"Explosive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have to send them a copy of a newspaper from abroad, with this kind of thing in it: 'Compeared yesterday before the Correctional Tribunal, Earnest Francis D'Agincourt, Baron Evelyn, charged with having in his possession two canisters of an explosive compound and fourteen empty missiles. Further, among the correspondence of the ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... high explosive for poor mother. She exclaimed, with the queerest little catch in her voice, 'Rilla, are you ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... shivering in his shoes, Sees from his theme the turgid rhetoric ooze; And the born soldier, fate decreed to wreak His martial manhood on a class in Greek, Popkin! How that explosive name recalls The grand old Busby of our ancient halls Such faces looked from Skippon's grim platoons, Such figures rode with Ireton's stout dragoons: He gave his strength to learning's gentle charms, But ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of sacred history was pursued imports later ideas into an earlier time. First-rate importance on the whole cannot be claimed for the Nebiim, but occasionally there arose amongst them a man in whom the spirit which was cultivated within their circles may be said to have risen to the explosive pitch. Historical influence was exercised at no time save by these individuals, who rose above their order and even placed themselves in opposition to it, but always at the same time had their base of ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... one of the experiments in the valley that Slade told us of," said the captain, thoughtfully. "Why, see here," he cried, with something like exultation. "That's what Dr. Schermerhorn was doing here. He has the clue to some explosive so terrific that he goes far out of the world to experiment with its manufacture. For companions he chooses a gang of cutthroats that the world would never miss in case anything went wrong. Possibly it was ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and you'll go! You'd rush any position you had a mind to rush. I know a bit about character, George—trust me. You've got—" He clenched his hands and thrust them out suddenly, and at the same time said, with explosive violence, "Wooosh! Yes. You have! The way you put away that Latin at Wimblehurst; I've ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... stepped quietly, his room where he had collected his various implements and chemicals. First of all he set out, on the floor, a two-quart copper tea-kettle; and beside this, choosing carefully, he ranged the necessary ingredients for a "making" of his secret explosive. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... me," remarked Richard on that explosive occasion, addressing the French constables, "I'll buy your town and burn it." The last with a splendid disdain of limitations ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... want to allow emotion to get the better of me, Valeria. I don't want to run rank like some overgrown weed, and so I dread the accumulation of emotion—emotion that has never had a good explosive utterance. One has to be so discreet in these Italian gardens; no ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... moment upon the things that count for most in the world—the things that owe to it their lasting worth and their very existence. A little of this precious commodity, more or less, is what often makes the difference between the ordinary and the supreme achievement. It is the liquid explosive that shatters the final, and most stubborn, barrier between man and the Infinite. It is what Walt Whitman called "that last spark, that sharp flash of power, that something or other more which gives life ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... indefeasible title to regard. Let there be no vinegar-faced, wholesale denunciation of them, because sometimes their pranks are wild and overleap the fences of propriety. Rather let appreciation of their worthiness accompany all reproving checks upon their extravagances. Let nimble fun, explosive jokes, festoon-faced humor, the whole tribe of gibes and quirks, every light, keen, and flashing weapon in the armory of which Punch is the keeper, be employed to make the world laugh, and put the world's laughter on the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... following the explosion of large shots in a sand rock may be due not only to fissuring of the rock, but to temporary reversal of the pressure, the force of the explosive tending to drive the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... and Gunpowder, in Black and Green; and if there were Scarlet or Yellow or Blue Teas, Col. PUNCHINELLO would equally admire, steep, sweeten and sip them. Nor is Dr. PUNCHINELLO less an admirer of the explosive fire-cracker, sent to us by JOHN, to assist us in the preservation of our liberties. The Hon. Mr. PUNCHINELLO declines dogs (in pies,) and opium (in pipes,) nor can he say whether he approves of bird's nests (in porridge,) as he has ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... talk about it, at that," Rand said. "The situation here seems to be very delicate, and rather explosive.... Oh, as you go out, I'd be obliged to you for sending Walters up here. I still have this work here, and I'll need ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... be no doubt that she had the situation in her hands. That, of course, did not mean safety. She had it in her hands as one may hold some highly explosive