"Universal solvent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... came to her flushed and exhausted, but seemed invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing language of the resources of his art. He gave a history of the long dynasty of the alchemists, who spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent by which the golden principle might be elicited from all things vile and base. Aylmer appeared to believe that, by the plainest scientific logic, it was altogether within the limits of possibility to ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... known. The alchemists of old spent much time and energy trying to find the universal solvent, believing that thereafter it would be easy to discover a method of making base metals noble. But they never found anything better than water. Water is the compound that in its various forms does most to change the earth upon which we live, and it is more necessary for the continuation ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... gloom has not entered from without; it has brooded here all day, and now, taking its own inevitable time, will possess itself of everything. The Judge's face, indeed, rigid, and singularly white, refuses to melt into this universal solvent. Fainter and fainter grows the light. It is as if another double-handful of darkness had been scattered through the air. Now it is no longer gray, but sable. There is still a faint appearance at the window; neither a glow, nor a gleam, nor a glimmer—any phrase of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various |
