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More "Taper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... confidence—passed quickly over his face, the light in his eyes went out, and he rose from his stool with a short, dissatisfied sigh, which was repeated once or twice as he put away his work and arranged his tools. He made the rounds of the workshop, looked to the fastenings of the windows, lighted a taper, and then extinguished the lamp. He threw a loose overcoat over his shoulders without passing his arms through the sleeves, and went out into the street. Glancing up at the windows of his house opposite, he saw that the lights were burning brightly, and ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... and consternation of the old earl; it arrived in the middle of the night, accompanied by a summons to attend the privy council. In the perusal of a letter written in a small hand, and filling more than two folio pages, such was his agitation, that in holding the taper he must have burnt what he probably had not read; the letter is scorched, and the flame has perforated it in so critical a part, that the poor old earl journeyed to town in a state of uncertainty and confusion. Nor was his terror so unreasonable ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... twinkling taper's gleam, Her bed she seeks, of me to dream, But ere she sleeps she kneels to pray For one who ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... night there came to the bazar an artful thief disguised in the habit of the merchant, and pulling out keys from his sleeve, said to the watchman of the market, "Light me this wax-candle." The watchman took the taper and went to light it,—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... out, and the gloom of the room was only lightened by a single bed-room taper, which, as it stood near the door, only served to render palpable the darkness of the further end of the chamber. For half an hour Lord Cashel walked to and fro, anxious, wretched, and in doubt, instead of going to his room. How he wished that Lord Ballindine ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... And look! [She paints to a rounded metal object lying in the bin, close to where the taper ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the columns, a taper was burning, before which knelt a woman, making a vow; the dim flame seemed lost in the vagueness of the arches. Gaud experienced there the feeling of a long-forgotten impression: that kind of sadness and fear that she had felt when quite young at being taken to mass ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... his lips and kissed it reverently. Then he laid it down before the gilded gateway of the sanctuary, with the thought in his mind that perhaps her foot might touch it as she passed and make it sacred. Then he lit a taper at a lamp, and in obedience to the order given him by Father Hieronymus the previous night, he carried the tiny flame to each of the candles on the altar, till all were lighted. This task done, he prostrated himself on the steps before the ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... he had hitherto devoted his life, he wore, like Milton's Adam, his wavy hair down to his shoulders. In his youth, it had been thick and curling; now it was thinner and straighter, yet curled where it lay. His hands were small, with the taper fingers that indicate the artist, while his thumb was that of the artizan, square at the tip, with the first joint curved a good deal back. That they were hard and something discoloured was not for Dorothy to wonder at, when she remembered ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... bestowed on his handsome person. His slightly curly, black hair was worn long, so that he might often have occasion to push it back from his forehead, with a hand as white and delicate as a woman's, upon one of whose taper fingers sparkled an enormous diamond—a great deal too big to be real. He was rather fancifully dressed, and always falling into such graceful, languishing attitudes as he thought would be admired by the fair sex, whose devoted slave he was. This Adonis never for one moment ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... stretch oneself on the straw, covering the head with handkerchief or towel to isolate it from the searching stench of fermenting straw, and sleep. Fouillade, master of his time to-day, being on neither guard nor fatigues, decides. He lights a taper to seek among his belongings, and unwinds the coils of his comforter, and we see his emaciated shape, sculptured in black ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... said Monsignore Catesby to Lothair, and he gently but irresistibly pushed him into his place. "You know you promised to support her. You had better take this," he said, thrusting a lighted taper into his hand; "it is usual, and one ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... marble, of a length most happily proportioned to their thickness; these we saw at Athens; but when they were cut anew at Rome and polished, they did not gain so much in embellishment, as they lost in symmetry, being rendered too taper and slender. Should any one who wonders at the costliness of the Capitol visit any one gallery in Domitian's palace, or hall, or bath, or the apartments of his concubines, Epicharmus's remark upon ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... what is transient and unsatisfying. It would be well for all to learn the lesson (not least he for whom the ceremony is primarily intended), which is symbolically taught when a Pope is crowned. The Master of the Ceremonies takes a lighted taper in one hand, and in the other a reed with a handful of flax fastened to it. The flax flares up for a moment, and then the flame dies away into thin, almost imperceptible, ashes, which fall at the Pontiff's feet, ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... shape. On the opposite bank of the Jhelum there are forests of Deodar, but though they grow down to the waters edge, there is not one on this side. (Larix Deodora, called by the Hindoos, "the God Tree" is a stately pine, growing to a great height, and of a very gradual and elegant taper. Its foliage is of the darkest green colour, and it gives the mountains a very sombre appearance.) The hills have become much more rugged and abrupt. I know of no single condition which gives a scene so great an aspect of wildness and desolation, ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... house, and looking through a crack in the flooring he saw the charcoal-burner asleep, his wife almost in a faint, and by the side of the newly-born babe three old women dressed in white, each holding a lighted taper in her hand, and all talking together. Now these were the three Soudiche ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... was almost dark. The expense of lighting, had no doubt to be considered, for for several days past no candle or taper was to be had for money. And no doubt the kindness of a motorist of the Red Cross had been appealed to for the supply of all the candles which lit up the altar. This was indeed resplendent. The vestry had been ransacked for candlesticks, ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... was already night in that vast cathedral. Out of the darkness glimmered the votive-lamps of the chapels, throwing wavering lights upon the red polished marble, the gilded railing, and chandeliers, and plaqueing with yellow the muscles of some sculptured figure. In a corner a burning taper put a halo about the head of a priest, burnishing his shining bald skull, his white surplice, and the open book before him. "Amen" he chanted; the book was closed with a snap, the light moved up the apse, some dark figures of women rose from their knees and passed quickly towards the door; a man ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... glance had become dim. I arose hastily, and approaching his bed, inquired if he wished for a drink; he made a slight movement of his eyelids, as if to thank me, and at that instant the first ray of the rising sun shone in on his bed. Then the eyes lighted up, like a taper that flashes into brightness before it is extinguished—he looked as if saluting this last gift of his Creator; and even as I watched him for a moment, his head fell gently on the side, his kindly heart ceased to beat. He had thrown off the burden of To-day; ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... Thou, Abelard! the last sad office pay, And smooth my passage to the realms of day; See my lips tremble and my eye-balls roll, Suck my last breath and catch my flying soul! Ah no—in sacred vestments may'st thou stand, The hallowed taper trembling in thy hand, Present the Cross before my lifted eye, Teach me at once and learn ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... Anne had the taper alight, and the wax held to it, the note ready in her hand, when the room-door was thrown open by ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... gazing on thy face, With enuious Lookes laughing at thy shame, That erst did follow thy prowd Chariot-Wheeles, When thou didst ride in triumph through the streets. But soft, I thinke she comes, and Ile prepare My teare-stayn'd eyes, to see her Miseries. Enter the Duchesse in a white Sheet, and a Taper burning in her hand, with ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... ceased to exist. The clerk is the last representative of the minor orders which the ecclesiastical changes wrought in the sixteenth century have left us. Prior to the Reformation there were sub-deacons who wore alb and maniple, acolytes, the tokens of whose office were a taper staff and small pitcher, ostiaries or doorkeepers corresponding to our verger or clerk, readers, exorcists, rectores chori, etc. This full staff would, of course, be not available for every country ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... can be attained without actually dropping apart,—and then passed between three sets of rollers, each of which elongates the barrel, reduces its diameter, and assists in forcing it to assume the proper size and taper. The metal by this process is firmly compacted, becoming wholly homogeneous through ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... was sitting in a chair, leaning his chin on the knobbed handle of his umbrella. He rose and lit a taper for her with a match from a little green pot on the table. And Mrs Lawford, with trembling fingers, sealed the letter, as he directed, with his ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... Silence and Seriousness, to a long Gallery which was darkned at Noon-day, and had only a single Candle burning in it. After a short stay in this melancholy Apartment, he was led into a Chamber hung with Black, where he entertained himself for some time by the glimmering of a Taper, till at length the Head of the College came out to him, from an inner Room, with half a Dozen Night Caps upon his Head, and a religious Horror in his Countenance. The young Man trembled; but his Fears encreased when, instead of being ask'd what Progress he had made in Learning, he was examined ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... at once that he had blundered preposterously in laying snares for Lucien, and he began by obeying the two fine ladies—he lighted a taper, and burned the letter written by the Duchess. The man ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... races, —that you may look in vain for verification of ethnological assertions.... No: the heel does not protrude;—the foot is not flat, but finely arched;—the extremities are not large;—all the limbs taper, all the muscles are developed; and prognathism has become so rare that months of research may not yield a single striking case of it.... No: this is a special race, peculiar to the island as are the shapes of its peaks,—a mountain race; and mountain races are comely.... ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... the girl's room something after midnight, carrying a dim taper. Cecily was asleep, but lay as though fatigue had overcome her after much restless moving upon the pillow. Her face was flushed; one of her hands, that on the coverlet, kept closing itself with a slight spasm. The visitor drew apart and looked about the chamber. ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... in so black a night it might have been remarked for miles; and I blamed myself bitterly for my incaution. How much more sharply when I reached the place! One of the candlesticks was overthrown, and that taper quenched. The other burned steadily by itself, and made a broad space of light upon the frosted ground. All within that circle seemed, by the force of contrast and the overhanging blackness, brighter than by day. And there was the blood-stain in the midst; and a little farther off Mr. Henry's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... there in a strange gauzy garment of exquisite colors, apparently shapeless, yet now and then revealing her perfect figure like a bather seen through undulating billows, she was lovely. Two wands were held in her taper fingers, whose mystery only added to the general curiosity, but whose weird and cabalistic uses were to be seen later. Her magnificent face—strange in its beauty—was stranger still, since, with perfect archaeological Egyptian correctness, ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... a last glance at the bed as they passed it. But while Lucy, Blanche and Caroline still remained behind, Rose gave a final look round, for she wanted to leave the room in order. She drew a curtain across the window, and then it occurred to her that the lamp was not the proper thing and that a taper should take its place. So she lit one of the copper candelabra on the chimney piece and placed it on the night table beside the corpse. A brilliant light suddenly illumined the dead woman's face. The women were horror-struck. They ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... the consequences. The stranger secured the door; and, first examining the lower room with great care, he cautiously ascended the ladder. June, as soon as it became dark, had closed the loops of the principal floor, and lighted a candle. By means of this dim taper, then, the two females stood in expectation, waiting to ascertain the person of their visitor, whose wary ascent of the ladder was distinctly audible, though sufficiently deliberate. It would not be easy to say which ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... from the following lines, quoted from MacLenini, in the preface to "Cormac's Glossary," p. 51:— "As blackbirds to swans, as an ounce to a mass of gold, As the forms of peasant women to the forms of queens, As a king to Domnal . . . As a taper to a candle, so is a sword ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... watched the young man (for he could not be thirty yet), struck down thus in the prime of his days—carried away into the other world—while he himself, with his frail, flickering taper of a life, remained. Wherefore? At length, in a whisper, he called "Helen!" and she came and knelt beside the ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... stop the running of loose pulleys and their belts, controlled from any point. Send for catalogue. Taper ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... which I opened, when Monsieur l'Abbe appeared before me, with his hair erect, his eyes starting from their sockets, and his whole frame so convulsed with terror, that I momentarily expected the wax taper which he bore in his hand would make a somerset on my muslin dress. I begged him to inform me if he was ill? whether any thing had alarmed him? if I should ring for his servant? He shook his head in token of disapprobation of my last interrogatory, and in broken and almost inarticulate accents, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... the adherent unhandsomeness and the direct crimes; for all things are laid up safely, and tho we draw a curtain of cobweb over them, and a few fig-leaves before our shame, yet God shall draw away the curtain, and forgetfulness shall be no more, because, with a taper in the hand of God, all the corners of our nastiness shall be discovered. And, secondly, it signifies this also, that not only the justice of God shall be confest by us in our own shame and condemnation, but the evil of the sentence shall be received into us, to ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... implements for writing, and some note-paper, which emitted a faint and very peculiar perfume, as she began to write. After tracing a few hasty lines, she folded the paper, placed it carefully in an envelope, and proceeded to seal it. Taking from her pocket a singular little taper box of gold, covered with antique chasing, she lighted one of the tapers, and dropped a globule of green wax upon her note, which she carefully impressed with a tiny seal taken from another compartment ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... young lad to the porter. Then the porter lifted a taper, and, followed by the young lad, began to make the tour of the church. There was not a moment to lose. Chicot softly opened the door of the confessional, slipped in, and shut the door after him. They passed close by him, and he could see them through the ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... petrifying contact against things without, to the great western portal, on Candlemas morning. The sad, patient images by the doorways of the crowded church seemed suffering now chiefly from the cold. It was almost like a funeral— the penitential violet, the wandering taper-light, of this half- lenten feast of Purification. His new companions, at the head and in the rear of the long procession, forced every one, even the Lord Bishop himself, to move apace, bustling along, cross-bearer ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... from his wallet drew a human hand, Shrivelled and dry and black. And fitting, as he spake, A taper in his hold, Pursued: "A murderer on the stake had died. I drove the vulture from his limbs and lopt The hand that did the murder, and drew up The tendon strings to close its grasp, And in the sun and wind ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... harps no more Rang out in choral minstrelsy. In the dear bower of delight My husband slept in joy; His shield and spear Suspended near, Secure he slept: that sailor band Full sure he deem'd no more should stand Beneath the walls of Troy. And I too, by the taper's light, Which in the golden mirror's haze Flash'd its interminable rays, Bound up the tresses of my hair, That I Love's peaceful ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... Unless you strain your eyes, or lamps are burning, side chapels pass unnoticed. If you are looking for inscriptions or want to admire the old master's picture, with which every church claims to be endowed, you must get the verger with his taper. Altars are gaudily decorated and statues bejeweled and be (artificial) flowered in Hispano-Italian fashion. The mairie, reconstructed from an ancient palace or castle, was more interesting. Beside the mairie a medieval ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... stooped over, and recovering the Idiot's bill from under the table, called the maid, and ostentatiously requested her to hand it to the Idiot. He, taking a cigarette from his pocket, thanked the maid for the attention, and rolling the slip into a taper, thoughtfully stuck one end of it into the alcohol light under the coffee-pot, and lighting the cigarette with it, walked nonchalantly ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... It curiously resembled a misshapen insect, standing elaborately high on inadequate supporting legs. Its fuselage, in particular, did not look right for an aircraft. The top of the cargo section went smoothly back to the stabilizing fins, but the bottom did not taper. It ended astern in a clumsy-looking bulge that was closed by a pair of huge clamshell doors, opening straight astern. It was built that way, of course, so that large objects could be loaded direct into the cargo hold, but it ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... forgive thee, and upon my knees (With hands held up to heaven) wish that mine honour 205 Would suffer reconcilement to my love: But, since it will not, honour never serve My love with flourishing object, till it sterve! And as this taper, though it upwards look, Downwards must needs consume, so let our love! 210 As, having lost his hony, the sweet taste Runnes into savour, and will needs retaine A spice of his first parents, till (like life) It sees and dies, so let our love! and, ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... vainly run, Now gorg'd with death, they drag him on the ground Up to the altar, where devoted lies The priest himself, a panting sacrifice. Thus with his blood the temple they prophane; Losing their gods; Troy's ruin thus began: Now the bright taper of the night appears, Gayly attended with a train of stars: When midst the Trojans, dead in sleep and wine, The Grecians execute their dire design: When from the open'd caverns of the horse, Like a large flood, ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... utter a word. He lighted a taper and burned the letter. "He has his way to make," he said ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... Seldom was the body followed by even ten or twelve attendants; and instead of the usual bearers and sextons, hirelings of the lowest of the populace undertook the office for the sake of gain; and accompanied by only a few priests, and often without a single taper, it was borne to the very nearest church, and lowered into the first grave that was not already too full to receive it. Among the middling classes, and especially among the poor, the misery was still greater. Poverty or negligence ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... is gone; she's gone; when thou know'st this, What fragmentary rubbish this world is Thou know'st, and that it is not worth a thought; He honours it too much that thinks it nought. Think then, my soul, that death is but a groom, Which brings a taper to the outward room, Whence thou spiest first a little glimmering light, And after brings it nearer to thy sight; For such approaches doth heaven make in death. DONNE, ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... as a deep rage at these blasphemies spread throughout his frame. As tropic storms strike languid forests, swaying, threshing, rending trees this way and that, so a mighty rush of fury swept him. Slowly at first, then faster, the almost forgotten taper flame of manliness that flickered on the altar of his inmost being leaped higher, until it blazed as a consuming fire. The eyes of his soul were open; the strength of his soul grasped the sword of Humanity ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... believed in her old friend; for if she hadn't had, at such a pass, somebody or other to believe in she should certainly have stumbled by the way. Discretion had ceased to consist of silence; silence was gross and thick, whereas wisdom should taper, however tremulously, to a point. She betook herself to Lancaster Gate the morning after the colloquy just noted; and there, in Maud Manningham's own sanctum, she gradually found relief in giving an account of herself. An account of herself was one of the things that ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... fascinated bird who falls per force into the reptile's mouth, so do I plunge into its columns, read it with desperation, and when the poison has circulated, throw it away in despair. If I am reminded to say grace at dinner, I commence "My Lords, and gentlemen;" and when I seek my bed, as I light my taper, I move "that the House do now adjourn." The tradesmen's bills are swelled by my disease into the budget, and the checks upon my banker into supplies. Even my children laugh and wonder at the answers which they receive. Yesterday one brought ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... too, Christmas loaves or cakes are very conspicuous. The chesnitza and kolatch cakes among the southern Slavs are flat and wheel-like, with a circular hole in the middle and a number of lines radiating from it. In the central hole is sometimes placed a lighted taper or a small Christmas-tree hung with ribbons, tinsel, and sweetmeats. These cakes, made with elaborate ceremonial early in the morning, are solemnly broken by the house-father on Christmas Day, and a small piece is eaten ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... doom, love's undershrieve, Why this reprieve? Why doth my she-advowson fly Incumbency? To sell thyself dost thou intend By candle's end, And hold the contrast thus in doubt, Life's taper out? Think but how soon the market fails, Your sex lives faster than the males; And if, to measure age's span, The sober Julian were th' account of man, Whilst you live by ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... the ailantus-tree for a bouquet-holder to the close-pent inhabitants of towns? Nothing can be more graceful, certainly, than the ellipses arched by the boughs from its taper stem. Few contrivances more umbrageous than the combination of its long, feathery foliations into its perfection of a parasol. But there are times in the dank, hot nights of midsummer, when the ailantus is but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... chubby cheeks the delicate tints of a shiny crusty Beaucaire roll. On all the grand Alpine excursions it was to him that the Club entrusted its banner, and his childish soul had vowed to the P. C. A. a fanatical worship, the burning, silent adoration of a taper consuming itself before an ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... quivering nostrils, where the red color comes! The Sultan himself hath chosen this beauty for Her Majesty—she who perchance will never mount him, scorning to do aught that would make the blood flow warmer through the veins;—going daily to San Nicolo with her taper and knowing naught of pleasure in life; unless it verily pleaseth her to grieve! What availeth it to her that ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... a superstition in the East, That Allah, written on a piece of paper, Is better unction than can come of priest, Of rolling incense, and of lighted taper: Holding, that any scrap which bears that name In any characters its front impress'd on, Shall help the finder thro' the purging flame, And give his toasted feet a place ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... he went into the vast church which the crusaders had built to enclose all the sacred ground, and little lights broke the darkness here and there, without dispelling it, but the poor Christian who led Gilbert had a taper in his hand. The knight came first to the deep-red stone whereon Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea anointed the body of the Lord for burial, and there kneeling down, he set his shield and sword before him and prayed that he might yet use them well. Then the man took him to the Golgotha, ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... joyous, foolish mumming came—the carnival mumming that as a boy I had loved so well, and that, ever since I had come and stitched under my Apollo and Crispin, I had never been loth to meddle and mix in, going mad with my lit taper, like the rest, and my whistle of the Befana, and all the salt and sport of a war of wits such as old Rome has always heard in midwinter since the seven nights ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... streams, and strange, new races of men;—these are incidents in which the authentic history of the discovery of our Continent excels the specious wonders of romance, as much as gold excels tinsel, or the sun in the heavens outshines the flickering taper. E. Everett. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... proceeding towards the tail. These ermine skins are the same kind of narrow strips from the back of that animal, which are sewed round a small cord of twisted silkgrass thick enough to make the skin taper towards the tail which hangs from the end, and are generally about the size of a large quill. These are tied at the head into little bundles, of two, three or more according to the caprice of the wearer, ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... to yon tower, where busy science plies Her vast antennae, feeling thro' the skies; That little vernier, on whose slender lines The midnight taper trembles as it shines, A silent index, tracks the planets' march In all their wanderings thro' the ethereal arch, Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns, And marks the spot ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... made mention of it in the second book of his work, saying: "There is a great island situated in the surge of the northern Ocean, Scandza by name, in the shape of a juniper leaf with bulging sides that taper down to a point at a long end." Pomponius Mela also makes mention of it as situated in the Codan Gulf of the sea, ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... the struggling rays fell red and presageful. Dulled by the stained glass windows, the light that filled the semi-circular chapel at "The Lilacs", was chill and sombre, until the fair sacristan held a taper over the tall wax candles on each side of the altar, whence a mellow radiance soon streamed over all; flashing along the golden letters under the cross, and upon the gilded pipes of the little organ. On the marble steps in front of the altar were two baskets filled ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... a nobler substance than the stars, Or are they better since they are bigger? I have a will and faculties of choice, To do or not to do; and reason why I do or not do this: the stars have none. They know not why they shine, more than this taper, Nor how ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... Mr. and Mrs. Denvers and the two boys completely. As to Pointer, he would not leave her side; as her long, white, taper fingers touched the top of his grizzled head, he looked at her ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... the trees, Where first our marriage-vows were given, With merry peals shall swell the breeze And point with taper spire to Heaven. ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... were in the printed calico and waistcoat piece line, gentlemen, so my uncle knew all the materials at once. He wore knee breeches, and a kind of leggings rolled up over his silk stockings, and shoes with buckles; he had ruffles at his wrists, a three-cornered hat on his head, and a long taper sword by his side. The flaps of his waist-coat came half-way down his thighs, and the ends of his cravat reached to his waist. He stalked gravely to the coach door, pulled off his hat, and held it above his head at arm's length, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... to drive economic development but new prospecting in Papua New Guinea has slumped as other mineral-rich countries have stepped up their competition for international investment. Output from current projects will probably begin to taper off in 1996, but no new large ventures are being developed ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... A'Dale and I were strolling beside the cathedral, when a small party of idle boys and ragamuffins happened to come that way intent on mischief, if they could possibly achieve it. One of them with a grave air walked up to the old woman's table, and, taking a taper in one hand and a saint in the other, inquired the price of the articles. A loud laugh ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... wilderness, where the ashes of those we have loved repose. Where the heart has laid down what it loved most, there it is desirous of laying itself down. No sculptured marble, no enduring monument, no honorable inscription, no ever-burning taper that would drive away the darkness of the tomb, can soften our sense of the reality of death, and hallow to our feelings the ground which is to cover us, like the consciousness that we shall sleep, dust to dust, with the objects ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... action in Fig. 2 may be said to be analogous to that of a plain solenoid with its core, except that repulsion, and not attraction, is produced, while that of Fig. 3 is more like the action of tapered or conically wound solenoids and taper cores. Of course, it is unnecessary that both be tapered. The effect of such shaping is simply to modify the range of action and the amount of repulsive effort existing at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... an occasion decency forbade that positive orders for departure should be passed from mouth to mouth. The heads of the stables, therefore, agreed with the people who were in the King's room, that the latter should place a lighted taper near a window, and that at the instant of the King's decease one of them ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... serpent, he is lengthened out into an extended belly, and perceives scales growing on his hardened skin, and his black body become speckled with azure spots; and he falls flat on his breast, and his legs, joined into one, taper out by degrees into a thin round point. His arms are still remaining; those arms which remain he stretches out; and, as the tears are flowing down his face, still that of a man, he says, "Come hither, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... darkness of the upper and lower halls, made walls and balustrades seem vast by its flickering impotence to oust the darkness. Surely this girl, towering in her sweeping robe and queenly pose, was made to be loved of men and gods! Hero, carrying her vestal taper in the temple recesses, before ever Leander had crossed the wave, could not have had a larger or more noble form, a more noble and ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... in the dark, triumph when the bringing in of a candle discovers the vanity of their fears. For this exposure of supernatural agents upon a stage is truly bringing in a candle to expose their own delusiveness. It is the solitary taper and the book that generates a faith in these terrors: a ghost by chandelier light, and in good company, deceives no spectators,—a ghost that can be measured by the eye, and his human dimensions made out at leisure. The sight ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... glass down with a mirthless laugh. "Of course, I won't, if you insist. I intended to taper off—a chap can't turn teetotaler the way he turns a handspring." He eyed the glass with a sudden intensity of longing. "Let's begin to-morrow. Nobody starts a new life at two A. M. And—it's ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... your lover into the bargain. Those coarse garments shall be changed for silks and satins,—that shining hair shall be made radiant with gems,—jewels shall sparkle on that fair neck, and on those taper fingers,—you shall ride in a carriage, and have servants to wait on you,—and you shall sleep on a downy bed, and live in a grand house, like this. Say, will not all these fine things be better than selling ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... in turkey-hunting! I meant to have gone down to the farm-house after tea, and inquired about the safety of my prizes, but Kate wanted to play chess. Peter couldn't, and Peggy wouldn't; I had to, of course, and we played late. Kate had such pretty hands; long taper fingers, rounded to the tiniest rosy points; no dimples, but full muscles, firm and exquisitely moulded; and the dainty way in which she handled her men was half the game to me;—I lost it; I played wretchedly. The next day Kate went with me to see the turkeys; so she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... life; and most conscientiously had she fulfilled her resolution, as the reader must be aware. Mrs Chopper was in bed and slumbering when Mary softly opened the door; the signs of approaching death were on her countenance—her large, round form had wasted away—her fingers were now taper and bloodless; Mary would not have recognised her had she fallen in with her under other circumstances. An old woman was in attendance; she rose up when Mary entered, imagining that it was some kind lady come to visit the sick woman. Mary sat down by the side ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... a good deal worse, than at first. A sharp look-out was kept, and they got us back to Halifax, without any more adventures. We were pretty well fagged; though we had to taper off with the black hole, and bread and water, for the next ten days; the regular punishment for such misdemeanors as ours. At the end of the ten days, we were let out, and came together again. Our return brought about a great deal of discussion; ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Thwarted Utterance The Song of Her "Always I Know You Anew" The Rival Celestial The Tamer of Steeds Love in Armor Wardrobe of Remembrance The Second Covenant Dedication to a First Book The Shadowed Road Love in the Dawn "Had I a Claim to Fame?" The One Dream and Deed A Taper of Incense To Purity Atonement The Adoration Talisman Recognition The Silver Hind Aristeas Relates His Youth Man Possessed Miniature Death Will Make Clear Sunlight And a Long Way Off He Saw Fairyland In Time of Trouble Anomaly The Lover Judgment ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... history and of a wholly superfluous seer in the denoument make up the whole sum so far as the Pastor fido is concerned, while the Aminta cannot even show as much as this. In the Faithful Shepherdess we find not only the potent herbs, holy water, and magic taper of Clorin's bower, but the wonder-working well and the actual presence of the river-god, who rises, not to pay courtly compliments in the prologue, but to take an actual part in the plot[265]. Alike in its positive ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... well, because she played her own willful, tricky self, and she kissed her taper fingers to the enraptured audience, and felt sorry to think it might ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... morn has touched the painted windows; The yellow dawn creeps down the storied panes; Already, in the early solemn twilight, The sanctuary's taper softly wanes. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... faiths, spiritual convictions, which overtop our actual life, and lead it up from grossness to glory, woman is the oracle and priestess. In the basic qualities of our nature man is stronger—woman, in those which, in grace, beauty, and sweetness, taper nicely toward its apex. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... interior especially smooth and shapely, and the nest in the haymow showed only a little falling-off, as is usually the case in the second nest of the season. The songs of the birds, the construction of their nests, and the number of their eggs taper off as the ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... quadrangular, taper, high spire or pyramid, raised perpendicularly, and terminating in a point, to serve as an ornament to some open square; and is very often covered with inscriptions or hieroglyphics, that is, with mystical characters or symbols used ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... that once My Lady had eliminated herself from my field I did not see but that Daniel and I might taper off into at least an armed neutrality. If he continued to nag me, it would be wholly of his own free will. ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... no connection for lighting, so they carried candles, Anthony holding one aloft for himself and Bettina, and Delia coming after with a taper. Peter, like a flash of flame, slipped ahead of Delia and was lost in ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... and the stringency of these three precepts is the unbroken continuity which they require. To rejoice, to pray, to give thanks, are easy when circumstances favour, as a taper burns steadily in a windless night; but to do these things always is as difficult as for the taper's flame to keep upright when all the winds are eddying round it. 'Evermore'—'without ceasing'—'in everything'—these qualifying words give ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... with the check? It was for $1,000. After all, it was more than I had ever before held in my hand at once. But what was a paltry thousand, aye a paltry ten thousand, to a man's pride? I bit off the end of my cigar, creased the check into a taper, and struck a match. I watched it burn and burn. I struck another. I held it within an inch of the check, but for the life of me I ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... to the horizon, and called the attention of his crew to the taper spars of a ship lying snug in harbour under the ...