and uncertain compound. D'Alcacer thought of her with profound sympathy and with a quite unselfish interest. Sometimes in a street we cross the path of personalities compelling sympathy and wonder but for all that we don't follow them home. D'Alcacer refrained ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... the room; and since there was no one who appeared to have any interest in what he might say, he began muttering to himself. I would catch a phrase: "The fate of woman!" And again: "The price of life!" I would hear the terrible, explosive wail: "O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oh!" And it would wring a cry out of the depths of Carpenter's ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... quietly as he looked into the fire with his shaggy brows bent over his keen eyes, "the combination of a man heart and a woman heart makes a dangerous explosive at the best, but here are things that make it fatal. The one you are ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... preparations of an important character, among which were included the construction of concrete emplacements for eighteen 11-inch howitzers, from which great things were expected. They fired a 500-pound projectile charged with high explosive, and had a range which enabled them to command the entire area of the fortress, ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... following Tuesday. Overt rebellion had never served him yet, and he knew perfectly well that when it came to the point he should smile more or less affably upon these gentry, as he had smiled upon others of the same sort before. But it had not yet come to the point, and his intermediate state was explosive ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... affectionate and devoted of friends in my trouble, we returned to Canterbury: I mean my aunt, Agnes, and I. We proceeded by appointment straight to Mr. Micawber's house; where, and at Mr. Wickfield's, my friend had been labouring ever since our explosive meeting. When poor Mrs. Micawber saw me come in, in my black clothes, she was sensibly affected. There was a great deal of good in Mrs. Micawber's heart, which had not been dunned out of it ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... characteristic odor noticed about electrical machines when in operation. By subjecting it to great pressure and a low temperature, the gas condenses to a bluish liquid, boiling at -119 deg.. When unmixed with other gases ozone is very explosive, changing back into oxygen with the liberation of heat. Its chemical properties are similar to those of oxygen except that it is far more active. Air or oxygen containing a small amount of ozone is now used in place of oxygen in ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... off the boxes of dynamite, and these were unscrewed, and the explosive was with great care divided into the portions as agreed upon. Two of the cases furnished just sufficient for the ammunition waggons and the two big guns, the other two for the smaller cannon and the trucks with the rifles. The charges ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... destruction would doubtless never have been cleared away if, on the 30th of November, Neb, strolling on the beach, had not found a piece of a thick iron cylinder, bearing traces of explosion. The edges of this cylinder were twisted and broken, as if they had been subjected to the action of some explosive substance. ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... of brightness it will not impress us as being crimson at all, but rather a dull, coppery red. Its spectrum indicates that it is smothered with absorbing vapors, a sun near extinction which, at intervals, experiences an accession of energy and bursts through its stifling envelope with explosive radiance, only to faint and sink once more. It is well to use our largest aperture in ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... top, with the engine barely turning over, you can hear everything. So I went slow and listened. Through the air came the sharp "woop-wing" of shrapnel bursting towards you, the most devilish sound of all. Some prefer the shriek of shrapnel to the dolorous wail and deep thunderous crash of high explosive. But nothing frightens me so much as ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... weapon ever detonated by the United States. Before it was set off at Bikini on February 28, 1954, it was expected to explode with an energy equivalent of about 8 million tons of TNT. Actually, it produced almost twice that explosive power—equivalent to ...
— Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War: Some Perspectives • United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
... the attack on those forts. The forts fired a few shots by way of a challenge. As evening fell, the woods began to echo with the roar of artillery. Later, Forts Fleron, Chaudfontaine and Embourg were added to the German bombardment. The Germans used long range field pieces with powerful explosive shells. The fire proved to be remarkably accurate. As their shells exploded on the cupolas and platforms of the forts, the garrisons in their confined citadels began to experience that inferno of vibrations which subsequently deprived them of the incentive to eat ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... unhappy element and a disturbing influence in her life—incredible as the thing appeared! I couldn't let him go on to make himself a worry and a nuisance, drive her out from a town in which she wished to be (for whatever reason) and