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Tonic   Listen
noun
Tonic  n.  
1.
(Phon.) A tonic element or letter; a vowel or a diphthong.
2.
(Mus.) The key tone, or first tone of any scale.
3.
(Med.) A medicine that increases the strength, and gives vigor of action to the system.
Tonic sol-fa (Mus.), the name of the most popular among letter systems of notation (at least in England), based on key relationship, and hence called "tonic." Instead of the five lines, clefs, signature, etc., of the usual notation, it employs letters and the syllables do, re, mi, etc., variously modified, with other simple signs of duration, of upper or lower octave, etc. See Sol-fa.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tonic" Quotes from Famous Books



... all imaginable creeds—that if we do nothing very wrong, all human imbroglios, in some irrational and quite incomprehensible fashion, will be straightened to our satisfaction. Meanwhile, you also voice a tonic truth—this universe of ours, and, reverently speaking, the Maker of this universe as well, is under no actual bond to be intelligible in dealing with us." He laughed at this season and fell into a lighter tone. "Do I preach ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... talked a little, like an automaton. She walked about the streets like a bored exile, but an exile who has forgotten his home. Her spirit never responded to the stimulus of environment. Suggestions at once lost their tonic force in the woolly cushion of her apathy. If she continued to live, it was by inertia; to cease from life would have required an effort. She did not regret the vocation which she had abandoned; she felt no curiosity about the ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... from her like a shadow. Late in the winter—it was about the time of the ride to the Quemado, Harboro thought it must have been—a change had come over her. There was a glad tranquillity about her now which was as a tonic to him. She was no longer given to dark utterances which he could not understand. She was devoted to him in a gentle, almost maternal fashion—studying his needs and moods alertly and affectionately. Something of the old tempestuous ardor ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... to the elder man, and the versatile sculptors who outlived Donatello, such as Rossellino, Benedetto da Maiano, Mino da Fiesole and Desiderio, show relatively small traces of his influence. But Donatello's sculpture acted as a restraining influence, a tonic: it was a living protest against flippancy and carelessness, and his influence was of service even where it was of a purely negative character. Through Bertoldo Donatello's influence extended to Michael Angelo, affecting his ideas of form: But Jacopo della ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

... to respect of self by showing him what his mind is capable of. I argue on no sectarian, no religious grounds even. Is it possible to make a man's self his most precious possession? Anyhow, I work to that end. A doctor purges before building up with a tonic. I eliminate cant and hypocrisy, and then introduce self-respect. It isn't enough to employ a man's hands only. Initiation in some labour that should prove wholesome and remunerative is a redeeming factor, but it isn't all. His mind must work also, and awaken to its ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... Its Influence.—Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound is a great tonic in itself, bracing up the whole nervous system, aiding digestion, and causing all the forces of the body to act more in accord ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham

... nature of my nightly troubles to my friend and comrade. Generally, however, I told him that I was haunted by abominable dreams; and, true to the imputed materialism of medicine, we put our heads together to dispel my horrors, not by exorcism, but by a tonic. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... tonic in a certain attitude of Cater's mind toward Justin—an unspoken kindliness and admiration and tenderness such as an older man who has been along a hard road may feel toward another who has come along the same way. Cater's kind, unobtrusive comradeship, the fair-dealing friendliness of his ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... the wheels of my own impetuosity. We stayed the morning in town, when I interviewed a house agent, and set him on the search for suitable flats, and then we adjourned to the West End to buy a becoming new hat. It always soothes me to buy hats. In times of doubt and depression it is an admirable tonic to the feminine mind. At three o'clock we left Waterloo for our two hours' journey, and arrived at the old-fashioned inn, which was to act as ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... Vigo, deucidly sea—sick was told that fat pork was the best specific, if bolted half raw; did not find it much of a tonic passed a terrible night, and for four hours of it obliged to keep watch, more dead than alive. The very second evening we were at sea, it came on to blow, and the night fell very dark, with heavy rain. Towards eight bells in the middle watch, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... the first one, and it wasn't so bad at that! Now child, if you will pass the lemons, and Kit will pass the decanter of amber, and someone else will rustle some water, I'll manufacture a tonic to take the dust ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... at last in action sent a thrill through the lad's breast, as if he had taken some powerful tonic, while, as if Nature was completely transforming him, he sprang up again, laying the cord upon the bed, and began to pace the sloping-ceiled ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn

... lethargizing the irritability. But where weakness proceeds from the opposite cause of relaxation, there tonics are good; because they brace up and tighten the loosened string. Bracing is a correct metaphor. Bark goes near to be a combination of a bitter and a tonic; but no perfect medical combination of the ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... brother; and seeking for a date word which spells (17)51, the pupil has discovered that this general word "health" spells that date; and, as the pupil has applied the word "health" to this date and to no other, he has thus made the general word specific for his purpose. Because "tonic" is a health promoter, and "island" is a help to recall the specific Islands of Barbadoes, the phrase (1) "{T}o (7) {G}ain (5) Is{l}and (1) {T}onic," is more specific than "health." But either the single word or phrase ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)

... her chest; and I protest it had the timbre of a violin. Men, hearing her voice for the first time, were wont to stare at her a little and afterward to close their hands slowly, for always its modulations had the tonic sadness of distant music, and it thrilled you to much the same magnanimity and yearning, cloudily conceived; and yet you could not but smile in spite of yourself at the quaint emphasis fluttering through her speech ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... something in you, as in every one, every man, woman, girl, and boy, that requires the tonic life of the wild. You may not know it, many do not, but there is a part of your nature that only the wild can reach, satisfy, and develop. The much-housed, overheated, overdressed, and over-entertained life of most girls is artificial, and if one does not turn away from and leave it for ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard

... now, becomes quite complacent and easy. There is something agreeable in the misfortunes of others, as the philosopher has told us. Remark what a good breakfast you eat after an execution; how pleasant it is to cut jokes after it, and upon it. This merry, pleasant mood is brought on by the blood tonic. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... good of your health—to carry you "jarlessly" over any kind of half decent roads, to refresh your brain with the luxury of much "out-doorness" and your lungs with the "tonic of tonics"—the ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... obviously already not a few valuable ethnic elements—joy of life, love of colour, keen senses, beautiful voice, and ear for music—contributions that might somewhat compensate for the dragging-down of the white and, in small doses at least, might one day prove a tonic to an anaemic and art-less America. A musician like Coleridge-Taylor is no despicable product of the "Melting Pot," while the negroes of genius whom the writer has been privileged to know—men like Henry O. Tanner, the painter, and Paul Laurence Dunbar, the poet—show the potentialities ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill

... recovered from my sickness and was not entirely devoid of a desire for excitement—the best tonic of the explorer. The two young hunters with bows and arrows halted before the Chief. They were gesticulating wildly; and although I could not understand what they were talking about, I judged from the frown of the Chief that something ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... could learn to make his statements as firm and unswerving as the horizon-line,—his continuity of thought as marked, yet as unbroken, as yonder soft gradations by which the eye is lured upward from lake to wood, from wood to hill, from hill to heavens,—what more bracing tonic could literary culture demand? As it is, Art misses the parts, yet does not grasp ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... real interest and enthusiasm. There are few things more necessary to a normal healthy life than to have purposeful work. A great dream or ambition in life often obviates personal ailments and nullifies their potency. Work, when done with zest, is a wonderful tonic. Exertion of any kind is usually pleasurable at first, and becomes drudgery only ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... open air was sufficiently tonic to help him through the details of ticket-buying and embarkation; and afterward sleep came so quickly that he did not know when the Pullman porter drew the curtains to adjust the screen in the window at his feet, though he did awake drowsily later on at the sound of voices ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... some acuteness of observation, and has written with commendable originality. But his accuracy is certainly not greater than his confidence. On page 57th, he says, "The m, n, and ng, are purely nasal;" on page 401st, "Some of the tonic elements, and one of the subtonics, are made by the assistance of the lips; they are o-we, oo-ze, ou-r, and m." Of the intrinsic value of his work, I am not prepared or inclined to offer any opinion; I criticise him only so far as he strikes at grammatical ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... outline, but the fronds are thinner, are not evergreen, and the sori are near the midvein. Its use in medicine is of long standing. Its rootstock produces the well-known filix-mas of the pharmacist. This has tonic and astringent properties, but is mainly prescribed as a vermifuge, which is one of the names given to it. In Europe it is regarded as the typical fern, being oftener mentioned and figured than any other. In rocky woods, Canada, Northfield, Vt., and northwest to the great lakes, ...
— The Fern Lover's Companion - A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada • George Henry Tilton

... Nature and Fate had conspired together to mark epochs of time and space in ancient temple, dead revolution, and slumbering volcano. And now below us lies the City of Mexico. From the wooded uplands and hill-summits—redolent of pine and exhilarating with the tonic air—which form the rim of the valley, the panorama of the capital and its environs lies open to the view. Plains crossed by white streaks of far-off roads, intersecting the chequered fields of green alfalfa and yellow maize; haciendas and villages embowered in luxuriant foliage; ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... duty in a fever-stricken area and malaria had weakened its ranks. A little while before the autumn operations began, as many as 3000 of its men were down at one time with malaria, but care and tonic of the battle pulled the ranks together, and the Irish Division, a purely Irish division, campaigned up to the glorious traditions of their race. They worked like gluttons with rifle and spade, and their pioneer work on roads ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... three types of excellence—kindliness, righteousness, truthfulness—are apt to be separated. For the first of them—amiability, kindliness, gentleness—is apt to become too soft, to lose its grip of righteousness, and it needs the tonic of the addition of those other graces, just as you need lime in water if it is to make bone. Righteousness, on the other hand, is apt to become stern, and needs the softening of goodness to make it human and attractive. The rock is grim when it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... head-quarters next morning about the night's adventures, but Miss Norton looked rather carefully at Marjorie, asked her if she felt well, and told her she was to go to Nurse Hall every day at eleven in the Ambulance Room for a dose of tonic. Marjorie, who had not intended her practical joke to run to such lengths, felt rather ashamed of herself, but dared ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... begin somewhat modestly, and as the theme is in the major mode and the harmonies limited almost entirely to tonic and dominant, Brahms was almost compelled to be simple and melodious at times. He contents himself in the earlier variations with rhythmic complications, which are very ingenious and delightful, particularly in the ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews

... see the doctor he will, of course, order you a tonic, and perhaps tell us to take you to the seaside. If that is the case, we must do so, Iris—we must do our duty by you, whatever happens. It would never do for you to be ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade

... code of old which respects a good opponent and honors him. Captain Boelcke's death, after his meteoric career, was mourned alike by friend and foe. Great as is the damage done by this war, horrible as is its devastation, it has acted as a tonic on aviation. Before the war, of course, there had been some achievements of note. Since the day when the Wright brothers announced their conquest of the air, man did not rest till the problem was ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke

... scruple of honor, kept him from offering his services to foreign powers. Trials undermined his courage. Long tramps afoot on insufficient nourishment, and above all, on hopes betrayed, injured his health and discouraged his mind. By degrees he became utterly destitute. If to some men misery is a tonic, on others it acts as a dissolvent; and the count ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... the impossible hull, knowing full well—poor misguided heroes—that we were only fashioning a death trap! There could be no doubt about it. The free information bureau was unanimous. It was all very pathetic. Nothing but the tonic of an habitual morning swim in the clear cold river kept us game in the ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... appetizers, are not to be found on the war fields. Dainty concoctions from cheese and nuts may provide for us flavor as well as nutriment, but meat is the alternative to the dull monotony of bread and beans for the soldier—the tonic of appetite, the stimulant to good digestion. We can scarcely send him anything to take ...
— Everyday Foods in War Time • Mary Swartz Rose

... deep of the tonic air of the North as they left the sleeper. Huddleston was a forlorn village with one street that displayed a single line of buildings against a background of saw mill and sawdust. An unpainted structure bearing the inscription, "Grand Hotel; Fishermen's Resort" presented a picture ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... out on the ghastly dilapidated flat facades of Islington, and still she smiled brightly, as if there were some charm in it all. Perhaps for her there was a charm in it all. Perhaps it acted like a tonic on the little devil in her breast. Perhaps if she had seen tufts of snowdrops—it was February—and yew-hedges and cottage windows, she would have broken down. As it was, she just enjoyed it. She enjoyed glimpsing in through uncurtained windows, into sordid rooms ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... in a bluff way designed to express his certainty that everything was going to be on its legs again now he had come home. For the first time he felt like the man in the house, and the thin tonic braced him. He opened the door of his father's room and went in. The colonel's voice ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... variety store. Hartmann wants to get one because he thinks it will draw trade. I went to see him as soon as Dave got through telling me how much dandruff I had and how much I needed some of his patent tonic. Mr. Hartmann was a little doubtful at first about buying a home made set, but I told him if he wasn't pleased with it he didn't need to pay us for it and we'd take it back. That seemed to satisfy him, so he said he'd buy it. ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman

... vigorous twenty-five, it is impossible for mind and nerves, however wrought upon, to make serious inroads upon surface charms. The hope of emancipation from her hideous slavery had been acting upon the girl like a powerful tonic. She had gained several pounds in the three intervening days; her face had filled out, color had come back in all its former beauty to her lips. Perhaps there was some slight aid from art in the extraordinary brilliancy ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... have a tonic effect on Sarah, for she ate the pudding when it came, without further discussion. But the moment her aunt rose from the table, she made a bee-line for the ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence

... had seen me, in business hours, in the city, smoking a cigarette and looking at the girls, and was sure I would never do much good. He had very strict business notions. I confessed to the cigarette, but not to the graver charge. It was a wholesome tonic, however, and pulled me up. I wanted to get on in life; ambition was stirring within me; and I formed some good resolutions which, as time went on, I kept more or ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow

... a member of the Gentian family), a bog-plant with a creeping stem, alternately arranged large leaves each with three leaflets, and spikes of white or pink flowers. The stout stem is bitter and has tonic and febrifuge properties. The plant is widely distributed through the north ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... an old friend of the foregoing, had for many years been accustomed to leave his store and landed property to the care of his partners and family, while, in company with Risk, he found in the half-savage life and keen air of the ice-fields a bracing tonic, which prepared them for the enervating cares of the rest of the year. The two had little in common—Risk being a stanch Episcopalian, and Davies an uncompromising Methodist. Risk, rather conservative, and his comrade a ready liberal; but they both possessed the ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... and pleasant to those who have tried them. Give us the strong pull through an open bay before all boating on placid lakes or rivers. The long, well-timed stroke becomes a mere mechanical effort, leaving the mind at liberty to enjoy the sense of freedom, the tonic salt-breeze, and the enlivening scenes of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... held in both hands. Across the aisle, an elderly man, who could have been a lawyer or a banker, was smoking a cigar over a glass of port, and beside him sat a plump and slightly too well groomed individual who had a tall colorless drink, probably gin-and-tonic. The fifth man, separated from him by a vacant chair, seemed to be dividing his attention between a book on his lap and the conversation, in which he was taking no part. I sat down beside the sandy-haired man; as I ...
— Crossroads of Destiny • Henry Beam Piper

... herself from the reverie which was creeping over her. She was glad to see Ethel, unfeignedly glad. The bright, animated presence of her cousin, during the next few days, could not fail to be a tonic. And, as Ethel had said, she herself had been the one to suggest the first idea of the winter visit. Chance and Captain Frazer had decreed that it should take place now, when Alice's hands were immoderately full of work. But then, so much the better. Ethel could make herself invaluable among ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... kicked the cat out of the door, and picking up the mouse compassionately put it out of its misery by pulling off its head. Recalled to the bedside by the moans of his patient, the Kind-hearted Physician administered a stimulant, a tonic, and a ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce

... anyway. I'll be after giving you a tonic, me boy. Take it like I tell you, do ye mind, keep off your feet and get a good sleep. After breakfast come to me in the gym and I'll have ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour

... intoxicating drinks. Will you and my dear father consent to my going with Hubert? My unhappy taste would be broken through by the time the voyage was over, as I should never so much as see beer, or wine, or spirits; and the fresh sea-air would be a better tonic than porter, wine, or ale; so that you would have no need to ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... sticky brown mud, for, in the way of rain, that year was breaking the records of a century and a half. Thirty yards in front of each boat an unhappy skeleton of a horse floundered its best in the quagmire. The honest endeavour of one of the animals received a frequent tonic from a bare-legged girl of seven who heartily curled a whip about its crooked large-jointed legs. The ragged and filthy child danced in the rich mud round the horse's flanks with the simple joy of one who had been rewarded for good ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... the young pitcher was like an electric shock. He had never been spoken to like that before. But it was just the tonic he needed. ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... said lightly, though there was an odd dash of pride in her voice. "Face cream, night and day cream, eyelash tonic, and all the rest of it! Of course, I'm only just starting—I'm not like those people who advertise in all the papers and charge about a guinea for a shilling jar; but my stuff is as good as theirs any day, and better, because it's pure. Look!" She took a lid off a little ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres

... of the Tonic Sol-fa College I carefully tested the breathing capacity of ten students, and found that there was an average excess of midriff and rib breathing over collar-bone breathing to the extent of 25 cubic inches: ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke

... sandy hills, which the Canadians call spice-berry, she showed them was good to eat, and she would crush the leaves, draw forth their fine aromatic flavour in her hands, and then inhale their fragrance with delight. She made an infusion of the leaves, and drank it as a tonic. The inner bark of the wild black cherry, she said was good to cure ague and fever. The root of the dulcamara, or bitter-sweet, she scraped down and boiled in the deer-fat, or the fat of any other animal, and made an ointment that possessed very healing qualities, ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... that are in reality filled lake basins. These are the displaying grounds of the gentians—blue—blue—eye-blue, perhaps, virtuous and likable flowers. One is not surprised to learn that they have tonic properties. But if your meadow should be outside the forest reserve, and the sheep have been there, you will find little but the shorter, paler G. Newberryii, and in the matted sods of the little tongues of greenness that lick up among the pines ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin

... cheek and his eyes grew serious for a moment. "I once knew a girl much like you, Miss Ruth," he said. "Just as full of life and enthusiasm. You are a tonic for old fogies ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson

... pleasure I experienced with you was measured and limited only by my own perversity and morbid self-absorption; the splendour of the passion I divine in you, unawakened, awes me, leaves me in wonder. The spiritual tonic, even against my own sickly will has freshened me by mere contact with the world you live in; the touch of your lips and hands—ah, Ailsa—has taught me at last the ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... to the pages of the Edinburgh Review and in establishing an enviable reputation as a writer, of critical and miscellaneous essays. Even in that anonymous generation he could not long contribute to any periodical without attracting attention. Readers were aroused by his bold paradox and by the tonic quality of his style. Editors appealed to him for "dashing articles," for something "brilliant or striking" on any subject. Authors looked forward to a favorable notice from Hazlitt, and Keats even declared that it would be a compensation for being damned ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... cough, or cold, And is your ailment chronic Past every sort of cure that's sold? We'll tell you of a tonic. Just wing our agents here a wire And book "A Fortnight ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various

... outlook of one who is interested in many things; he acquires a jargon of his own; his mind runs in the narrow channel to which that jargon corresponds; the language he uses becomes stilted and dead. There is no tonic in the truths he tries to proclaim, no relevance to the rest of knowledge. In other words, what he has to say may be scientifically valuable, but he fails to convey it to any ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... litigation is pending the patient derives little benefit from treatment, but after his mind is relieved by the settlement of his claim—whether favourable to him or not—his health is usually restored by the general tonic ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... the accomplished architect's hands." It has pitch-pine benches and map-cases, and a thermometer to be kept at not less than 58 and not more than 62, and ventilators which the Inspector is careful to examine. When I stumbled in last week the teacher was drilling the children in Tonic Sol-fa with a little harmonium, and I left ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren

... wallows" or "cradle holes." To dash into one of these at full speed gives a shock like a boat's thumping on the shore. It is only with pillows, furs, and hay that a traveler can escape contusions. In mild doses oukhabas are an excellent tonic, but the traveler who takes them in excess may easily imagine himself enjoying a field-day at ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... Even up-to-date ear-tickling is not popular now in the opera-house: we go to the music-hall for it; and we don't want to pay a guinea at the opera to be tickled in a way that arouses no pleasurable sensations. Those terrific tonic and dominant passages for the trombones, sounding like the furious sawing of logs of wood, only make us laugh; and pretty tootlings of the flutes have long been done better, and overdone, elsewhere. Donizetti is amongst the ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... suddenly endowed her with a whole family—"all complete and ready for use," as Tim cheerfully observed—and the reaction from the oppressive consciousness of being entirely alone in the world acted like a tonic. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... sitting for a district in Massachusetts, would represent Dutch Gap. They had already, in his friend from Missouri, a representative of the German Flats; and he submitted that a member from Dutch Gap would be two tonic for ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various

... CRENATA.—A native of China. The bark has tonic and astringent properties, and is used in fevers and for external application in ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders

... violets, but they were beautiful as they were frail. Deep gorges lined the way, here and there relieved by sunny slopes of soft, bright green; while the music of a tumbling cascade, hidden by the dense wood, occasionally fell upon the ear. The sweet morning air was both a physical and mental tonic. All was so enjoyable, so inspiring, that the ladies broke forth in carols like the very birds ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... excitement, a part of which communicated itself to the occupants of the house. The lassitude of previous days was gone, the monotony had disappeared, and Miss Chapin had cause to rejoice at the presence of her latest guest, for Speed was like a tonic. He was everywhere, he inspired them all, laughter followed in his wake. Even in the bunk-house the cowboys retailed his extravagant stories with delight. The Flying Heart had come into its own at ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... dialect offers certain marked differences when contrasted with French. First of all is the forceful utterance of the stressed syllable; the Provencal has post-tonic syllables, unlike the sister-speech. Here it may be said to occupy a sort of middle position between Italian and Spanish on the one hand, and French on the other; for in the former languages the accent is ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... thinks I am a wonder because I let him run pins into my cork leg and never cry out. He does not know it's a sham leg and I shan't tell him. We should like another hamper very soon, please. Cook's gingerbread was A1. Give my love to granny, and tell her I take my tonic when I go to bed every night. Give my love to nurse. Tell old Principle Mr. Hawthorn would like to know such a clever man and see his cave. Send me Rob's letter directly it comes, please. We ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre

... cordial that he felt himself thoroughly at home. Indeed Mr. Juxon already rejoiced at his wisdom in asking John to the Hall. The lad was strong, hopeful, well-balanced in every respect and his presence was an admirable tonic to the almost morbid state of anxiety in which the squire had lived ever since his interview with Policeman Gall, two days before. In the sunshine of John's young personality, fears grew small and hope grew ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... was alone at her piano and Lushington was announced. Unlike the majority of musicians in real fiction she had not been allowing her fingers to 'wander over the keys,' a relaxation that not seldom leads to outer darkness, where the consecutive fifth plays hide-and-seek with the falling sub-tonic to superinduce gnashing of teeth in them that hear. Margaret was learning her part in the Elisir d'Amore, and instead of using her voice she was whistling from the score and playing the accompaniment. The old opera was to be revived during the coming season with her and the great Pompeo Stromboli, ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... West and I did most of the talking. She was breezy, vivacious, tonic, and I noted again that the delicate, almost fragile oval of her face was given the lie by her body. She was a robust, healthy young woman. That was undeniable. Not fat—heaven forbid!—not even plump; yet her lines had that swelling roundness that ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... good thing to win the Inverness Burghs," said the SQUIRE OF MALWOOD just now, reflectively stroking his chin. "But it was not all gain. FINLAY worth a good deal to us. In moments of profoundest depression he acted upon Mr. G. with remarkable tonic effect. Often when we sat on other side, things going bad, and Mr. G. has seemed a little dull, he has accidentally turned round, and caught sight of FINLAY, sitting, as you will remember he did, just behind us. In a moment our ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various

... drink water, lightly tinged with a Burgundy wine agreeable to her taste, but destitute of any tonic properties; every other kind of wine would be bad for her. Never allow her to drink water alone; if you do, you ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... their respects to King Liver, and ended their long, tortuous and eventful journey, they depart and leave behind them burning and painful abdominal and anal regrets, and then some soothing, stimulating and tonic remedies are in order, so that the dredged though chronically constipated sufferer and his friends may still hope that life will be spared to repeat the same nauseating and often painful process in a few days or weeks, taking, in the meanwhile, milder bile-bouncers daily as ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... finished his tea, and was dressed, and sitting in an easy-chair in his bedroom. Those about him had feared that the coming effort would be too much for his strength. But there was no need for their apprehension. Joy was proving a splendid tonic. He sat calm and collected, awaiting the appearance of ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... system who ordained that life in these institutions should be one incessant round of activity from the beginning of term to its end have perhaps proved to be the children of wisdom. To a healthy boy who can manage to keep his place in the crowd without undue straining, there is a tonic effect in the absence of leisure; and the sense of being a lively part in a great and ever-moving body is an admirable enemy to stagnation of mind. It is only the special case, the variant from the type, who suffers when he is included in masses that move by ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet

... landscape, what lively adventure, will open before you? At any rate, you will get away from the tyranny of the commonplace, the conventional, the methodical, which transforms the rhythm of life into a logarithm. Even a small variation, a taste of surprise, will give you what you need as a spring tonic: the sense of escape, a ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... my dear Mrs. Weare! Believe me, the air has often quite a tonic quality. We are so high, you must remember. If only we could subdue in some degree the noxious exhalations of domestic and industrial chimneys!—Oh, I assure you, Islington has every ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... down your hands to them and draw them up to you," she answered in a tone of tonic inspiration. "You are to claim the same right to express your emotions that a man has. You are to offer your friendship to both men and women on the same frank terms, with no degrading hesitancy caused by an embarrassment ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... of mental isolation, and was ready to hail anything which might relieve the monotony of my existence. Maloney, the murderer, had at least some distinctiveness and individuality in his character, and might act as a tonic to a mind sick of the commonplaces of existence. I determined that I should follow the warder's advice, and take the excuse for making his acquaintance. When, therefore, I went upon my usual matutinal round, I turned the lock of the door ...
— My Friend The Murderer • A. Conan Doyle

... than the average in hospitals and in country districts. Alcohol medication was dispensed with entirely after the patients came under his care, and to this he attributes much of his success. He does not believe that alcohol is a stimulant, or a tonic. On the contrary, he believes that it retards digestion, arrests secretion, and hinders excretion. The courage and fortitude of his patients were lessened instead of increased by the ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... my 2 poetic sole. I went below to breakfast, but vittles had lost their charms. "Take sum of this," said the Capting, shovin a bottle tords my plate. "It's whisky. A few quarts allers sets me right when my stummick gits out of order. It's a excellent tonic!" I declined the ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne

... that all creatures comprehend—the language of loving-kindness. Love to an animal is what sunshine is to a plant. It has a tonic effect, and they thrive on it. This does not mean fussiness —it means a combination of sympathy, wisdom and justice." ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... his appearance about an hour after the time at which they had begun to expect him; and as soon as Meg saw him, one of them flew upstairs, to tell Anty and give her her tonic. Barry had made himself quite a dandy to do honour to the occasion of paying probably a parting visit to his sister, whom he had driven out of her own house to die at the inn. He had on his new blue frock-coat, and a buff waistcoat with gilt buttons, over which his watch-chain ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... angles too much rubbed away. She had become too flexible, too useful, was too ripe and too final. She was in a word too perfectly the social animal that man and woman are supposed to have been intended to be; and she had rid herself of every remnant of that tonic wildness which we may assume to have belonged even to the most amiable persons in the ages before country-house life was the fashion. Isabel found it difficult to think of her in any detachment or privacy, she existed ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... in the room. The proper heat is between 65 and 70 degrees. If the temperature of the room is as high as 70 degrees and the sick person is cold, it is better to give her a hot water bag and to put on more covers than to shut the windows, thus keeping out the fresh air. Cool air acts as a tonic ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... work acted like a tonic. The boys sallied forth, mounted on their best horses, their spirits soaring among the clouds. During the spring rains, several small lakes had formed in the sand hills, at one of which a band of some thirty ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams

... night, and been pulled out from under the table in the morning perchance. I am not abnormally partial to the pleasures of the table, but I have found a good dinner in combination with first-rate port, rationally dealt with, an excellent tonic for the brain. ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... Causes for "thinning on top," Selling me gallons of chemical Tonic, a brush, and ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams

... "Why does the hair fall out? Because the follicles are fagged. What are the follicles?..." So it went on to the climax that the Hair Stimulant contained all "The essential principles of that most reviving tonic, Tono-Bungay, together with an emollient and nutritious oil derived from crude Neat's Foot Oil by a process of refinement, separation and deodorization.... It will be manifest to any one of scientific attainments that in Neat's Foot Oil derived from the hoofs and horns of beasts, we must necessarily ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... highways. Each day is fitted by some subtle magic of adaptation to the place and the aspect of nature which it is to reveal with a clearness denied to other hours. There came such a day not long ago to me; a day of tonic atmosphere—clear, cloudless, inspiring; there was no audible invitation in the air, but I knew by some instinct that the day and the mountains were parts of one complete whole. The morning itself was a new birth of nature, full of promise and prophecy; one of those ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... harmed any man or woman. It was harassment that killed. Work of the mind, of the artistic powers, that was a tonic to the whole being. But little distractions, irregular duties, worries, uncertainties—Jouffroy shook his head ominously. And not only to the artist were they fatal. It was these that drew such deep lines on the faces of women still young. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... everything I could do to make myself look completely a Greek virtuoso and as un-Roman-looking as possible. I patronized every complexion-specialist, friseur, perukier, manicurist and fashionable barber in that part of the world. I bought every hair tonic for sale in the colony. Between lotions and expert manipulation I succeeded in growing a thick curly beard, covering my chest as far as the lower end of my breast-bone and a thick head of hair so long that, even when elaborately frizzed and curled, my oiled and scented locks ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... natural progression of sound consequent upon the division and subdivision of a single string. It ought to be familiar to every student of acoustics. The sound produced by the striking or twanging of a single string (on a monochord) is called the tonic, and also, from its position as the lowest note, the bass. If we divide this string in half, we will obtain a series of vibrations producing a sound the same in character, but, so to speak, doubly high in pitch. This sound is named the octave, because it ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... his greeting in a very natural way. The sharp freshness of the summer morning at sea had its tonic effect on both of them; and as for Edward Henry, he lunged and plunged at once into the subject which alone preoccupied and exasperated him. She did not ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... syrup, with an intensely sour taste. It is tribasic, forming three distinct classes of metallic salts. The three atoms of hydrogen may in like manner be replaced by alcohol radicles, forming acid and neutral ethers. Phosphoric acid is used in medicine as a tonic.' ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins

... in working out mathematical tables;—for these Fathers observe the stars, and are in scientific correspondence with astronomers in Europe. This circumstance gave us real pleasure on their account,—for science, in all its degrees, is a positive good, and a mental tonic of the first importance. Earnestly did we, in thought, commend it to those wearied minds which have undergone the dialectic dislocations, the denaturalizations of truth and of thought, which enable rational men to become first Catholics and then Jesuits. For let there be no illusions ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... started westwardly again. We were now upon the high land of the Ridge, the backbone of the State, and though, perhaps, hardly ninety feet above the sea, the air had all the exhilarating freshness of great altitudes. All through the week which followed we felt its tonic inspiration and seemed to drink in intoxicating draughts of health and spirits, and never more than during the fifteen-mile drive between ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... of a scolding occasionally, it acts as a tonic. I should rather like to be braced ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... as much since the first time I went to the circus, and if there's anything better for the insides than laughing, I've never took it. Seems to me it clears out low-downness and sour spirits better than any tonic you can buy, and for plum wore-outness a good laugh's more resting than sleep. When you're ready to have the hot things brought up, let me know, Miss Dandridge. Martha's down-stairs and everything's ready and just waiting ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher

... retrospect. Physically and mentally, I, like many others, have found this short excursion into strict military life of enormous value. To those who have been lucky enough to escape sickness, the combination of open air and hard work will act as a lasting tonic against the less healthy conditions of town-life. It is something, bred up as we have been in a complex civilization, to have reduced living to its simplest terms and to have realized how little one really wants. It is much to have learnt the discipline, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... during the unaccountable absence (with a relative in the Foot Guards) of Millers. And more needles were missing than it could be regarded as quite wholesome for a patient of such tender years either to apply externally or to take as a tonic. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... nothing to be desired; she who had been somewhat unmindful of him lately on a sudden seemed really glad to see him. His slightly tired, aristocratic face lightened; the sunshine of Jocelyn Wray's eyes, the tonic of youth radiating from her, were sufficient to alleviate, if not dispel, ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham

... a tonic," answered Miss Eliza decidedly. "I'll see that she begins it, tomorrow. All that carrying-on in the City! Ross Worthington ought to've been ashamed of himself to set by and allow it!" She shut ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... a great deal better." He was in the best of humor this Sunday night, and smiled at the other genially. "A college course is a good deal like strychnine. Taken in small doses over a long period of time it is a great tonic. Swallowed all at once—you know ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge

... for dinner is a great tonic. Especially if one shaves. My spirits rose as I lathered my face. I smiled to my reflection in the mirror. The afterglow of the sun came through the window behind the dressing-table, but I had switched on all the lights. My new silver-topped ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm

... insurance,—I went several miles out of my way to see the spot. Not a timber, not a brick, of the old county-seat remained. Where the court-house had stood on its square, the early summer sun drew tonic odor from a field of corn. In place of the tavern a cotton-field was ablush with blossoms. Shops and houses had utterly vanished; a solitary "store," as transient as a toadstool, stood at the cross-roads ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... the large hall. It was my first appearance in such a perilous position. I was apprehensive, and I said so. But Mr. Bradlaugh put his hand on my shoulder and told me not to fear. His kind looks and words were an excellent tonic. When I rose to speak I thought next to nothing about the audience. I thought "Mr. Bradlaugh is listening, I must do my best." And now as I am writing, I recall his encouraging glance as I looked at him, and the ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote

... As a digestive tonic the following is good: Glauber's salt, 2 pounds; common salt, 1 pound; baking soda, one-half pound. Of this a heaping tablespoonful may be given in each feed. If diarrhea exists, the treatment ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... said the other, with a grim smile flickering about his mouth. "Well, I know the very best tonic that could come to me, which would be the news that the letter he wrote had reached its destination abroad. Oh! if only I could learn that, I'd feel like flying, my heart would be so light. And play, why, Jack, if ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... said Philip, who looked another man in the excitement, 'you are going to take a bit of advice from me, I hope. You will go straight back to Brattlesby by the night train. Your invalid at home must not be forgotten; anxiety is not the best sort of tonic for her. And I mean to remain here with ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell

... sixty boys, varying in age from fifteen to nineteen, some clothed in full football rig, some wearing the ordinary dress in which they had stepped from the school rooms an hour before, all laughing or talking with the high spirits produced upon healthy youth by the tonic breezes of late September, were standing about the gridiron. I have said that all were laughing or talking. This is not true; one ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... swiftly in the next half-hour. Storm had washed the air until it was like tonic; a salty perfume rose from the sea; and Olaf stood up and stretched himself and shook the wet from his body as he drank the sweetness into his lungs. Shoreward Alan saw the mountains taking form, and one after another they rose up like living things, their crests catching ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... that wrong? No; it should be bitter: bitterness is strength—it is a tonic. Sweet, mild force following acute suffering you find nowhere; to talk of it is delusion. There may be apathetic exhaustion after the rack. If energy remains, it will be rather a dangerous energy—deadly when ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... Malcolm, do not say any more; it was very wrong of nurse to put these ideas in your head. You know mother spoke to Dr. Armstrong, and he is giving me a tonic; he says I must go out more, so mother is trying to spare me all ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... You see we have both to get up our strength. I had quite forgotten I had anything the matter with me, and you only wanted rousing, dear. The doctor said as much to me, and you know, after all, happiness is the best tonic." ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... notoriously capricious. Even as Janet trudged homeward on that Memorial Day afternoon from her Cinderella-like adventure in Silliston the sun grew hot, the air lost its tonic, becoming moist and tepid, white clouds with dark edges were piled up in the western sky. The automobiles of the holiday makers swarmed ceaselessly over the tarvia. Valiantly as she strove to cling to her dream, remorseless reality was at work dragging her back, reclaiming her; excitement ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... he looked full into the faces of the people he met with a bold challenging look. The cool, bracing air, of early winter was grateful on his glowing skin and he drank long deep breaths of it as one would drink an invigorating tonic. Every nerve and fiber of him was keenly, gloriously, alive with the strength of his splendid manhood. Every nerve and fiber of him was conscious of her and exulted in that which he had seen in her eyes when she had told him that she ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright

... not, are public benefactors and shining examples; for it is not only the men who hunt who benefit vastly by the change and exhilaration which hunting brings in its train. The whole countryside enjoys a wholesome tonic by the frequent visits of the hounds, and the well-equipped company with them. Nothing cheers up the village, or cures the influenza, or brings oblivion of war news, or puts every one into conceit with themselves, so quickly, or leaves such a glow of sound satisfaction behind it. It would ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish

... to get away from, and made such a fuss about my wasting his time with idle questions that I flung him a dollar and departed. He followed me down to my cab and insisted on sticking in a giant bottle of his Dog-Root Tonic. I dropped it overboard a few blocks farther on, and thought that was the end of it till the whole street began to yell at me, and a policeman grabbed my horse, while a street arab darted up breathless ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne

... you not afraid to tax my curiosity so severely, and tempt me so pertinaciously, by strewing your keys in my path? The next time I pick up this one, which belongs to your escritoire, I shall engage some one to act as your guardian. Katie, be sure she takes that tonic mixture ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... your bath, my good fellow, and the evil things of this life shall not get hold of you. Water is like truth,—purifying, transparent; a tonic to those fouled and wearied with the dust and vanity of this transitional phenomenon called the world. Patronize it! be thy acquaintance with it constant and familiar! Remember, my dear Balder, that this slave of thine is the medium through which something better than ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... side, and it oppressed her to think of it. She was a sea-child, living inland for the first time, and there came upon her a great yearning for the sight and sound of moving waters. She sniffed the land-breeze, and found it sweet but insipid in her nostrils after the tonic freshness of the sea-air. She heard the voice of her beloved in the sough of the wind among the trees, and it made her inexpressibly melancholy. Her energy began to ebb. She did not care to move about much, but would sit silently sewing by the hour together, outwardly calm, inwardly all ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... never bleed, or leech, or blister, or apply any counter-irritants in cases of inflammation. They give powdered rhinoceros' horns, sun-dried tiger's blood, powdered tiger's liver, spiders' eyes, and many other queer things, and for a tonic and febrifuge, where we should use quinine, they rely mainly on the ginseng (Panax quinquefolia?) of which I saw so much in Japan. They judge much by the pulse and tongue. The mortality in this hospital is very large, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... his friend Mark. That she could have complexities and reservations beyond his simple ken had never occurred to him. What he saw on the surface was what she was, and being so, the news he was bringing would be as a tonic to her broken spirit. ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... quinine 20 grs., brandy 6 ozs., water 1-1/2 pint, bruise the calumba and pour the water on it boiling hot, cover tightly for two hours, then strain, bottle, and add all the other ingredients, when the quinine is dissolved it is ready for use. This forms an excellent tonic in cases of debility. Dose, one tablespoonful three times a-day half ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young

... when a German street-band will be recognized as a powerful tonic; a cornet solo will take the place of a blister; a symphony or a sonata may be recommended instead of morphine; the moxa will give way to Wagner, and opium to Brahms. A prolonged shake by a singer will drive ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... go into home or school, north or south, without the possibility of offence.... It is especially tonic for high school youth and college young men. I doubt if any book has been written that will do as much for students as will this story of a real life.... Buy it, read it, and tell others to ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... discomfort, but from six to eighteen hours after exposure to them the victim experiences violent pains in the eyes and headache. Sight may be seriously impaired, and it may take years to recover. Often prolonged exposure results in blindness, though a moderate exposure acts like a tonic. The rays may be compared in this double effect to drugs, such as strychnine. Too much of them may be destructive ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... was galloping, and Dick felt exhilaration as the cool air of early October rushed past. The heat in both east and west had been so long and intense, that year, that the coming of autumn was full of tonic. Yet the uncommon dryness, the least rainy summer and autumn in two generations, still prevailed. The hoofs of Dick's horse left a cloud of dust behind him. The leaves of the trees were falling already, rustling dryly as they fell. Brooks ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler

... he continued, "to observe the powerful tonic effect of clothes. A woman patient told me once that the moral support, afforded by a well-fitting corset was inconceivable to the mind of a mere man. She said that a corset is to a woman what a hat is to a man— it prepares for any emergency, enables one ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed

... his bed during a good slice of Sunday morning, and lunched with me at Constance Grey's flat. He always said that Mrs. Van Homrey was the most restful tonic London could supply to any man. I went to the morning service at Westminster Abbey that day with Constance, and listened to a magnificent sermon from the Bishop of London, whose text was drawn from the sixth chapter of Exodus: "And I will take you to me for a people, ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... Anthony's hour—but he may take such advantage of it as he chooses—I'm indifferent. On top of my troubles I've contracted Desert Snivels. Whether the habit of using sand for snuff has produced the malady, or whether I've caught something (despite the tonic air) from nomads or oasis-dwellers, all of whom emit a storm of coughs and sneezes, I do not know. All desire to use this grand opportunity of taking Cleopatra's advice and winning Monny's love while for once she's neglected by others, has died within me. My one wish is to keep ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... where political power is held alternately by two great national parties. As soon as factional interests become predominant; as soon as the stability of government depends upon the artificial grouping of minor conflicting interests; as soon as the nation lacks the tonic effect of the mutual criticisms of great organizations, the highest form of free government becomes unattainable. ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth

... begrudge a man smoking tobacco as long as we women have our tea. A nerve tonic in ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... wear and tear of mind that I fear will be fatal to you. You have brain-tire written large over every feature. I think you ought to see a doctor and get a nerve tonic. This fear of dying a pauper is rapidly killing you, and who then ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... girls who have inveigled me out to lunch for the purpose of confiding to me their love affairs. I could set up as a general practitioner of medicine on the advice that is given me. I am recommended cod-liver oil, lung tonic, electric massage, abdominal belts, warm water, mud baths, Sandow's treatment, and every patent medicament save rat poison. I am urged to go to health resorts ranging geographically from the top of the Jungfrau to Central Africa. All kinds of ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... comfort from Uncle Philip. His rough, friendly way was a tonic, and braced her. He called several times about the Bijou. Told her he had put up enormous boards all over the house, and puffed it finely. "I have had a hundred agents at me," said he; "and the next ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... tonic for the age, and though for a long time they were unpopular and distasteful to the majority, yet he lived to see much accomplished for which he ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne

... of nervous headache, Caroline conceives an exceedingly ingenious plan: this plan consists in using the conjugal bliss of the opposite neighbors as a tonic to stimulate Adolphe. The idea is not without depravity, but then Caroline's ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac

... an artist not to feel the artistic skill of his own work, and the success reacted on his health, giving him fresh life, for with him as with most men, success was a tonic, and depression a specific poison; but as usual, his troubles nested at home. Success doubles strain. President McKinley's diplomatic court had become the largest in the world, and the diplomatic relations required far more work than ever before, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... cayuse, and rode rapidly down the creek. Horseback riding always exhilarated her, even back home where she had been obliged to keep to roads, or the well-worn courses of the hunt club. But here in the hills where the very air was a tonic that sent the blood coursing through her veins, and where tier after tier, the mighty mountains rolled away into the distance, as if flaunting a challenge to come and explore their secrets, and unscarred valleys gave glimpses of alluring ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx

... claim that for him, at any rate," she answered. "But sometimes I question its truth. Where is the tonic effect of 'Rosmersholm?' I think it full of terrors." She shuddered and added: "The White Horses ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre



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