— Captain Boldheart & the Latin-Grammar Master - A Holiday Romance from the Pen of Lieut-Col. Robin Redforth, aged 9 • Charles Dickens
... then he would not for a moment have doubted the nature of her feelings toward himself. She did not cry out, nor faint, but her face turned white as the dress she wore, while her hands pressed so tightly together, that her long, taper nails left ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... wine-cellar. He took up the candle burning on the table for the cigars, and led the way into the basement of the beautiful old Colonial mansion, doubly memorable as Washington's headquarters while he was in Cambridge, and as the home of Longfellow for so many years. The taper cast just the right gleams on the darkness, bringing into relief the massive piers of brick, and the solid walls of stone, which gave the cellar the effect of a casemate in some fortress, and leaving the corners and distances to ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of William Dean Howells • David Widger
... uninterrupted intercourse with his mother had implanted in his heart. Then, when the daylight began to wane, and the moon and stars already grew beautiful in their places in the firmament, he would pass into the subterranean vaults of the edifice, trembling as his little taper scarcely dispelled the dull, solemn gloom, and listening with breathless attention for the voices of those guardian spirits whose fabled habitation was made in the apartments of the sacred place. Or, when the multitude had departed for their amusements ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... presence of Miss Dale illuminated him as the burning taper lights up consecrated plate. Deeply respecting her for her constancy, esteeming her for a model of taste, he was never in her society without that happy consciousness of shining which calls forth the treasures of the man; and these it is no exaggeration to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... plunge me deep in love—put out My senses, leave me deaf and blind, Swept by the tempest of your love, A taper ...
— Love Songs • Sara Teasdale
... different lengths (forming different shapes): The Lozange, called Rombus (diamond) The Fuzie or spindle, called Romboides (narrow diamond) The Triangle or Tricquet (pyramid) The Square or quadrangle (square) The Pillaster or Cillinder (tall rectangle) The Spire or taper, called piramis (tall pyramid) The Rondel or Sphere (circle) The egge or figure ouall (vertical egg) The Tricquet reuerst (triangle) The Tricquet displayed (hour-glass) The Taper reuersed (narrow triangle) The Rondel ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... it is so soft, as it were made on purpose to take hearts, and handle them without hurting! These taper fingers too, and even joints so supple, that methinks I mould them as they pass through mine: nay, in my conscience, though it be nonsense to say it, your hand ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... Philander, must you take the advantage? Must you be perjured because I was tempting? It is true, I let you in by stealth by night, whose silent darkness favoured your treachery; but oh, Philander, were not your vows as binding by a glimmering taper, as if the sun with all his awful light had been a looker on? I urged your vows as you pressed on,—but oh, I fear it was in such a way, so faintly and so feebly I upbraided you, as did but more advance your perjuries. Your strength increas'd, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... purchase, and had not come to a determination till it was near ten o'clock of the Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing you should be too late—and when the old bookseller with some grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting bed-ward) lighted out the relic from his dusty treasures—and when you lugged it home, wishing it were twice as cumbersome—and when you presented it to me—and when we were exploring the perfectness of it (collating you ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... she lies, Chaunting some carol till her swain appears, With visage deadly pale, in pensive guise, Beneath a wither'd fir his form he rears![73] Shrieking and sad, she bends her irie flight, When, mid dire heaths, where flits the taper blue, The whilst the moon sheds dim a sickly light, The airy funeral meets her blasted view! When, trembling, weak, she gains her cottage low, Where magpies scatter notes of presage wide, Some one shall tell, while tears in torrents flow, That, just when ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... grace like a woman—no lovely sloped shoulders, no beautiful bosom, no sweeping curve of robe down to the feet. No softness of cheek, or silky hair, or complexion, or taper fingers, or arched eyebrows; no sort of style whatever. They were mere wooden figures; and, in short, ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... by the Hindoos and freely used at their religious ceremonies. Its leaves are very long and taper to ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... performed. The religious ceremony takes place in a temple: the pair, after listening to a lengthy harangue from one of the attendant priests, approach the altar, where large tapers are presented to them; the bride, instructed by the priest, lights her taper at the sacred censer on the altar, and the bridegroom, igniting his from hers, allows the two flames to combine, and burn steadily together, thus symbolizing the perfect unity of the marriage state; and this ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver
... And how different this from having a few social friends at a cheerful board! The usual time of sitting at table, a walk, and tea, bring me within the dawn of candlelight; previous to which, if not prevented by company, I resolve that, as soon as the glimmering taper supplies the place of the great luminary, I will retire to my writing-table and acknowledge the letters I have received; but, when the lights are brought, I feel tired, and disinclined to engage in this work, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... inevitably must have been, may yet, in the absence of more authentic testimony, afford a pretty accurate glimpse at the real nature of those events, however they may have been disguised by fiction and misstatement. Where tradition is our only guide we must follow implicitly, satisfied that her taper was lighted at the torch of Truth, though it may gleam doubtfully and partially through the mists ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... battle really won or lost in the first ten minutes, if you only knew it: when you get in your first strokes, really defining your composition and planting your big high light and your big dark. It is all right after that. You can taper off on the little lights and darks, saving your wind, so to speak, sparring for your next supplementary light ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... performed I carried the taper (nota bene) and some pieces of gold to the Bishop who performed the grand mass, and who was sitting in an arm-chair near the altar. The prelate intended to have given them to his assistants, the priests of the King's chapel; but the monks of Saint Denis ran ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... seemed to forget his deeply sworn hatred against his dangerous neighbours. The Torch of Pengwern (for so Gwenwyn was called, from his frequently laying the province of Shrewsbury in conflagration) seemed at present to burn as calmly as a taper in the bower of a lady; and the Wolf of Plinlimmon, another name with which the bards had graced Gwenwyn, now slumbered as peacefully as the shepherd's dog ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... which was the 11th day of the said month of June, the king went in procession, most devoutly, with the parish of St. Paul and all the clergy, to the spot where was the said image. He himself carried a lighted waxen taper, bareheaded, with very great reverence, having with him the band and hautbois with several clarions and trumpets, which made a glorious show, so melodiously did they play. And with him were the Cardinal ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the schooner gave a lurch and shook her feathers alow and aloft by way of chorus. "I like this kind of life very much; how gracefully this vessel moves; what a beautiful union of strength, proportion, lightness, in the taper masts, the slender ropes and stays, the full spread and sweep of her sails! Then how expansive the view, the calm ocean in its solitude, the receding land, the twinkling ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... details with little taper-finger touches of nicety, but she could not judge as well as he of generalities and the final scope of combinations. It was doubtful if Abigail ever fairly ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... suffer?" Oh! the sad, sad voice! Each word the poor girl spoke in answer, froze her hearer's blood, as though that gentle breath had been the ice-blast of the pole. "I do not know, mother," she replied, "but I have such a pain here." She pressed her hands slowly over her brow, and with her white taper fingers put back the loosened hair. Then in hurried accents whispered,—"Do not tell him—do not let them take me away—but God help me, mother!" she added wildly: "I think I am MAD!" and it was true. She sank beneath her first ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... Hawthorne yet, and when I confessed that I had hardly yet even hoped for such a thing, he smiled his winning smile, and said: "Ah, well! I don't know that you will ever feel you have really met him. He is like a dim room with a little taper of personality burning on ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... while a line drawn the whole length of the apartment, about a foot and a half from the roof, supported, in graceful disarray, a profusion of coats, trousers, aprons, petticoats, and stockings. To complete the picture, there were no candles burning, not even a rosin taper; but here and there a piece of blazing bog-pine, either stuck in some cranny, or borne about in the hands of a domestic, cast over the scene a dark red light. I dare say we should have been delighted with all this, had we been assured of obtaining an apartment, ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... allegiance to the lord protector. The duke of Gloucester commanded the instant execution of Hastings; and, accusing Jane Shore of having bewitched him, condemned her to wander about in a sheet, holding a taper in her hand, and decreed that any one who offered her food or shelter should be put to death. Jane continued an outcast for three days, when her husband came to her succor, but he was seized by Gloucester's myrmidons, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... observed the stranger with only slight interest, till Dundas drew up his chair opposite at the table. There the light from the tallow dip, guttering in the centre, fell upon his handsome face and eyes, his carefully tended beard and hair, his immaculate cuffs and delicate hand, the seal-ring on his taper finger. ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the thoughtful writer already quoted,)—"the fact is not to be denied; the Religion of Nature has had the opportunity of rekindling her faded taper by the Gospel light,—whether furtively or unconsciously availed of. Let her not dissemble the obligation, and make a boast of the splendour, as though it were originally her own; or had always, in her hands, been sufficient for the illumination ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... pair of slender white minarets which tower like masts from the great Mosque of Aurangzeb. They seem to be always in sight, from everywhere, those airy, graceful, inspiring things. But masts is not the right word, for masts have a perceptible taper, while these minarets have not. They are 142 feet high, and only 8 1/2 feet in diameter at the base, and 7 1/2 at the summit—scarcely any taper at all. These are the proportions of a candle; and fair and fairylike candles ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... thou, fair moon, 331 That wont'st to love the traveller's benison, Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud, And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here In double night of darkness and of shades; Or, if your influence be quite dammed up With black usurping mists, some gentle taper, Though a rush-candle from the wicker hole Of some clay habitation, visit us With thy long levelled rule of streaming light, 340 And thou shalt be our star of ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... the farther door with quivering lips, or sighed when it opened, and emitted merely a councillor or a marquis. Several times a masked lady flitted through the crowd, with a bow here and the honour of her taper fingers there. The windows were open, the summer air entered; and the murmur of the throng without, mingling with the stir of talk within, seemed to add to the light and colour of ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... was cheery; it might be a question whether all the light did not come from her first, in some way, and perhaps it did; but then Hazel was luminous, and she fluttered about with quick, happy motions, till like a little glancing taper she had shone upon and lit up everybody and everything; and Dorris was sunny with clear content, and Kenneth was blithe, and Desire was scintillant, as she always was either with snaps or smiles; and here came in beaming Miss Craydocke, ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... took a shaded taper and opened the door leading from his master's chamber, the wind was heard howling through the long passages, ready to ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... producing an upright body, smooth and even bark, ample leaf, sweet blossom, the delight of bees, and a goodly shade at distance of eighteen, or twenty five foot. They are also very patient of pruning; but if it taper over much, some of the collateral boughs would be spar'd, or cut off, to check the sap, which is best to be done about Midsummer; and to make it grow upright, take off the prepondering branches with discretion, and so you may correct any other ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... hour of noon a great silence falls upon the crowd, and the priests begin the Mass. At the moment when the 'Gloria in Excelsis' is reached, the Archbishop places a lighted taper in the bill of an artificial dove, and sends the dove down the wire to the car. Then all the bells in ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... stead is come again; Prize hath he made of steeds and many a baggage-train; Yea, horses hath he brought, full fair of shape and hue, Whose collars, anklet-like, ring to the bridle-rein. Taper of hoofs and straight of stature, in the dust They prance, as like a flood they pour across the plain; And on their saddles perched are warriors richly clad, That with their hands do smite on kettle-drums amain. Couched are their limber spears, right long and lithe of point, ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... sorcerer that her husband would be king, and she joined him in acts of witchcraft in order to bring this about. She was condemned (October, 1441) to do penance by walking three successive days in a white sheet and carrying a lighted taper, starting each day from St. Paul's and visiting certain churches. Her husband, says the chronicler Grafton, "took all patiently and said little." Still retaining some power in the Council, he lived until 1447, when ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... you know. They are not like your wax taper at all; they are little wax matches, that burn just long enough to seal one or two letters; Miss Allen showed me how she used them. Hers were in a nice little box just like the inkstand on the outside; and there was a place to light the matches, and a place to set them in while ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... light, As if it had but newly come Up from some subterranean palace, The haunt of fairy or of gnome, With its waxen taper still alight, And beaming in its leafy chalice, That lit the revellers down below, When the nights were long, and the moon was low You might have heard, far-off and sweet, The sound of the elfin revelries, Like ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... light, which stood on the supper-table, I descended the winding stair-case; but before I had reached the vaulted passage leading to the statue of the blessed Jeanne of France, a blast of wind extinguished my taper. I hastily remounted the stairs, to light it again at the chimney; but judge of my feelings, when, on arriving at the entrance to the armory, I beheld the Seneschal and his lady, who had descended from their frames, and seated themselves on each side of the fire-place! "'Madam, my love,' ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... is a long, slender, pointed blade. From the shoulders, which are from 4 to 7 centimeters apart, it may taper uniformly to a point; much more commonly, however, it tapers gradually to within about 25 millimeters of the extremity. Here its width is about 25 millimeters. At this point the edges converge at an angle of 45 to the axis, until they meet, forming ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... and watched the young man (for he could not be thirty yet), struck down thus in the prime of his days—carried away into the other world—while he himself, with his frail, flickering taper of a life, remained. Wherefore? At length, in a whisper, he called "Helen!" and she came and knelt beside ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... salon—the same great dusky fresco in the concave ceiling. The daughter is not rich, I suppose, any more than the mother. The furniture is worn and faded, and I was admitted by a solitary servant, who carried a twinkling taper before me up the great ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... singing Miserere before the high altar when I went in. There was no congregation but a few old women on chairs and old men kneeling on the pavement. After a while a long train of young girls, walking two and two, each with a lighted taper in her hand, and all dressed in black with a white veil, came from behind the altar, and began to descend the nave; the four first carrying a Virgin and child upon a table. The priests and choristers arose from their knees and followed after, singing ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it be darke, how doost thou know 'tis he? Mart. Vpon his bloody finger he doth weare A precious Ring, that lightens all the Hole: Which like a Taper in some Monument, Doth shine vpon the dead mans earthly cheekes, And shewes the ragged intrailes of the pit: So pale did shine the Moone on Piramus, When he by night lay bath'd in Maiden blood: O Brother helpe me with thy fainting hand. If feare hath made thee faint, as mee it hath, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... miniature. Nature generally denies him beard, so he shaves what a sailor would term the fore and after part of his head. He reaps his hirsute crop dry, using no lather. His cue is pieced out by silken braid, so interwoven as gradually to taper into a slim tassel, something like a Missouri mule-driver's "black snake" whip-lash. To lose this cue is to lose caste and standing among his fellows. No misfortune for him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... pressures up to 160 pounds, all fittings 3-1/2 inches and under should be screwed. Fittings 4 inches and over should have flanged ends. Fittings for this pressure should be of cast iron and should have heavy leads and full taper threads. Flanged fittings in high pressure lines should be extra heavy, and in low pressure lines standard weight. Where possible in high pressure flanges and fittings, bolt surfaces should be spot faced to provide suitable bearing for bolt ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... must man's spirit show In contrast with these ministers of heaven, That e'en beneath frail woman's purity Dims like a taper 'neath the light of day!— Methinks if from our eyes sin's blindness fell, And gave pure angels to our ravish'd sight, Gliding around us clad in the bright robes Of love and immortality, this earth Would be like heaven. O! 'twere a ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... there were heaps of luxuries—dining-rooms, dressing-rooms, libraries, bedrooms, drawing-rooms, oratories, all crowded into the space of a hearthrug. The first night, I remember, with my books and maps about me, I wanted light; they brought me a taper, and immediately from out of the silent Desert there rushed in a flood of life unseen before. Monsters of moths, of all shapes and hues, that never before perhaps had looked upon the shining of a flame, now madly thronged into my tent, and dashed through the fire of the ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... to the church, the funeral service was performed, and the body was conveyed to the tomb. A large procession, headed by the Czar, the Czarina, and all the chief nobility of the court, followed in the funeral train. The Czar and all the other mourners carried in their hands a small wax taper burning. The ladies were all dressed in black silks. It was said by those who were near enough in the procession to observe the Czar that he went weeping all ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... to do so, and, exchanging a look with Wordsworth, began to admire in silence the undulating thread of smoke which slowly arose from the expiring wick, when Crabbe put on the extinguisher. Anne laughed at the instance, and inquired if the taper was wax, and being answered in the negative, seemed to think that there was no call on Mr. Crabbe to sacrifice his sense of smell to their admiration of beautiful and evanescent forms. In two other men I ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... idols, all curious and precious, from the bijou image in sapphire to the colossal statue in plate gold. A series of trophies these, gathered from the triumphs of Buddhism over the proudest forms of worship in the old pagan world. In the pillars that surround the temple, and the spires that taper far aloft, may be traced types and emblems borrowed from the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec, the proud fane of Diana at Ephesus, the shrines of the Delian Apollo; but the Brahminical symbols and interpretations prevail. ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... last words in a livelier tone than usual, but it was like the last kindling of the taper in its oil-less socket — for instantly the paleness of death overspread his face, and after a feeble effort to vomit, with convulsions, the natural effect of great loss of blood, he sunk ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... the human is a condition in which the burning taper we call Life flickers and smoulders and smokes. Thirty years ago it was an example of the most hopeless idiocy. Whole populations were afflicted with it. But neither man of science, nor bigot-fanatic, assured by the Divine ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... for though in stage-coaches, where passengers are properly considered as so much luggage, the ingenious coachman stows half a dozen with perfect ease into the place of four; for well he contrives that the fat hostess, or well-fed alderman, may take up no more room than the slim miss, or taper master; it being the nature of guts, when well squeezed, to give way, and to lie in a narrow compass; yet in these vehicles, which are called, for distinction's sake, gentlemen's coaches, though they are often larger than the others, this method of ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... He fell fainting on the Duchess' skirt. She ordered her servants to fan him and to throw water in his face, and he regained consciousness just as one of the carts was passing. It was drawn by four oxen, completely covered with black cloth, and attached to each horn was a lighted wax taper. Leading the oxen were two demons with such horrible, frightful faces that Sancho shut his eyes tightly after having got one glance of them. An old, worthy-looking man with a long, snow-white beard sat on a raised seat on the cart; and when he passed Don Quixote he said in a deep voice: "I am the ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... clips and pass hydrogen through the vessel until the atmospheric air is replaced by hydrogen. This is determined by collecting some of the gas which bubbles through the water in the basin in a test-tube and testing it by means of a lighted taper. ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... them. Then he went into the vast church which the crusaders had built to enclose all the sacred ground, and little lights broke the darkness here and there, without dispelling it, but the poor Christian who led Gilbert had a taper in his hand. The knight came first to the deep-red stone whereon Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea anointed the body of the Lord for burial, and there kneeling down, he set his shield and sword before him and prayed that he might ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... to be in a church. I hold a torch in my hand and light one taper after another. For every taper that is lighted, the church grows larger and more beautiful. But I am a thief. If I am caught I must be buried alive, and now the church-bells are ringing. I ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... toward the altar. Unless you strain your eyes, or lamps are burning, side chapels pass unnoticed. If you are looking for inscriptions or want to admire the old master's picture, with which every church claims to be endowed, you must get the verger with his taper. Altars are gaudily decorated and statues bejeweled and be (artificial) flowered in Hispano-Italian fashion. The mairie, reconstructed from an ancient palace or castle, was more interesting. Beside the ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... hearer's blood, as though that gentle breath had been the ice-blast of the pole. "I do not know, mother," she replied, "but I have such a pain here." She pressed her hands slowly over her brow, and with her white taper fingers put back the loosened hair. Then in hurried accents whispered,—"Do not tell him—do not let them take me away—but God help me, mother!" she added wildly: "I think I am MAD!" and it was true. She sank beneath her first and only sorrow. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... and is tapped with 8 standard threads to the inch, straight or parallel to the axis of the pipe; with this straight tap only three or four threads come in contact with the socket threads, or in any way assist in holding the pipes together. In the oil-pipe, the pipe ends and sockets are cut on a taper of 3/4 inch to 1 foot, for a 4-inch pipe, and the socket used is thicker than the steam and water socket, is 33/4 inches long, and has entrance for 1 5/8 inches of thread on each pipe end tapped with 9 standard threads to the inch. In this taper socket you have iron to iron ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... flavour which is peculiar to all British spirits. Or the liquor may be deprived of its alcohol, by heating a portion in a spoon over a candle, till the vapour ceases to catch fire on the approach of a lighted taper. The residue thus obtained, of genuine French brandy, possesses a vinous odour, still resembling the original flavour of the brandy, whilst the residue, produced from sophisticated brandy, has a peculiarly disagreeable smell, resembling gin, or ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... the ambassadors in sumptuous liveries, and the fifty Comandadori in their flowing blue robes and red caps; then follow musicians, and the squires of the Doge in black velvet; then the guards of the Doge, two chancellors, the secretary of the Pregadi, a deacon clad in purple and bearing a wax taper, six canons, three parish priests in their sacerdotal robes, and the Doge's chaplain dressed in crimson. The grand chancellor is known by his crimson vesture. Two squires bear the Doge's chair and the cushion of cloth of gold. And the Doge—the representative, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... pretty accurate glimpse at the real nature of those events, however they may have been disguised by fiction and misstatement. Where tradition is our only guide we must follow implicitly, satisfied that her taper was lighted at the torch of Truth, though it may gleam doubtfully and partially through the mists ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... of lights, and his wife, entirely clad in gold, was sitting on a still higher throne, with three golden crowns upon her head, and she was surrounded with priestly state. On each side of her were two rows of candles, the biggest as thick as a tower, down to the tiniest little taper. Kings and emperors were on their knees before ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... Archbishop of Treves proved powerless to tear the tough parchment, so he held it for a moment until it was consumed in the flame of a taper which stood on ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... the design as a whole had advanced more rapidly than the skill and sleight of hand which expressed it. The engraver has by 1511 become capable of expressing a greater variety of speed in the stroke, makes it taper more finely, and can follow the tongue-like lap and flicker as the pen rises and dips again before leaving the surface of the block (as in the outer ends of the strokes that represent the radiance of the Virgin's glory). Holbein, later on, was to obtain a yet more wonderful fidelity from ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... does not taper; Genus *Condylostoma the peristome is widest at the end of the body; the mouth ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins
... slippers. Her ankles, scratched by casual thorns and already beginning to blush brown from the June sun's ardent kisses, were as delicate as any he had ever seen enmeshed in silken hose. Her hands, long, slender, taper-fingered, actually dainty, although brown and roughened by hard labor, were, it seemed to him, better fitted for the fingering of a piano's keys than for the coarse and heavy tasks to which he knew they must be well accustomed. He gazed at her in veritable wonder. How had she blossomed, thus, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... vitals pale Truth has confess'd, And Zeal unresisted entempests your breast![343:2] Though some noble Lords may be wishing to sup, Your merit self-conscious, my Lord, keeps you up, 70 Unextinguish'd and swoln, as a balloon of paper Keeps aloft by the smoke of its own farthing taper. Ye SIXTEENS[343:3] of Scotland, your snuffs ye must trim; Your Geminies, fix'd stars of England! grow dim, And but for a form long-establish'd, no doubt 75 Twinkling faster and faster, ye ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the females, as conducive to health. Seldom was the body followed by even ten or twelve attendants; and instead of the usual bearers and sextons, hirelings of the lowest of the populace undertook the office for the sake of gain; and accompanied by only a few priests, and often without a single taper, it was borne to the very nearest church, and lowered into the first grave that was not already too full to receive it. Among the middling classes, and especially among the poor, the misery was still greater. Poverty or negligence induced most of these to remain in their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... sitting-room which I knew so well, lifting my feet to avoid stumbling on its step, and passing into the room found my way through the gloom to the wide fireplace where I took my stand. Lily watched me enter, then following me, she lit a taper at the fire which smouldered on the hearth, and placed it upon the table in the window in such fashion that though I was now obliged to take off my hat, my face was ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... pointed to the horizon, and called the attention of his crew to the taper spars of a ship lying snug in harbour under ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens
... of the church implies its importance, so that it may very well be the church of the Theotokos Diaconissa, at which imperial processions from the Great Palace to the Holy Apostles stopped to allow the emperor to place a lighted taper upon the altar ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... more fish-like in shape. This is the stage which we actually observe in the seals, where the hind legs, although retaining all their typical bones, have become shortened up almost to rudiments, and directed backwards, so as to be of no use for walking, while serving to complete the fish-like taper of the body. (Fig. 2.) But in the whales the modification has gone further than this so that the hind legs have ceased to be apparent externally, and are only represented internally—and even this only in ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... hearts, "Where is she, She I love these many years?" He heard no echo calling faintly: "Lo, she lieth cold and pale, And her smile so calm and saintly Heeds not grieving sob or wail— Heeds not the lilies strewn upon her, Pure as she is, and as white, Or the solemn chanting voices, Or the taper's ghastly light." But silent still was the ancient forest, Silent were the gloomy trees, He only heard the wailing sound Of the summer breeze, That sadly played ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... be found there, if any where. A sounding board is merely there for ceremony. It is secure from earthquakes, not more from sanctity than size, for 'twould feel a mountain thrown upon it no more than a taper-worm would. Go and see, but not without ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... was known to the editors of most magazines. He had written a good deal of graceful verse, and one or two pretty idyllic stories, and there were people who looked very hopefully on him as a rising light of literature. His sudden accession to wealth had almost buried the poor taper of his genius when the hands of Love triumphant took it suddenly at the time of that lazy lounge beneath the awning, and gave it a chance once more. He was meditating, as lovers will, upon his own unworthiness and the all-worthy attributes of the ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... Sweet Peas on tiptoe for a flight, With wings of gentle flush: o'er delicate white, And taper fingers catching at all things To bind them all about with ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Pale, limpid Port, whose color had long since gone with age, and left only the musk-like odor; flasks of Johannisberg of pearly light; bottles of Tokay for lips of cardinals; tall, slim stems of the taper flasks of the Rhine; while the ruby hues of wine from the Rhone stood clustering about amid pyramids of pine-apples, oranges, and bananas, and all loading the air of the saloon with ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... monticola, Gray. Leaves deciduous, ovate to lance-oblong, 3 to 5 in. long, taper-pointed, thin, smooth, sharply serrate. Fruit red, on short stems, with the seeds many-ribbed on the back. Usually a shrub but sometimes tree-like; damp woods in the Catskills and ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar
... institutions of learning, the traktirs, the bath-houses—even in the drinking cellars and gambling-hells. Scarcely a bridge or corner of a street is without its shrine, its pictured saint and burning taper, before which every by-passer of high or low degree bows down and worships. It may be said with truth that one is never out of sight of devotees baring their heads and prostrating themselves before these ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... minute to obtain fuller view of the tout ensemble of her figure. Again and again the modest kerchief was arranged and rearranged to show a hair's breadth more or a hair's breadth less of her brown but round and taper throat. Repeatedly, before it could be finally adjusted to her satisfaction, was the delicate fabric of her coiffure moved with cautious care and dainty touch a leetle backwarder or a leetle ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... the aged bridegroom, enclosing her taper waist with her arm—'the carriage is at the door, and all is in readiness to complete our felicity. To-night we will revel in the first joys of our union in my own house—to-morrow, as you have ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... butcher and candlestick maker. And while we do not know it, really we are working together for one end hidden now in the divine economy of far-off destiny and justice.... To me the wonder of wonders is that I may some day light a little taper in your upper chamber myself, and kneel together with you before the same window to worship. Only, dear Heart, please get your ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... playing a grand game of "round ball," for it was a half-holiday. The clear, silvery tones of the bell were heard, and we stopped to listen. Was it a fire? No, the ringing was not vehement enough. A meeting of the church? In a moment we should know. As the bell ceased, we looked up to the white taper spire to catch the next sound. One stroke. It was a death, then,—and of a man. We listened for the age tolled from the belfry. Fifty-five. Who had departed? The sexton crossed the green on his way to the shop to make ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... and, putting on their vestments, commenced the services of the day; the abbot himself celebrated high mass, assisted by brother Elfget the deacon, brother Savin the sub-deacon, and the brothers Egelred and Wyelric, youths who acted as taper-bearers. When the mass was finished, just as the abbot and his assistants had partaken of the holy communion, the Danes burst into the church. The abbot was slain upon the holy altar by the hand of the Danish king Oskytal, ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... a man, had stepped into the dim-lit room and was fumbling with the lock, his eyes fixed upon them, meanwhile, over his shoulder. The light from the windows had faded, the faint illumination from the taper before the shrine was insufficient fully to pierce the gloom. But on the instant of his interruption all triumph and hope, all thoughts of love, fled from Norvin's mind, bursting like iridescent bubbles, at a touch. The flesh along his back writhed, the ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... stature, and his aspect animated and gentle. The first trick he performed, was to make a profound bow to the company, as he entered, after which he paid his respects to each individual of us, in the same manner. He next carried about a small stick in his mouth, to each end of which a small wax taper was attached. He was then blindfolded, and at the beat of a drum, fell upon his knees, and laid his head upon the ground. As soon as the word pardon was pronounced, he instantly sprang upon his feet. Dice ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... white from the fatigue of the journey, but beautiful as alabaster; at the blue of her eyes; at the delicate taper of her small white hands that from her birth had done only the daintiest of service; at the small feet that had never once walked the rough and sordid ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... fifty choristers be there The funeral dirge to sing, Who day and night by the taper's light Their aid to me ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... the taper waist, Shapeless grows the shapely limb, And although severely laced, Spreading is the ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... fire cheers not the gloom: How blue its weakly ray! And like a taper in a tomb, But ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... with which he had done the deed was lying upon the floor; a naked poniard, which he would probably have used also, had his thumb not been blown off by the discharge of the pistol, was found in his trunk hose. In his pockets were an Agnus Dei, a taper of green wax, two bits of hareskin, two dried toads—which were supposed to be sorcerer's charms—a, crucifix, a Jesuit catechism, a prayer-book, a pocket-book containing two Spanish bills of exchange—one for two thousand, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... late breakfast of the luxurious Grahams, and, just as the first level ray of sunshine flashed up from the east, she tied on her bonnet and noiselessly entered Cornelia's room. The heavy curtains kept it close and dark, and on the hearth a taper burned with pale, sickly light. Cornelia slept soundly; but her breathing was heavy and irregular, and the face wore a scowl, as if some severe pain had distorted it. The ivory-like arms were thrown up over the head, and large drops glistened on the wan brow. Beulah stood beside the ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... the Chinese Room; the sun streams through the windows, illuminating the wondrous golden dragons standing out in bold relief from the burnished lacquer work, decorating still further with light and shade the delicate silk embroideries thin taper hands have woven with infinite pains. The walls are hung with rice paper, depicting the conventional scenes of the ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... had been put out, and the gloom of the room was only lightened by a single bed-room taper, which, as it stood near the door, only served to render palpable the darkness of the further end of the chamber. For half an hour Lord Cashel walked to and fro, anxious, wretched, and in doubt, instead of going to his room. How he wished that ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... contain the Sand, and by being drove round very quick to and fro by means of a small Wheel, which may be mov'd with ones foot, serves to grind the Glass: The other Mandril is shap'd like this, but it has an even neck instead of a taper one, and runs in a Collar, that by the help of a Screw and a joynt made like M in the Figure, it can be still adjustned to the wearing or wasting neck: into the end of this Mandril is screwed a Chock N on which with Cement or Glew is fastned the piece of ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... endeavours! sure, all hearts are ope Lofty and low, wise and unwise, to praise. Even the departed spirit hovers round Our blessings and our prayers; the corse itself Hath shined with other light than the still stars Shed on its rest, or the dim taper, nigh. My father, old men say, who saw him dead And heard your lips pronounce him good and happy, Smiled faintly through the quiet gloom, that eve, And the shroud throbbed upon his grateful breast. Howe'er it be, many who tell the tale ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... gown, had a taste in the matter! That was the prime of art, sir. The sun stood high in heaven, and his broad and equal blaze made the darkest places bright and the dullest eyes clear. We live in the evening of time! We grope in the gray dusk, carrying each our poor little taper of selfish and painful wisdom, holding it up to the great models and to the dim idea, and seeing nothing but overwhelming greatness and dimness. The days of illumination are gone! But do you know I fancy—I fancy"—and ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... promised us, and so it proved, and done up with great neatness in a long roll of tarpaulin, which had been wrapped around both the loaves and the rope, and lashed very securely at the ends, thus producing a taper shape convenient for passing over the weed without catching. Now, when we came to open this parcel, we discovered that my hint had taken very sound effect; for there were in the parcel, besides the loaves, a boiled ham, a Dutch ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... excellent defence) of convicting her of witchcraft, and confederating with her lover to destroy him. He then attacked her on the weak side of frailty. This was undeniable. He consigned her to the severity of the church: she was carried to the bishop's palace, clothed in a white sheet, with a taper in her hand, and from thence conducted to the cathedral, and the cross, before which she made a confession of her only fault. Every other virtue bloomed in this ill-fated fair with the fullest vigour. She could ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... inmost shrine of all within, where the darkness broods, lit at intervals by the shining of a divine light, that glimmers on the ark and touches the taper wings of the adoring angels. The contents indeed of the sacred chest are of the simplest; a withered branch, a pot of food, two slabs of grey stone, obscurely engraved. Nothing rich or rare. But those who have access to the inner shrine are face to face with the ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... thine eyes in beauty fling Back the tall taper's splendour; Yet can still, and clear, and tender, Dwell on an ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... moulds for casting inter-cell connectors, terminals, terminal screws, taper lugs, plate straps and ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... which Tito spoke were a part of the procession esteemed very glorious by the Florentine populace; and being perhaps chiefly a kind of hyperbole for the all-efficacious wax taper, were also called ceri. But inasmuch as hyperbole is impracticable in a real and literal fashion, these gigantic ceri, some of them so large as to be of necessity carried on wheels, were not solid but hollow, and had their surface made not solely of wax, but of wood ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... in her composition a strong vein of the superstitious, and was pleased, among other fancies, to read alone in her chamber by a taper fixed in a candlestick which she had formed out of a human skull. One night, this strange piece of furniture acquired suddenly the power of locomotion, and, after performing some odd circles on her chimneypiece, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... threw aside her silk apron, and took a hasty glance of her face in the old eagle-topped mirror in the still-room; the young ladies discarded their coarse dirty pocket-handkerchiefs, and gently drew elaborately fringed ones through their taper fingers to give them an air of use, as they took a hasty review of themselves in the swing mirrors; the housemaid hurried off with a whole armful of brown holland; and Jawleyford threw himself into attitude in an elaborately carved, richly ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... poet to muse in! How he could roll his azure eyes and comb out his locks with his lily-white taper fingers, and gaze into space for a word to rhyme! How he would wrinkle his lofty brow, compress his cupidon upper lip, and unloose his neglige necktie, to give room for his bosom to swell with pride at the enchanting poem which would, at ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... called her "keepsakes," had been placed by her own hands in the upper part of the bag, so that the books should not weigh on them, and had been carefully protected by wrappings of cotton wool. Taking them out, one by one, Herbert found a delicate china candlestick (intended to hold a wax taper) broken into two pieces, in spite of the care that had been taken to preserve it. Of no great value in itself, old associations made the candlestick precious to Sydney. It had been broken at the stem and could be easily mended so as to keep the accident concealed. Consulting the ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... entered Madame's apartments, as Mademoiselle de Montalais had begged him to do. Madame was still seated at the table where she had written her letter. Before her was still burning the rose-colored taper she had used to seal it. Only in her deep reflection, for Madame seemed to be buried in thought, she had forgotten to extinguish the light. Bragelonne was a very model of elegance in every way; it was impossible ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... cabin," said Mr Frewen, and, drawing back some distance, he ran at the panel, raised his foot, struck it just above the handle, and it was driven right off, and he saw Miss Denning standing there, pale and large-eyed, holding a little taper in her hand, while in the bed-place lay her brother, gazing at us wildly, but for his countenance to change and become restful and calm as he saw that he was in the ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... folds of drapery, and softly retired to rest herself. Her uncle, on coming into the room at the dawn of morning, beheld the great Leonidas still sleeping, and his arm most lovingly encircling the churn dash, which no doubt in his dreams he mistook for the taper waist of Grace, when the loud laugh of the old man and his "helps," who had now risen, roused him. He got up and looked round him, but, with the Spartan firmness of his name-sake, said nothing, but went right off and married ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... from the sea blew in, which bent back the flame of the taper in his hand, and then across the threshold stepped the youngest son. He was still a sailor and clad in sailor blue, and there was a cutlass in his belt. So shaken with joy was the merchant that for some time he could not utter a word, but merely clung ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... intricate; huge warehouses, seven or eight stories high, loomed at either side of me; and at last, on turning an angle, a fresh sea-breeze met me, and showed that I was near the harbor. I avow that the sight of shipping, the tall and taper spars that streaked the sky of night, the clank of chain cables, and the heavy surging sound of the looming hulls, were any thing but encouraging, longing as I did for the rustling leaves of some green lane: ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... his face, the light in his eyes went out, and he rose from his stool with a short, dissatisfied sigh, which was repeated once or twice as he put away his work and arranged his tools. He made the rounds of the workshop, looked to the fastenings of the windows, lighted a taper, and then extinguished the lamp. He threw a loose overcoat over his shoulders without passing his arms through the sleeves, and went out into the street. Glancing up at the windows of his house opposite, he saw that the lights were burning brightly, and he guessed ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... we shall live forever, and that the Infinite God loves all of us, we can look on all the evils of the world, and see that it is only the hour before sunrise, and that the light is coming; and so we also, even we, may light a little taper, to illuminate the darkness while it lasts, and help until the day-spring come. Eternal morning follows the night: a rainbow scarfs the shoulders of every cloud that weeps its rain away to be flowers on land and pearls at sea: Life rises out of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... Minoan and Mycenaean columns seems most improbable. There are two essential parts in the Doric column, the shaft and the capital (the Greeks did not use any base for this order). The Minoan columns taper downwards instead of upwards, an utterly unconstructional form, and though in the palace of Knossos and at Tiryns columns of this shape appear to have been used to carry lintels, the stone columns ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... and ambitious woman, whose mind was so accomplished, and who had queened it so well at the Chateau d'Anzy, now condescending to household cares and sewing for the coming infant, moved the poor lawyer, who had just left the bench. And as he saw the pricks on one of the taper fingers he had so often kissed, he understood that Madame de la Baudraye was not merely ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... implanted