perhaps start some explosive scandal. And that girl Rose seemed to fear something graver even than a scandal. But if I were to explain the matter fully to H. he would simply rejoice in his heart. Nothing would please him more than to have ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... a woman of an alien race had struck its roots deep down, and absorbed all into itself. But instead of the savage element being transmuted into gentleness, his love absorbed into itself the savage, and thus became savage in its character. This resultant was a highly explosive psychic compound. He never spoke to another being of what his mind was full of, and the repression which he had to exercise at all natural vents caused tidal waves of passion to roll back on his soul, fraught with destruction to ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... the act of flying apart. It had been a splendid explosion. Of course cotton sheeting in liquid oxygen is not quite as good an explosive as carbon-black, which they used down in the mine. Even with magnesium powder to start the flame when a bare light-filament ignited it, the cannister-bomb hadn't equaled—say—T.N.T. But the ship had fuel on board for the trip ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... drawn to the distant growling, the dull booming of the detonations of the high-explosive shells could be distinctly heard. War was ahead, at last, and not so very far ahead at that. Not long after, the squadron passed through a shattered ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... consequences: Poop-deck Cahill, square-faced and resolute, but thoughtful of eye and refined of speech; Seldom Helward, who had shot the captain—a man whose fiery hair, arching eyebrows, Roman nose, and explosive language indicated the daredevil, but whose intelligent though humorous eye and corrugated forehead gave certain signs of repressive study and thought; and Bigpig Monahan, already described. These three men went into session under the break of the poop, and came to the conclusion that the consul ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... thrums, it is not in your sleep that you will find the vital centre of it, or get the first thrum by the end! And then the execution, the realizing, amid the contradiction, silent or expressed, of men and things? Explosive violence was by no means Friedrich Wilhelm's method; the amount of slow stubborn broad-shouldered strength, in all kinds, expended by the man, strikes us as very great. The amount of patience even, though patience is not reckoned ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... spent itself in the characteristic fashion of storms, now carrying everything before it, in its impetuous fury, now quietly subsiding into a ripple of condescending concession, or languid comment, now breaking out with renewed force into explosive epithets or vindictive rage. ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... the tumult frantic. When, moreover, even Betsy remained silent, and Al and Gus had nothing to unscramble, the high brass built up explosive indignation. But it was confined ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... has no power, nor intelligence. Water is composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen, combined with absolute precision everywhere. All chemical reactions require computations of an intelligent being. All nature teems with proofs that God is every where present. The elements in a high explosive are arranged instantly in new combinations, each atom taking its proper partners, in the proper proportion, with unerring precision. Countless calculations of the most difficult kind are made instantly and continually by the divine mind. Thus God's presence everywhere ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... innocent in themselves, are capable of dealing wide destruction when they are mixed together; for example, saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur, which, as Friar Bacon discovered, make, when mixed together, a powder whose explosive power is well-nigh beyond belief, and which is now coming into use as a destructive agent in war. Many other compounds can be produced of explosive nature, some indeed of such powerful and sudden action that we dare not even make experiments ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... The name is pronounced with an explosive initial sound, and Ad. F. Bandelier spells it ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell
... tremendous splash vanished in the water. As the flesh of the hippopotamus, which is said to resemble pork in flavor, was much desired as food by the soldiers under Baker's charge, he had a small explosive shell constructed, which, fired into the creature's brain, seldom failed to leave its huge body floating dead on the surface of ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... sparks of thought with which they played so lightly filtered slowly through the social strata. The talk of the drawing room at last reached the street. But the torch of truth which, held aloft, serves as a beacon star to guide the world towards some longed for ideal becomes often a deadly explosive when it falls among the poisonous vapors of inflammable human passions. Liberty, equality, fraternity assumed a new and fatal significance in the minds of the hungry and restless masses who, embittered by centuries ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... the satisfactory settlement of the question. Miss Wentworth's cook was an artiste so irreproachable that the luncheon provided was in itself perfect; but notwithstanding it was an uncomfortable meal. Miss Leonora, in consequence of the contest going on in her own mind, was in an explosive and highly dangerous condition, not safe to be spoken to; and as for the Squire, he could not restrain the chance utterances of his impatience. Frank, who did his best to make himself agreeable as magnanimity required, had the mortification of hearing himself discussed in different tones ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... was necessary, in order to keep him quiet, to keep up a barrage. Our ammunition had run down to a point where we had only fourteen shells left, and we received orders to hold two high explosive shells, one for the muzzle and another for the breech of the gun, to put it out of business in case ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... finesse. He is a thug first, a thief afterwards. He would have killed me out of hand if it had been he who had me at his mercy, down here, in the dark. Nor would he have been able to open the safe without using an explosive. That, indeed, is why, as I understand him, Dupont attacked you at Montpellier. If he could have disposed of you there, he would have returned here to work upon the safe and blow it at his leisure, fobbing the servants off with some yarn, or if they proved too troublesome intimidating ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... too hot for any sort of game, and almost too hot for vice—and fuddled themselves in the evening, and filled themselves to distension with the healthy nitrogenous food provided for them, and the more they stoked the less exercise they took and more explosive they grew. Then tempers began to wear away, and men fell a-brooding over insults real or imaginary, for they had nothing else to think of. The tone of the repartees changed, and instead of saying light-heartedly: "I'll knock your silly ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the usual lengthy and unsatisfactory routine of police inquiries, searches, and arrests, practically nothing could be ascertained concerning him or the circumstances attending his death. All that was certain was that the deceased man had in his possession an explosive machine, evidently destined for some deadly work, and that, while traversing the park, it had exploded, thus putting an end both to its owner and ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... amazement. The curious-looking creature over there on the knoll was defying him, was challenging him. At this time of year his blood was hot and quick for any challenge. He gave vent to a short, harsh, explosive cry, more like a grumbling bleat than a bellow, and as unlike the buffalo's challenge as could well be imagined. Then he fell to thrashing the nearest bushes violently with his antlers. This, for some ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... well-known "Surprise" Symphony. The slow movement of this work opens and proceeds in the most subdued manner, and at the moment when the audience may be imagined to have comfortably settled for their nap a sudden explosive fortissimo chord is introduced. "There all the women will scream," said Haydn, with twinkling eyes. A contemporary critic read quite a different "programme" into it. "The 'Surprise,'" he wrote, "might not be inaptly likened ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... repressive action—then, the mystery of Miss Minerva's inner nature might possibly have been revealed. As it was, nothing more remarkable exposed itself to view than an irritable temper; serving perhaps as safety-valve to an underlying explosive force, which (with strong enough temptation and sufficient opportunity) might yet ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... their demands. If the miners still persisted in striking—well, the State would strike too, with all its might; otherwise there was an end of government in this country. The cheers which greeted this statement seriously annoyed Mr. JACK JONES, who sits for Silvertown, and maintains the explosive reputation of ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... When they had worked at this task for several hours, and only succeeded in making a hole six inches deep, Mr. Clifford, whose old bones ached and whose hands were very sore, suggested that perhaps they might break it up with gunpowder. Accordingly, a pound flask of that explosive was poured into the hole, which they closed over with wet clay and a heavy rock, leaving a quill through which ran an extemporized fuse of cotton wick. All being prepared, their fuse was lit, and they left the cave ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... "though it would, of course, suit for that. Nihil humunum alienum, eh?" and he broke into a loud, explosive laugh, while his spectacles irradiated that peculiar form of glee derived from a Latin quotation by those able to enjoy it. Dr. Boyster, walking on the other side of Mr. Tomlinson, joined in the laugh in a deep, ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... our main purposes. The creative method is based upon the harnessing of new and ever new sources of energy. The starting point was the prehistoric discovery of fire, when man for the first time was able to effect the explosive liberation of the solar energy stored up by plants. The discovery marked a new turn in human affairs, and was the dawn of man's supremacy over nature. During the last hundred years this new principle has been developed ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... of leasing to the English Government the right to manufacture that new explosive of yours," began Ned, plunging into the business at hand. "I think if you stick out a little you can get a better ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... blazes all right,' answered Ken dryly. 'A high explosive shell, my lad. Lucky that it went ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... Eagle Falls. Our road here was blasted through some fiercely solid and hostile rock. One boulder alone that stood in the way weighed (it was estimated by the engineers) from 800 to 1000 tons. Fifty cases of highly explosive powder were suitably placed all around it. Excursion steamers took hundreds of people from all parts of the Lake to see the explosion, and at the proper moment, while everybody held his breath, ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... in the cylinder, and heat energy is developed so rapidly that the act is called an explosion. Coal gas, mineral oils, alcohol, petrol, etc., all contain hydrogen and carbon. If air, which contributes oxygen, be added to any of these in due proportion, the mixture becomes highly explosive. On a light being applied, oxygen and carbon unite, also hydrogen and oxygen, and violent heat is generated, causing a violent molecular bombardment of the sides of the vessel containing the mixture. Now, ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... brought it up as a reinforcement to his right, and used both as a means of throttling George. This led George, now permanently underneath, to grasp Ashe's ears firmly and twist them, relieving the pressure on his throat and causing Ashe to utter the first vocal sound of the evening, other than the explosive Ugh! that both had emitted at ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... government. By the "business at hand" they meant a new explosive and slow-burning powder that was to be used in the new type of fourteen-inch turret guns being made in Glasgow. Some of that explosive was in my possession. The fact that it was not discovered in my effects, nor was anything else incriminating found on me is because the Secret ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... which her bizarre outline demands, but doesn't shirk the pains to make her situations possible within the pleasantly impossible frame. What is all-important is that she does shake the house with genuinely explosive humour. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... things were mainly "above stairs." You had but to scratch lightly a mate or a deck-hand to find the old keel-boatman savagery. Captains were overlords, and pilots kings in this estate; but they were not angels. In Life on the Mississippi Clemens refers to his chief's explosive vocabulary and tells us how he envied the mate's manner of giving an order. It was easier to acquire those things than piloting, and, on the whole, quicker. One could improve upon them, too, with imagination and wit and a natural gift for terms. That Samuel Clemens maintained his promise ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... head into his ragged hat, and gave an explosive chuckle. Then he raised his head and ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... for which any nation would give millions of dollars. It's admittedly the most powerful explosive ever discovered, as well as the easiest handled. Temperature, weather, ordinary shock have absolutely no effect on it; in fire it simply chars and doesn't explode. Yet when it is exploded by the proper method, lyddite, ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... side with this brutality at sea there developed a similar offensive in the air. The Zeppelin menace had been almost exorcised in the autumn of 1916 by the effectiveness of explosive bullets fired from aeroplanes which ignited the gas-bags. But on 28 November a solitary aeroplane dropped six bombs on London in full daylight, and thus gave ample warning of what might follow. No adequate steps were, however, taken to meet the danger until in the spring and ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... a steady pursuit of one idea characterized Ringfield's actions. Already charged to explosive point by pressure of emotions both worthy and the reverse, he immediately entered into correspondence with several charitable institutions with regard to Angeel, and he also wrote to Mr. Enderby and Mr. Abercorn. It was now the ninth of the month ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... hydrobromic acid formed. The nature of the gas evolved is now undergoing investigation. A letter from M. Lobry de Bruyn appears in the number of the Chemiker Zeitung for October 31, warning those who may attempt to prepare free hydroxylamine by the above method that it is a dangerously explosive substance when warmed to a temperature of 80 deg.-100 deg.. Upon warming a flask containing the free solid base upon a water bath a most violent explosion occurs. A spontaneous decomposition appears to set in about 80 deg., ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... business that he should have been fascinated, as he was, by the outward appearance of perfect order presented by the French Empire and by the brilliancy of its visible edifice, not discerning the explosive forces which its policy was all the time accumulating in the dark social realms below; though the fact that he, with all his natural sagacity, did fall into this tremendous error, is a warning to railway ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... and artisans, and shopkeepers and students and schoolmasters, who have no quarrel whatever, who on the whole rather respect and honour each other, should with explosive bombs deliberately blow one another to bits so that even their own mothers could not recognize them; That human beings should use every devilish invention of science with the one purpose of maiming, blinding, destroying those against whom they have no personal grudge or grievance; ...
