as the Dark Ages. In western Europe Republicanism is making but slight progress, while in the East the power of the Great White Khan is rapidly increasing. In a struggle between the semi-savagery of the East and the civilization of the West, China ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Cotton States (it is only in them that we can hope for any effective movement)—we shall fire the Southern heart, instruct the Southern mind, give courage to each other, and at the proper moment, by one organized concerted action, we can precipitate the Cotton States ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... and was silent. Scythrop was also silent for a time, and at length hesitatingly said, 'My deal sir, your goodness overpowers me; but really you are so precipitate.' ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... perilous enterprise infused new spirit into the garrison; re-enforcements soon reached them, the assailants were forced to beat a precipitate retreat, and Fort Henry and the whole frontier was saved, thanks to the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... general horror and detestation of my crime; or whether you look upon it as an act forced upon me, an act unavoidable, in defence of my honour. The blame for the lamentable occurrence, I feel, after long deliberation, ought to be laid at my door; for I was too precipitate, and by my haste no doubt provoked ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... hours," replied Luke Hatton; "but it will be well not to be too precipitate. Neither must they die at the same time. All precaution shall be taken. The names are placed in a particular order. Is it so the Countess would have them taken? In that case I ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... which you seem to look forward with such anxiety, are rather crude, you are, in the main, correct in your conjectures as to our intentions. Secession is a fixed fact. You know it has often been discussed by our leading men, and the election of Mr. Lincoln has only served to precipitate our action. Had he been defeated, it might have been put off four years longer; but it would be certain to come then. For years the heaven-sanctioned institution of slavery has been subjected to all the attacks that the ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... action of the solar rays is not exerted on these salts, but on the iron contained in the ferruginous solution added to them, which it deoxidizes or otherwise alters, thereby presenting it to the ferrocyanic salts in such a form as to precipitate the acids in combination with the peroxide, or protoxide of iron, as the case may be. To make this evident, all that is necessary is simply to leave out the ferrocyanate in the preparation of the paper, which thus becomes reduced ...
— Photographic Reproduction Processes • P.C. Duchochois
... took Guy of Namur prisoner. Philip, at the same time, assembled a large army at Tournai, and marched to Mons-la-Puelle, near Lille, where the Flemings, to the number of seventy thousand, were encamped within a circumvallation of cars and chariots. There was no Robert of Artois on this occasion to precipitate a rash onslaught, and by Philip's order the southern light troops harassed the Flemings all day with arrows and missiles, allowing them no repose. Toward the evening many of the French withdrew to refresh themselves and take off their armor; the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... important part is what I have told you. The whole tragedy was due to the fact that this man came into our house at a time when an immense abyss had already been dug between us, that frightful tension of mutual hatred, in which the slightest motive sufficed to precipitate the crisis. Our quarrels in the last days were something terrible, and the more astonishing because they were followed by a brutal passion extremely strained. If it had not been he, some other would have ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... in this truth. Blessed are those who comprehend it! How many walk side by side along these rivers, and yet never mingle their waters! And many there are, also, who haste with eagerness, to precipitate themselves into this divine stream, and flow together, as the souls of the celestial ones, in the fulness of ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham
... came to a beautiful open glade, sloping down in smooth banks or terraces to a little lake, from whence flowed the stream so often mentioned. The south and west sides of this valley were closed in with precipitate rocks, and the most conspicuous object in this lovely spot, was the large tree, whose extraordinary motions, had so bewildered us. Smart and Schillie were underneath it. "Did you ever see such a glorious fellow," said Schillie, pointing ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... hesitated, annoyed by a tone curter and colder than his own, but after a glance at La Mothe's set face he motioned to the servant to go. That was not the moment to precipitate a conflict. ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... straight across the room at the closed door with a dreamy and vacant regard. His dinner jacket fitted him so tightly that it might have been expected at any moment to split at the seams. As if to precipitate the catastrophe, he ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... equipped a fleet of forty imperial war-junks, mounting from eighteen to twenty guns each. On the very first rencontre, twenty-eight of the imperial junks struck to the pirates; the rest saved themselves by a precipitate retreat. ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... Washington beheld the "precipitate retreat" of the British army from Boston, but fired not a gun. One of General Howe's ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... sigh of relief. He had been afraid that he was about to precipitate another conversation ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... to the person of the Prince—wherein consisted the difficulty. Those who had that advantage, he continued, were therefore bound to extirpate the pest at once, without obliging his Majesty to send to Rome for a chevalier, because not one of them was willing to precipitate himself into the venomous gulf, which by its contagion infected and killed the souls and bodies, of all poor abused subjects, exposed to its influence. Gerard avowed himself to have been so long goaded and stimulated by these considerations—so ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... swaying and skidding, the vehicle seemed literally to precipitate itself to the depths below, and, as the horses, with necks outstretched and mouths beginning to gape, with ears flattened and streaming flanks, reached the bottom, the desperate nature of the journey became even more apparent. There ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... seeing the Arabs advance towards him, gave orders to retreat slowly. Khamis, deceived by this, rushed on with his friends after them. Suddenly Mirambo ordered his men to advance upon them in a body, and at the sight of the precipitate rush upon their party, Khamis's slaves incontinently took to their heels, never even deigning to cast a glance behind them, leaving their master to the fate which was now overtaking him. The savages surrounded the five Arabs, and though several of them fell before the Arabs' ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... matron was ascending the steps of the church of St. Gudule at Brussels. They were covered with ice; she slipped and took a precipitate and involuntary seat. In the anguish of the moment, a single word, of mere obscenity, escaped her lips. When the laughing bystanders, among whom was Erasmus, helped her to her feet, she beat a hasty retreat, crimson with shame. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... the other's smalah. As to her own private life, she has been for many years the friend of Achille de Florac. She became acquainted with him not long before his final crash; who knows, perhaps she helped to precipitate it! It is to be hoped she did, for since then he has practically lived on her. And so, my dear aunt, she is in a sense our cousin de ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Fraile, a conspicuous object from below, rose to the perpendicular height of 150 feet, compelling them to take a wide circuit. They soon came to the limits of perpetual snow, where new difficulties presented themselves, as the treacherous ice gave an imperfect footing, and a false step might precipitate them into the frozen chasms that yawned around. To increase their distress, respiration in these aerial regions became so difficult, that every effort was attended with sharp pains in the head and limbs. Still they ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... circulating, despite coercion laws and the imprisonment and banishment of its most prominent advocates. Kosinksi joined enthusiastically in the discussion, and the hours passed rapidly and very agreeably. I succeeded at length in dissuading Giannoli and Gnecco from their original intention of precipitate flight, partly by repeatedly assuring them that the state of the atmosphere was not normal and would mend, partly by bringing their minds to bear on the knotty question ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... pink, fringed with burnished gold, in which the sun of that evening set! I descended—absorbed in the recollection of the lovely objects which I had just contemplated—and regaled by the sounds of a thousand little gurgling streamlets, created by the passing tempest, and hastening to precipitate themselves into ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... moment or two longer were necessary to acquaint Cleo with the cause of the precipitate retreat not only of her three chums, but Captain ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... to a high temperature in a close vessel containing air, found that the mercury increased in weight, and became what was then called red precipitate, while the air, on being examined after the experiment, proved to have lost weight, and to have become incapable of supporting life or combustion. When red precipitate was exposed to a still greater heat, it became mercury again, and gave off a gas which did support life ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... no fear; I never associate with scandal-mongers," contemptuously retorted Carry, as Mrs Bray made a precipitate departure, emitting something about a hussy who didn't know her place as ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... rising to make inquiries, the door of his chamber opened. The unknown concluded they were about to introduce the impatiently expected traveler, and made three precipitate steps to meet him. ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of the radicals to precipitate the issue received interesting criticism from the Governor of Texas, old Sam Houston. To a commissioner from Alabama who was sent out to preach the cause in Texas the Governor wrote, in substance, that since Alabama would not wait to ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... me ought chiefly to govern my opinion of you; and have you not been uniformly generous, sincere, and upright?—not quite passionate enough, perhaps; no blind and precipitate enthusiast. Love has not banished discretion, or blindfolded your sagacity; and, as I should forgive a thousand errors on the score of love, I cannot fervently applaud that wisdom which tramples upon love. Thou hast a thousand excellent qualities, Henry; that is certain: ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... there were field-works in several places on the shores. One of these was discovered just inside of Palm Key, and the Bellevite opened upon it with her big midship gun. Two or three such massive balls were enough for the garrison, and they beat a precipitate retreat, abandoning their pieces. There was water enough to permit the steamer to go into the bay nearly to the town at the head ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... crest of the hill was at last gained, and the troops, with a lusty cheer, cleared out some 150 Boers at the point of the bayonet. These with remarkable agility fled to a second position, on which the bulk of their force was situated. So precipitate was the flight that thirty horses were left behind and captured, together with saddlery and camp equipment. The West Yorks then took up a position on the hill ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke |
