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Tonic   /tˈɑnɪk/   Listen
Tonic

noun
1.
Lime- or lemon-flavored carbonated water containing quinine.  Synonyms: quinine water, tonic water.
2.
A sweet drink containing carbonated water and flavoring.  Synonyms: pop, soda, soda pop, soda water.
3.
(music) the first note of a diatonic scale.  Synonym: keynote.
4.
A medicine that strengthens and invigorates.  Synonym: restorative.



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"Tonic" Quotes from Famous Books



... schools would have no funds available with which to buy reference books for nearly a year. Competing agents had visited every house before my arrival on the coast, and I therefore resigned my worthless position, and took the Eastern agency for a Tonic Port which had, by its wonderful efficacy, delivered many from the horrors of nervous prostration, anaemia, and kindred diseases which afflict so many of the ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... answered, "cured of that and a great many other things, thanks to you. You found me the right tonic." ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... to administer a tonic to the Conference in Milan," he said airily. "Its deliberations upon international action for the suppression of political crime don't seem to get anywhere. England lags. This country is absurd with its sentimental regard for individual liberty. ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... 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 Quercia, who was almost ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

... intention, and wait till he could obtain some fresh evidence of evil intentions. The day passed without any other noticeable occurrence. The doctor called, found Helen somewhat better, and ascribed it to his medicines, especially to the effect of his tonic draught the first thing in the morning. Helen smiled. "Nay, Doctor," said she, "this morning, at least, it was forgotten. I did not find it by my bedside. Don't tell my aunt; she would be so angry." ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... every page of the book. It is Nicolai's faith in the future which influences us even more than the writer's ideas. That faith is a stimulant and a moral tonic. It awakens us and sets us free. Those of kindred spirit group themselves round him because, in the dark places of the earth where they wander chilled and with faltering steps, he is a focus of joy and fervid optimism. ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... These visits were like grim plays, to be sure, but they were also sacred duties. This one, after the lapse of time filled with new and strange emotions, was a bit grimmer than usual, but it had the effect of a tonic upon the ragged ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... went outside to Langley, whom he found sitting down near the fire, looking, if possible, more ghastly than before. The presence of Whitson seemed, however, to act on him as a kind of tonic, and he soon pulled himself together sufficiently to assist in piling a quantity of fuel upon the already sinking fire, which soon blazed brightly, lighting up the mouth of the cavern and the space in front of it. One of the bodies of the men who ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully

... you in your natural desire to have your TSAR FERDINAND home again, and we share your sanguine belief that the tonic air of Sofia (never more bracing than at the present moment) ought speedily to cure him of his malignant catarrh. His Austrian physicians however advise him to remain away, and he himself holds the view, coloured a little by superstition, that his return should be at least ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various

... trust for us and the others. But his life was a good deal sounder than mine or Kate's—and one could picture him taking extra care of it for the joke of keeping us waiting. I always felt that the sight of our hungry eyes was a tonic ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... at her 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 ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... October, our party was increased. Mr. and Mrs. Crookshank had come out from England—she a bride, and quite a new element of youth and beauty for Sarawak. A lady friend and her child and nurse also came on a long visit to us, the air of Sarawak being considered quite a tonic compared to the sea-breeze at Singapore, which was at times visited by a hot wind from Java. Very pleasant days followed our return home. Mrs. Harvey and I, with our children, went for a month to ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... but appearances are not invariably to be depended on, and it's advisable to keep the system up to par," he said. "I suppose you don't want a tonic of any kind." ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... cheerful, matter-of-fact talk was the best possible tonic for the depression which had settled upon us. I could not help think what a blessing it was that we had picked up at Los Angeles this competent frontiersman whose strong, brown hands could make or dress a wound with ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... whole position. He's a bit out of condition, Wants a tonic and skilled treatment. Yes, no doubt that's what it means. With an appetite that's picksome comes a temper tart and tric But a pick-me-up—I'll send one—will, I'm sure set all that square. And if there's further wasting, then, without ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various

... one grain), with thirty grains of sodium bromide dissolved in water. After the first day it is usually advisable to give a two-grain quinine pill together with a tablet containing one-thirtieth of a grain of strychnine three times a day after meals for a week or two as a tonic (adult). Only mild cathartics are suitable to keep the bowels regular as a Seidlitz powder in the morning before breakfast. The diet should be liquid while the fever lasts—as milk, cocoa, soups, eggnog, ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... Abydos was a tonic as well as a styptic. Like the Giaour, it embodied a personal experience, and recalled "a country replete with the darkest and brightest, but always the most lively colours of my ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... Ione Bloomsbury in person to be even more wonderful than her photograph suggested. Obviously she had brains; it was apparent, too that she had breeding. Her cheerful view of the world was like a tonic for tired nerves; and withal, she had a gentle sort of courtesy in her manner that may have been old-fashioned, but it was almost too much for Phil. Before the dinner was over, he would have laid his heart at her feet. It gave him a thrill that went to his head, ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer

... think!" asked Bones anxiously, "that you ought to put your feet in mustard and water, sir—awfully good tonic for a feller, sir. Bucks you up an' all that sort of thing, sir; uncle of mine who used to take too ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace

... professes to have been, and which was perhaps not very wisely offered. They must fight, he said, for they could not fly. The enemy was much quicker afoot than they, and there were the Athole men waiting to pounce on all runaways. Such thoughts would hardly furnish the best tonic to a doubtful spirit. Nevertheless the troops answered cheerfully that they would stand by their general to the last; which, adds the brave old fellow ruefully in his despatch, "most ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... nothing; but it takes the tone out of the mind, and engenders discontent, making one long for the tropics; it feeds the weakened imagination on palm-leaves and the lotus. Before we know it we become demoralized, and shrink from the tonic of the sudden change to sharp weather, as the steamed hydropathic patient does from the plunge. It is the insidious temptation that assails us when we are braced up to profit by the invigorating rigor ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... notion to do it." Pete's laugh was a tonic in itself. "Here you and your horse are both down, and you can't stand on one of your feet. I'll bet it's froze, and you about to go over the River; and when a fellow tries to pull you back you say, 'Oh, let me go!' You darned ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... the 'new system' is not quite obvious. Dickens may have been thinking of the 'Wilhem' method of teaching singing which his friend Hullah introduced into England, or it may be a reference to the Tonic Sol-fa system, which had already begun to make progress when The Chimes was ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood

... in Mrs. Hurd's kitchen Marcella found the air of the February evening tonic and delightful. Unconsciously impressions stole upon her—the lengthening day, the celandines in the hedges, the swelling lilac buds in the cottage gardens. They spoke to her youth, and out of mere physical congruity it could not but respond. Still, her face kept the angered ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... 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

... officialism, is somewhat prone to regard officialism and incompetency as synonymous terms. By such association, any bureaucratic tendency which may exist on the part of the British official is kept in check, whilst his individualism is subjected to a sustained and healthy course of tonic treatment. ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... coffee-house, the street corner, my exposition of the Sonnets of Petrarca was as the babble of school children at play in the Pra; beside her attentions to his clumsy caresses, her tenderness to me hour after hour was but the benevolence of a kindly woman to a lad left on her hands. Oh, bitter tonic discovery! How bitter it was I leave my reader to determine. I do not feel equal to the task of relating all that I overheard; if I could have stopped my ears, I would have done it. She tempted him, beguiled him to eat, to praise her, to be at ease, to love her. With ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... the precious hoarded memories of some thousands of years: high deeds and burning loves and eloquent words and surpassing tears and laughter. There, consequently, the romancer may well take his stand, distilling bright new dreams out of ancient beauty. And if he adds the heady tonic of an irony springing from a critical intelligence, so much the better. When Mr. Cabell wishes to represent several different epochs in The Certain Hour he chooses to tell ten stories of poets—real or imagined—as the persons in whom, by reason of their superior ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... Lord Ronsdale found that her greeting left 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