— NEVER AGAIN • Edward Carpenter
... It rains easily but slowly. The average rainfall of London is less than that of New York, and yet it doubtless rains ten days in the former to one in the latter. Storms accompanied with thunder are rare; while the crashing, wrenching, explosive thunder-gusts so common with us, deluging the earth and convulsing ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... composition was discussed by the newspapers. "He plays very quietly, without the daring elan which distinguishes the artist from the amateur," said one; "his defect is the non- observance of the indication of accent at the beginning of musical phrases." What was then admired in Vienna was explosive accentuations and piano drumming. The article continues: "As in his playing he was like a beautiful young tree that stands free and full of fragrant blossoms and ripening fruits, so he manifested as much estimable individuality in his compositions where new figures and passages, new forms ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... a little tube of manuscript once,' said Paul, 'as if it had held a poisonous explosive. Do you remember? Ralston laughed and nodded. 'If you're bolder now, I'll ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... For instance, those chaps down there know that every space-liner is equipped with emergency space-suits. Why pull the ship down with live men on board? That would naturally mean a fight, and we have no mean weapons, what with disintegrator ray-projectors and explosive electro-bullets." Then, again, for some reason, there were Ganymedans on board. They would very likely be whiffed out in the melee. The ship might be destroyed also, and they evidently are very careful about getting the ship down intact. The little meteor holes can easily be ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... arms, and she nestled to his breast as to a mother's, and clasped him in hands that were strong like vices. He felt her whole body shaken by the throes of distress, and had pity upon her beyond speech. Pity, and at the same time a bewildered fear of this explosive engine in his arms, whose works he did not understand, and yet had been tampering with. There arose from before him the curtains of boyhood, and he saw for the first time the ambiguous face of woman as she is. In vain he looked back over the interview; he saw not where he had offended. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... last few years, on account of the great demand for gas engines for power boats and automobiles, the efficiency and reliability of these engines depending upon the explosive power of the mixture of gas and air has greatly increased. To-day, probably no better device for furnishing a satisfactory source of power in small quantities at a reasonable cost can be found. One engine might readily be used in several capacities, pumping water during the day or at ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... work on Elocution, by Russell and Murdock, the following exercises in breathing are prescribed and explained:—"Attitude of the body and position of the organs; deep breathing; diffusive or tranquil breathing; expulsive or forcible breathing; explosive or abrupt breathing; sighing; sobbing; gasping; ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... reckless, thoughtless, or unfortunate smokers being the cause of partial or total destruction by fire of buildings, ships, factories, homesteads, crops, stores, and property of many kinds; also loss of life and property by explosions in mines, explosive factories, powder magazines, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... hard to live upon; most of it much too hot or too cold: a couple of narrow habitable belts about it, which, to wandering spirits, must look like the places where it has got damp, and green-moldy, with accompanying small activities of animal life in the midst of the lichen. Explosive gases, seemingly, inside it, and ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... flag, so as to approach our troops without being suspected. On the other hand they fire on our ambulances and ill-treat our ambulance nurses. They ill-treat and even kill our wounded. Clergymen seem to be particularly the object of their attacks. Last, but not least, we have in our possession explosive bullets left behind them by the enemy at Wechter, and we are also in receipt of medical certificates testifying that the wounds must have been inflicted by bullets of the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... royal beasts were playing on the shore like two enormous cats. As they caught sight of us, one leapt into the mangrove swamp, out of sight, and the other took a plunge into the river, only to rise a few yards distant and receive an explosive bullet in his head. The mangrove tree, with its twisting limbs and bright green foliage, grows in the warm water and ftid mud of tropical countries. It is a type of death, for pestilence hangs round it like a cloud. At early morning this cloud is a very visible one. The peculiarity ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... on a few paces, to turn and find them standing with finger on nose and engaging your interrogative eye—they pause, by a happy instinct, directly under my window, and dispute their point or tell their story or make their confidence. One scarce is sure which it may be; everything has such an explosive promptness, such a redundancy of inflection and action. But everything for that matter takes on such dramatic life as our lame colloquies never know—so that almost any uttered communications here become an acted play, improvised, mimicked, proportioned ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... ran the road, beyond a high cedar hedge. While he was speaking, the irregular explosive reports of a motor had sounded down the valley, unmistakable to those familiar with the testing of the stripped cars, and rapidly approaching. Now, as Emily would have answered, the roar suddenly changed in character, an appalling series of ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... thought it had discovered the ideal reverberator in the artillery of Herr Krupp von Bohlen; but the world is curiously indisposed to conversion by cannon, and has retorted in a still louder roar of high-explosive arguments. God, as a politico-philosophical ally, is certainly cheaper than Herr Krupp; and, divested of his mediaeval sword and tinder-box, he is decidedly humaner. But is the glamour of his name quite what it once was? Or can it be restored to its ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... The explosive stage into which planets may pass. According to the finest scientific thinking, a planet will either nova, or ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... he and Slippery, each carrying a heavy satchel filled with the tools Slippery had so carefully looked after, followed by Joe, around whose left leg they had bandaged, despite his most vehement protests, the small bottle containing the deadly explosive, left the flat. They took a street car to the railroad station, where Boston Frank purchased tickets to Dixon, one of the prettiest and most hustling cities in western Illinois. Soon they were rolling out of the railroad yards and across the fertile plains and arrived ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... world beneath the twin purple suns, the time mechanism of the silver gate should even now be releasing the explosive that would forever blot out all trace of the evil handiwork of Zehru, cosmic ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... natives, despite my friend's accident, bought every cartridge from him, singly or in lots, and they then began to enjoy themselves. Every hour of the day for many weeks afterwards the sullen thud of the explosive could be heard from all parts of the lagoon, followed by applauding shouts. Vast numbers of fish were blown to pieces, for no native would ever think of dividing a cartridge into half a dozen portions and using only one at ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... doing homage but taking part, sharing almost in a creation, comet-like, of stars in the sky. Nothing in the bravura disconcerted or even displeased him, no lack of coherence or obviousness in contrasts disturbed him; what was loud, boisterous, explosive, he tossed about as in a colossal game, he bathed luxuriously in what was luscious in the melodies, giving them almost more than their real worth by the delighted skill with which he set them singing. A more astonishing, a more convincing, a more overwhelming ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... showing before the Chemical Section of the British Association some experiments, in which a well-dried mixture of carbonic oxide and oxygen was submitted to electric sparks without exploding.[1] It was further shown that the introduction of a very minute quantity of aqueous vapor into the non-explosive mixture was sufficient to cause explosive combination between the gases when the spark was passed. The hypothesis advanced to account for the observed facts was that carbonic oxide does not unite directly with oxygen at a high temperature, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... in a picture. Nay, more: all experiments in this matter are attended with danger; because the material in question, namely, the human race, is the most difficult of all material to handle. It is almost as dangerous as an explosive. ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... often use shrapnel, and the resulting wounds resemble those from the old smooth-bore guns of our ancestors. Shrapnel consists of a large number of bullets about half an inch in diameter packed together in a case, which carries also a charge of explosive timed to burst at the moment when it reaches its object. The balls are small and round, and if they go straight through soft tissues they do not do much damage. If, however, they strike a bone, they are so soft that their shape becomes irregular, ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... she told the story of how she had written the verses in the infirmary. On her witty tongue the stubby pencil, the dull knife, and the teasing midget of an impudent freshman made a delightfully humorous tale. Even the explosive "Lila!" and its accompanying side glance of terrified joy in the daring developed into a picture that sent the seniors into tempests of laughter. Somehow she did not care to mention the letter which Ellen had ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... as I passed, I sat down between the Signora and Mrs. Peedles. Both ladies were weeping; the Signora silently, one tear at a time