to blanketly apply a rule

After dinner, I metaphorically rubbed my face with a brass candlestick and became bold enough to ask him to let me read something for him, for the sake of his suggestions and criticism.

Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems—surgical foam, a thermal gel depot, a microcapsule or biodegradable polymer beads.

I was once very mischievous—I am not so now, age is a sad soberer of frolic fancies […]