... for more than a generation, into intimate contact with the public, and which proved an important factor in the aesthetic and moral cultivation of our people. No lecturer could have had a more auspicious influence than Emerson, with his quiet dignity, his serene spiritual presence, his tonic and often electrifying force. But if he gave his audiences precious gifts, he also learned much from them. For thirty years his lecturing trips to the West brought him, more widely than any New England man of letters, into contact with the ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... Lady Esmondet wishing me to range myself, she knows my resolve not to wed is as earnest as though I was in the garb of a monk. I feel bothered and unsettled; how I wish I had been at Park Lane to-night; a trip to the Highlands would have been the very tonic I require. Sir Andrew Clarke could not prescribe better, but it is too late now, its a horrible bore to go up to Northumberland and the 'Towers' alone, though when one has had as much trouble with one's tenants as I, one must victimise ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... tonic for her," replied Heckewelder. "She'll be surprised out of herself. She is morbid, apathetic, and, try as we may, we can't interest ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... not try it again. And I advise you to use it to come home. We will have Dr. Hunter give you a tonic, and you will find you have fewer morbid fancies occupied with your duties. I shall look for you the end of the week." Surely Sam was moved quite out of himself, that he had no lashes of laughter for her. But the next was more ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various

... 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 out ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... not only for these reasons that they are so valuable to the modern spirit. It is rather for their tonic qualities that they should be prescribed in 1934. The post-war vintage of poetry is the thinnest and the most watery that England has ever produced. But here, in these ballads, are great draughts of poetry which have lost none of their sparkle ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols

... able to accomplish was brought to pass by a few weeks of mental suffering, and her clothes were beginning to hang on her. Her appetite began to fail her, and her aunt, noticing this, bought her a big bottle of tonic, which, taken before meals, killed any small desire for food she may have had. Then Aunt Phoebe decided that the two-mile walk to school was too much for her, and had her taken and called for in the machine, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey

... drink, or bad constitution, etc., result, one or more, in bequeathing a wretched inheritance of weak nerves, not positive disease, to their children. Live generously, go to bed early, be much in the open air, and take a tonic if required, and by a ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various

... 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

... squirrels a-barkin' This morning on the hill, And taken him his rifle-gun And tonic fer his chill. Menfolks ain't got no larnin' And have no time to fill; Paw spends his days in huntin' Or ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... solely determined by chance together with a certain histrionic bluffing on the part of the players, and the stakes were rather high. It was mostly played by the younger gentlemen, who could not do without their nerve-tonic in the evenings, in the monotony of camp life. The older men sat apart at tables, talking and drinking whisky-and-soda, and smoking their short pipes. Amongst them there was also a gentleman in civilian ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... missed the psalms, without which, to those who have acquired the stern relish, a service lacks its greatest tonic. But my poor efforts seemed well received and the flood of Southern fervour burst forth later on, as we sat around the ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... too old, or too much disheartened, to be lively companions for him, we had hoped that the talk of one of spirit, and of his own age, might have roused him to make some exertions to overcome his disinclination for anything like active exercise. I think now, however, that we were wrong; that the tonic was too strong; that he could not but feel that your abundance of spirits, and life, were too much for him; and that the companion he needs is one who could, to some extent, sympathize with him, and who could, perhaps, make more allowance for the manner in ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty

... tragic springs; he teaches that all is not well when we prosper. The thoughtless, light-hearted, somewhat shallow mind which thinks it can speak, think, and act without having to render an account needs the somewhat stern tonic of these seven dramas; it may be chastened into some sobriety and learn to be a little ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

... marched over and mapped. Pitch pines, small oaks of many varieties with an undergrowth "trash" of "hurts" and scrub oaks make up the forest which presses narrow cart paths and hangs over them. All the way up the slope the persistent chill of the north wind filled the air with the tonic tang of brine and held back the gray-green mist of leaves that strained at the buds, eager to be out. In hollows the spring had come. On ridges it delayed, finding the auguries unfavorable and waiting a new voice from file altar. But wherever the sun shone in ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... him—no one ever can. I tried to tell him once myself. I talked pretty middlin' plain, Ezry." He was speaking softly, then he piped out, "But what a man's heart doesn't tell him, his friends can't. Still, Ezry, a strong friend is often a good tonic for a weak heart." The Doctor looked at the Captain, then concluded: "That was a brave, kind act you tried to do—and I warrant you got it to him—some way. He's a keen one—Ezry—a mighty ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... anything to equal the atmosphere here," remarked Frank as their host came alongside. "There seems to be a tonic in it that even we do not have up in Maine or the Adirondacks. It makes you feel like ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... from coarseness which the good Pastor had feared, albeit she was quick to correct its exhibition. The languid men listened to her with half-aggressive, half-amused interest, and some of the satisfaction of taking a bitter but wholesome tonic. It was not until she reached the bed at the farther end of the ward that she seemed to ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte

... in tonic iron and other mineral and vitamine elements needed for body tone. Nor should I forget to mention that prunes especially provide a natural laxative made in ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various

... he continued his course till it naturally brought him before Mrs. Laudersdale. Pausing deliberately and sipping the pungent tonic, he at last looked up, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... assured her, as he buttered a piece of toast, "happiness and hunger might well be twins. They go so well together. Misery can take away one's appetite. Happiness, when one gets over the gulpiness of it, is the best tonic in the world. And I never saw any one, dear, with whom happiness agreed so well," he added, pausing in his task to bend over and kiss her. "Do you know you are the most beautiful thing on earth? It is a lucky thing we are going to live in England, ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... one of those affected by Mrs. Marston and her kind. It had no relation whatever to life. Its ideals, characters, ethics and crises made up an unearthly whole, which, being entirely useless as a tonic or as a balm, was so much poison. It was impossible to imagine its heroine facing any of the facts of life, or engaging in any of those physical acts to which all humanity is bound, and which need more than resignation—namely, ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... she was reminded of her father. There was the same gravity, marching hand in hand with tenacity of purpose, fixity of ideas; the same grim scorn of the tonic wine of jest and laughter. But in the elder man these were mellowed and softened. In Farwell, in the strength of his prime, they ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... the card, "Mrs. Cranston came to me after the death of her child. She was in a terrible state. But we are slowly building up her shattered nerves by plain, simple living and a tonic." ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve

... SEEM to some) her colder strains come in due season to recover our souls from the delicious languor of a Music which has been so wholly of the Feelings, that, for the want of some intellectual tonic and some spiritual temper, Feeling has degenerated into mere Sensibility and a very cheap kind of superficial, skin-deep excitability that usurps the name ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... a medicine, my dear," she said demurely, "—though I have heard some people call her a tonic. Pollyanna ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter

... BOG-BEAN (Menyanthes trifoliata, 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... opposite, and lo! the mist is cleared away. The indulgent moon is out again, revoyaging the plumbless sky. Roof and parapet and spire are softly pearl enamelled. Twice, thrice the retrieved river flashes back, between the houses, the light of the firmament. A tonic day ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... Worldly trouble is the tonic of the soul. Affliction at once humbles us and gives us a relish for spiritual food. Those providences which teach us the insufficiency of earth, ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston

... not shake off Archie until well on the right side, for at our low altitude the high-angle guns had a large radius of action that could include us. However, the menacing coughs finally ceased to annoy, and our immediate troubles were over. The strain snapped, the air was an exhilarating tonic, the sun was warmly comforting, and everything seemed attractive, even the desolated jumble of waste ground below us. I opened a packet of chocolate and shared it with V., who was trying hard to fly evenly with an uneven rudder. I sang ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... see that the babe is acutely affected by all that in any way influences her, and willingly curtail her own enjoyments, rather than see her infant rendered feverish, irritable, and uncomfortable. As the best tonic, then, and the most efficacious indirect stimulant that a mother can take at such times, there is no potation equal to porter and stout, or, what is better still, an equal part of porter and stout. Ale, except for a few ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... the father, joined in charades and games at evening. And later, Miriam drew them together, and they read Macbeth out of penny books, taking parts. It was great excitement. Miriam was glad, and Mrs. Leivers was glad, and Mr. Leivers enjoyed it. Then they all learned songs together from tonic sol-fa, singing in a circle round the fire. But now Paul was very rarely alone with Miriam. She waited. When she and Edgar and he walked home together from chapel or from the literary society in Bestwood, she knew his talk, so passionate and ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... the approach of winter, painting the land in broad leagues of colour, white and gold and blue, and the trees of the forest hang in red curtains overhead. The air was so light and invigorating that they all felt its tonic properties. Halsey seemed eased of his burden; the child began to talk, babbling wise and wonderful speeches. Elvira was even more frivolous than was her wont, and Susannah almost forgot ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... hour, having his tonic administered at intervals, and astonished the doctors. On Christmas Eve he had made such progress that Lighthead was allowed to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various

... keep in mind that there are many other useful substances not listed above. For example, every day I have a "green drink," an herbal preparation containing numerous tonic substances like ginseng and also various forms of algae and chlorophyll extracts. My green drink makes my body feel very peppy all day, so it certainly enhances my life and may extend it. It costs about $25,00 a month to enjoy that. I also use various pure amino acids at times. Phenylalyanine ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... assured her from his medical experience that "lots of women need a little tonic," and boisterously ordered a ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... a drachm of cochineal. Steep these ingredients, for a week or more, in a quart of Madeira or sherry wine, or brandy. When they are thoroughly infused, strain and filter the liquor, and bottle it for use. This is considered a good tonic, taken in a small cordial ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie

... 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 did so ...
— Crossroads of Destiny • Henry Beam Piper

... appreciate the virtues and vices, to sympathize with better impulses, we must travel beyond words and definitions till we come in contact with the personal deeds that first give rise to them. The life of Martin Luther, with its faults and merits honestly represented, is a powerful moral tonic to the reader; the autobiography of Franklin brings out a great variety of homely truths in the form of interesting episodes in his career. Adam Bede and Romola impress us more powerfully and permanently than the best sermons, because the individual realism in them leads to a vividness of moral ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry

... and gratitude and relief, Junior!" she said. "Why,' and her reassuring voice was a tonic to the children, "Why, what do Dad and I care about an old house!" she said cheerfully. "We'd rather have ten houses burn down than have one of you children sick, ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris

... taken on board a steamer. Only the most rugged constitution could have stood that trip in the already weakened condition of his system. But those early childhood days in the Berkshire Hills had put iron into his blood, the tonic of sunshine and fresh air into his very bone and muscle. Safely he made the journey, though no one knew all he suffered in those terrible days of weakness and pain on the lone, friendless trip across ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... 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 ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... enmity the aviators have followed the knightly 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 completely solved. And ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke

... loitering through twenty such pages, to revert to the "History of the Crimean War:" the curt, nervous periods were a powerful mental tonic; and few of his many readers owe so practical a debt to Mr. Kinglake as ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... one of them spurred forward, and came up to me at full gallop. It was Captain Blundel. He dismounted, and with a beaming face said—"Good news, Mrs Englefield; I think I have brought your patient a tonic more effectual than even Dr Goloff could prescribe. When I left you an hour and a half ago, I went to the Prince-Bishop, and imparted to him our suspicions as to the true name and history of his prisoner, begging ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... morning, I could hardly stand. My head was on fire, and I do not think I have ever been so sick before. I got around to a drug-store—the man said he would give me some powders; he said they were forty cents, but I dared not pay it. He gave them to me for a quarter. He said I should have a tonic, ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair

... The mental 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

... was suggested at the inquest that the chemist who made up a certain heart tonic Colonel Crofton had been in the habit of taking for some time, had put in a far larger dose ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... you know, that for keeping the mind active and the heart working overtime the memory of you surpasses any tonic advertised in the backs of the magazines. ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... twelve syllables, with cesura after the sixth accented syllable. In the decasyllabic line the cesura generally followed the fourth, but sometimes the sixth, tonic syllable.] ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... 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 was ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... don't bust," warned Dextry. "I've seen men get plumb drunk on mountain air. Don't expand too strong in one spot." He went back abruptly to his pipe, its villanous fumes promptly averting any danger of the air's too tonic quality. ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... new novel may be recommended as a strong and bracing tonic to those who find themselves in a state of mental debilitation after a long course of ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux

... touch roused as by his Adam in the "Creation," by his Eve in the "Temptation," or by his many nudes in the same ceiling of the Sixtine Chapel,—there for no other purpose, be it noted, than their direct tonic effect! Nor is it less rare to quaff such draughts of unadulterated energy as we receive from the "God Creating Adam," the "Boy Angel" standing by Isaiah, or—to choose one or two instances from his drawings (in their own kind the greatest in existence)—the "Gods Shooting at a Mark" ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson

... yourself against cold and damp, but you ought also to take an occasional tonic, and there is nothing I know better than the citrate of iron and quinine. If, however, this medicine should produce a disagreeable feeling of fulness in the head, it had better be avoided and some other tonic substituted. Well, there is cod-liver oil in conjunction with the ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various

... commit suicide, before he would join himself for life to any girl he had never seen, especially old Thornton's daughter, who seemed so willing to jump at him. Not he. In vain they urged him to cultivate the fair damsel. Not till he had braced his nerves with country air, he said. This tonic secured, he graciously consented to be introduced, but would reserve the ratification of the wedding ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... 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

... concealment. (d) Adjoining companies must be notified of their dispatch, location and probable time of return. (e) This work, like all operations conducted outside the protection of the trenches, offers a valuable tonic to ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker

... weird air, dark as the lurid hour which precedes a hurricane, in which we catch the fierce exclamations of exasperation, mingled with a bold defiance, recklessly hurled at the stormy elements. The prolonged return of a tonic, at the commencement of each measure, reminds us of the repeated roar of artillery—as if we caught the sounds from some dread battle waging in the distance. After the termination of this note, a series of the most unusual chords are unrolled through measure after measure. ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... done for the girls to give them first more independence in their language and then more power to express themselves? Probably the best cure, food and tonic in one, is reading; a taste for the best reading alters the whole condition of mental life, and without being directly attacked the defects in conversation will correct themselves. But we could do more ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... emotions. Lovell is going where the one great force of primitive life remains. He is going to see war. He is going to breathe an atmosphere hot with naked passion; he is going to rub shoulders with men who walk hand in hand with death. That's the sort of tonic we all want, to remind us that we are human beings with blood in our ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... The tonic of near danger gave him strength, even gave him at first a certain subtlety. From the terrace he could see far over the mountain flanks. As one on a tower he watched for the approach of his enemy from the sea, but he did not neglect his two companions. For he was fighting ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... sounds, fresh air, and sunshine. If we can get such a woman into the garden for a half-hour each day, throughout the summer, we can make a new woman of her. Work among flowers, where the air is pure and sweet, and sunshine is a tonic, and companionship is cheerful, will lift her out of her work and worry, and body and mind will grow stronger, and new life, new health, new energy will come to her, and the cares and vexations that made life a burden, because of the ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford

... liver," he decided, rubbing the spots thoughtfully. "She gets kind of sluggish from me not doing anything. Maybe a little spring tonic wouldn't go ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... a passer-by upon whose complacent features prosperity had set its smug hall-mark—"there, but for the grace of God, goes Nat Duncan!" He rolled the paraphrase upon his tongue and found it bitter—not, however, with a tonic bitterness. "Lord, what a worthless critter I am! No good to myself—nor to anybody else. Even on Harry I'm a drag—a regular old man of ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... her head to the dark heaven, the deep guttural note of the sea in her ears, chanted low, "Some pain is tonic.... Though to-night we are together, one and undivided—for the last time, the last time," she whispered, "yet ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... Alps. There, during the wet and snowy days which were only too prevalent in 1866, and during the days of rest interpolated between days of toil, I made myself more thoroughly conversant with Mr. Mozley's volume. I found it clear and strong—an intellectual tonic, as bracing and pleasant to my mind as the keen air of the mountains was to my body. From time to time I jotted down thoughts regarding it, intending afterwards to work them up into a coherent whole. Other duties, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... fashion" would be amazing if anything in the vagaries of that occult and omnipotent influence could be. The Irish ladies ought to circulate Madame de Piavigny's exquisite Lime d'Heures, with its incomparable illustrations by Carot and Meaulle, drawn from the lace work of all ages and countries, as a tonic against despair in respect to this industry. In one of the large rooms of her own house, Lady de Vesci has established and superintends a school of carving for the children of poor tenants. It has proved a school of civilisation ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... paralysis from overwork; further, in cases of impeded circulation occasioned by cholera or severe diarrhea, particularly in the so-called hydrocephaloid (false hydrocephalus) of children. It is worthy of trial in tetanic and eclamptic seizures, and in tonic angiospasms such as occur during the chill of malarial fevers, although in the last-mentioned condition pilocarpine is perhaps more suitable, provided the energy ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various

... but I am not your sister; and as for your religion you remind me with it of Doctor Jaynes and his hair tonic." ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... British soldier a tonic, and when Wellington drew up his lines in challenge of battle to his pursuer, on the great hill of Busaco, his red-coated soldiery were at least full of a grim satisfaction. One of the combatants has described the diverse aspects of the two hosts on the night before the fight. "The French ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett

... simple, earnest mind deteriorated in the unwholesome atmosphere of London drawing rooms. It was only a phase, of course, and she could have been set right at once had there been anybody there to prescribe a strengthening tonic; but failing that, she tried sweet stimulants that soothed and excited, but did not nourish: tales that caused chords of pleasurable emotion to vibrate while they fanned the higher faculties into inaction—vampire things inducing that ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... But people in general do not think, and if they refuse to be walled in by other people's thoughts, they inevitably flop and flounder into pitiable prostration. So important is it, that a poor creed is better than none at all. Truth, even adulterated as we get it, is a tonic. Bring forward something tangible, something positive, something that means something, and it will do. But this flowery, misty, dreamy humanitarianism,—I say humanitarianism, because I don't know what that is, and I don't know what the thing I am driving at is, so I put the two unknown ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... we had all cheered up, for it is wonderful what a tonic there is in a prospect of action. The butler brought in tea, which it was Bullivant's habit to drink after dinner. To me it seemed fantastic to watch a slip of a girl pouring it out for two grizzled and distinguished servants of the State and one battered soldier—as decorous ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... near the Chinese in the extensive prevalence of words common to the two languages, the Tibetan is near in phonal structure, as being tonic and monosyllabic. This being so, it is less remarkable that there are many words common to Chinese and Tibetan, for it might have been expected; but that there should be perhaps as many in the Mongol with its long untoned polysyllables, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller



Words linked to "Tonic" :   quinine, c, club soda, musical note, physiology, medication, tone, atonic, note, invigorating, sparkling water, seltzer, medicinal drug, carbonated water, tonus, bracer, soft drink, medicine, music, medicament, pick-me-up



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