clinging fondly to her pretty face as though loath to fall from it; Mrs. Peedles copiously, with explosive gurgles, as of water from ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... one hand, Kerk reached under the dash and pulled out a gun that was the twin of the monster strapped to his arm. "Use this instead of your own," he said. "Rocket-propelled explosive slugs. Make a great bang. Don't bother shooting at anyone—I'll take care of that. Just stir up a little action and make them keep their ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... change demanded is smokelessness, and to accomplish it recourse is had to the high explosive field, mechanically mixing various substances with them to reduce and regulate their rapidity of action. Just now some form of gun-cotton is most in use mixed with nitrate of ammonia, camphor and other articles. The tendency ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... 7,750,000 additional human beings. Many of them were torn to shreds and smithereens by the gigantic concentration of mechanical and explosive power, designed, constructed and transported to the European battlefields for the express purpose of carrying on this month-long and year-long collective endeavor to take as much life as possible and destroy as much property as possible while war declarations authorized and legalized ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... drop her academic poses, and take a festive garland and the vacant place on the medius lectus,—that carnival-shower of questions and replies and comments, large axioms bowled over the mahogany like bomb-shells from professional mortars, and explosive wit dropping its trains of many-colored fire, and the mischief-making rain of bon-bons pelting everybody that shows himself,—the picture of a truly intellectual banquet is one which the old Divinities might well have attempted ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the surprise of his physicians, did not die, but he hovered on the brink of it for many thin weeks and his son gave up his entire vacation to be with him. The letters he sent Honor were brief bulletins of his father's condition, explosive regrets at having to give up his summer with her, but Jimsy was not a letter writer. In order properly to fill up more than a page it was necessary for him to be able to say, "Had a bully practice to-day," or, "Saw old Duffy last night ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... joyous. Her explosive laugh pealed out in the second before fear of her father stifled it. So this was how Sissy had planned to get even; so this was the plot behind Bep's baffling blue eyes! And only the accident of Madigan's going to the door had saved Split—and ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... experiment with it and see what it would do, so Perry built a fire, after placing the powder at a safe distance, and then touched a glow-ing ember to a minute particle of the deadly explosive. It extinguished the ember. ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... which makes you hold your breath before you enter the inner nature of some one who has extraordinary depth. You feel as if you were going to find something different and interesting, and possibly difficult or explosive. It is dark, too, yet you feel impelled to enter. It is like ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... perhaps, justify itself; it does not prove that its leaders judged rightly and acted virtuously: but, beyond a doubt, it condemns the previous order which brought it about. What a horrid thing is the explosion! Why, is the obvious answer, did you allow the explosive materials to accumulate, till the first match must fire the train? The greatest blot upon Burke, I need hardly say, is that his passions blinded him in his age, to this, as we ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... circulation of the Scriptures, the Greek and Latin classics, and all other valuable works, which, by the industry of the monkish copyist, had been preserved from the ravages of time and barbarism. Gunpowder, whose explosive power had been perceived by Roger Bacon as early as 1280, though it was not used on the field of battle until 1346, had completely changed the art of war and had greatly contributed to undermine the feudal system. The polarity of the magnet, also discovered in the middle ages, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... may find some four-legged inhabitants," said Ayrault, thinking of their explosive magazine rifles. "If Jupiter is passing through its Jurassic or Mesozoic period, there must be any amount of some kind of game." Just then a quiver shook the Callisto, and glancing to the right they ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... her nearly half an hour later than usual. But here her aunt's attention was diverted from this tender subject by Totty, who, perceiving at length that the arrival of her cousins was not likely to bring anything satisfactory to her in particular, began to cry, "Munny, munny," in an explosive manner. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... arrangement made for discharging a load of dynamite, Mr. Eddy calculates that, with a twenty-mile breeze, six eighteen-foot kites would lift fifty pounds of the explosive a quarter of a mile in the air and suspend it over a fort or beleaguered city half a mile distant. It would thus be perfectly possible, supposing the wind to be in the right direction, to bombard Staten Island with ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various |