in his heart. Then, when the daylight began to wane, and the moon and stars already grew beautiful in their places in the firmament, he would pass into the subterranean vaults of the edifice, trembling as his little taper scarcely dispelled the dull, solemn gloom, and listening with breathless attention for the voices of those guardian spirits whose fabled habitation was made in the apartments of the sacred place. Or, when the multitude had departed for their amusements and their ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... duty to this man, finished, mature, yet full of unawakened possibility; it was her duty to that large, vague world that his life touched, a world where her young faiths and vigors would bring a light such as her mother's gay little taper could never spread. These thoughts, and others, flashed through Imogen's mind, with the swiftness and exactitude of a drowning vision. Yet, after the long moment of vivid realization, it was at its height that a qualm, a sinking overtook her. The gift had come; of that she was sure. But its ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... destruction. At length, not fear but labor began to overcome him; his breath grew short, and his knees trembled, and he was on the point of lying down, in resignation to his fate, when he beheld, through the brambles, the glimmer of a taper. He advanced toward the light, and finding that it proceeded from the cottage of a hermit, he called humbly at the door, and obtained admission. The old man set before him such provisions as he had collected for himself, on which Obidah fed with ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... and paper, And fashioned in black and white, With Life for a flickering taper And Death for a blazing light— With the Armed and the Civil Power, That his strength might endure for a span— From Adam's Bridge to ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... have escaped from them before the servants of the family, in which case, detection would have been immediate, and imprisonment inevitable. Keeping it, therefore, entirely to himself, he concealed it from every eye during the day, and at night, after the family had gone to bed, he sat up, lighted his taper, and, when every thing was still and silent about him, ventured, only then, to read over the paper, and to get by heart the most important parts of the intelligence regarding England; and he afterwards transmitted the invaluable present to some secret friend, who, in the same manner, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... the blue taper's trembling light, No more I waste the wakeful night, Intent with endless view to pore The schoolmen and the sages o'er: Their books from wisdom widely stray, Or point at best the longest way. I'll seek a readier path, and go Where wisdom's surely ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... seemed to increase while the priest, bowing down with hands joined again, recited the Confiteor. She stood still, in her turn struck her breast, her head bowed, but still keeping a watchful eye on the taper. For another minute the priest's grave voice ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... appearance was the extraordinary brilliancy of his complexion, which shamed with its whiteness that of all fair ladies round, save where open on each cheek a bright red spot gave warning, as did the long thin neck and the taper hands, of sad possibilities, perhaps not far off; possibilities which all saw with an inward sigh, except she whose doting glances, as well as her resemblance to the fair youth, proclaimed her at once his ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... hearts of the purest Eros reigns with a too despotic power, and mild affection is apt to sneak away into some corner of the temple on whose shrine Love has descended. This mild affection is but a little twinkling taper, that will burn steadily on, perhaps unseen amidst the dazzling glory of Love's supernal lamp, to be found shining benignantly ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... composed; but for my own part I think a little warm drink before going to bed upon a night when owls hoot and chimnies are to be blown down, prepared by the small hands that one loves, and that all admire; where a dimple takes place of what in a plebeian hand is a knuckle, and the round fingers taper gently off toward points that are touched with damask and bordered with little rims of ivory; where bright eyes beam with kindness as well as wit; and words fall in silvery tones from a beautifully-formed mouth, like the renewal of life upon the soul of man! I think where one could enjoy all this, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! Fresh lily, And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch— But kiss, one kiss—'Tis her breathing that Perfumes the chamber thus: the flame o' th' taper Bows toward her, and would under-peep her lids To see th' enclosed lights now canopied Under the windows, white and azure, laced With blue of Heav'ns own tinct—on her left breast A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops I' ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... all reveries, like life itself, must end, Gilbert at length seemed to be aware of the reality of the unpretending bed in the corner. Having repeated the prayers which his piety suggested, he extinguished the almost exhausted taper, and threw himself upon the bed. He could not sleep, however; for, great as the fatigue of the day had been, the excitement was greater. His mind was perpetually recurring to the events at the spring, from which they wandered to his father's lonely and anxious chamber: now he remembered the earnest ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... taper burning on a slab outside the door. Walter had but half closed it behind her when she reappeared with the taper in one hand and the volume he had given her in the other. He took the book without a word, and again she went; but he had hardly thrown it on the hot coals ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... shall live with thee inclosed, I will loathe my pen and paper Art shall never be supposed, Sloth shall quench the watching taper. ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... had lost a little of its warm rich tint; the soft rings of hair were drawn away under her veil; her hands were thin, and as waxen as the taper she held. An unearthly ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... is the taper waist— Shapeless grows the shapely limb, And although securely laced, Spreading is the figure trim! Stouter than I used to be, Still more corpulent grow I— There will be too much of me In ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... distances, so that they are soft, alluring. The tower is pale, almost ethereal, at the end of the vista. Its great clock, pricked out with golden lamps, seems scarce a third of the way up its side. The white walls rise on, and on, with here and there a spot of gold, and taper into nothing. They are lost in the gloom of coming night. But still they must go on, for far aloft you see the lantern glowing like a star, hung between earth and heaven. In this twilight hour of blue and gold the tower is the mighty guardian spirit of the ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... awhile. It so chanced one day that he locked his shop and went home, and in the night there came to the bazar an artful thief disguised in the habit of the merchant, and pulling out keys from his sleeve, said to the watchman of the market, "Light me this wax-candle." The watchman took the taper and went to light it,—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... stair, his hair rising and his pulses halting at the slightest creak. When he was halfway down, he was disturbed to perceive that the landing below was touched by a faint glow of light. What could that mean? Was his uncle still up? No, that was not likely; he must have left his night taper there when he went to bed. Tom crept on down, pausing at every step to listen. He found the door standing open, and glanced it. What he saw pleased him beyond measure. His uncle was asleep on the sofa; on a small table at the head of the sofa a lamp was burning low, and by it stood the old man's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... mortise and tenon joint used by wheelwrights is shown. The dotted line (left-hand diagram) will indicate the amount of taper given to ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... herself not so well, and so clear in her intellects, [so much alive, she used to say,] if she exceeded this proportion. If she slept not, she chose to rise sooner. And in winter had her fire laid, and a taper ready burning to light it; not loving to give trouble to the servants, 'whose harder work, and later hours of going to bed,' she used ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... blasphemies spread throughout his frame. As tropic storms strike languid forests, swaying, threshing, rending trees this way and that, so a mighty rush of fury swept him. Slowly at first, then faster, the almost forgotten taper flame of manliness that flickered on the altar of his inmost being leaped higher, until it blazed as a consuming fire. The eyes of his soul were open; the strength of his soul grasped the sword of Humanity to strike for this child, and the thousands like her, whose injury ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... proportioned, slender, and almost delicate-looking, but muscular. He had the brilliant blue eyes of the d'Esgrignons, the finely-moulded aquiline nose, the perfect oval of the face, the auburn hair, the white skin, and the graceful gait of his family; he had their delicate extremities, their long taper fingers with the inward curve, and that peculiar distinction of shapeliness of the wrist and instep, that supple felicity of line, which is as sure a sign of race in men as in horses. Adroit and alert in all bodily exercises, ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... his desk a taper in a glass globe, looked at the clock. "Half-past nine," said he. "Mahal ought ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... being started too late to see our ladies before morning. However, at two that night, my saddle laid under my head, and haversack under the saddle, I fell asleep with all Gallatin for my bedchamber, the courthouse square for my bed, the sky for my tester, the pole-star for my taper, hogs for mosquitoes and a ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... mind the day of her first communion, and how pretty she had been at vespers, with her white veil and her large wax-taper, whilst the girls were all taking their places in a row around the choir, and ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... it was Mistress Pauncefort. She held a taper in her hand, and came tripping gingerly in, with a new cap streaming with ribands, and scarcely, as it were, condescending to execute the mission with which she was intrusted, which was no greater than fetching her lady's reticule. She glanced at the table, but it was not there; she turned ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... and I watched the brilliant figures swimming in the glow of wax candles. Face after face could be singled out as beautiful, and the scant dresses revealed taper forms. Madame de Ferrier's garments may have been white or blue or yellow; I remember only her satin arms and neck, the rosy color of her face, and the powder on her hair making it white as down. Where this assembly was collected from I did not ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... a casual suggestion, that flashed a new light on his mind, changed the boon companion into the hero and the man of genius; and with the most graceful transition he would make his company as serious as himself. When the taper of his genius seemed extinguished, it was still surrounded by an inflammable atmosphere of its own, and rekindled at the first approach of light, and not seldom at a distance which made it seem to ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... sitting, one Sunday, soon after my arrival, in the little country church of San Martino, a couple of miles from the city, while a baptism took place. I saw the priest, and an attendant with a large taper, and a man, and a woman, and some others; but I had no more idea, until the ceremony was all over, that it was a baptism, or that the curious little stiff instrument, that was passed from one to another, in the course of the ceremony, by the handle—like a short poker—was a child, than I had that ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... alms, in which she bestowed her whole revenue on the poor, she was truly the mother of all the distressed; though her father's castle was two miles from the church of our Saviour at Morzelle, she went thither early every morning, with a maid to carry a lantern before her; and the wax taper being once put out, is said to have miraculously lighted again at her prayers, whence she is usually represented in pictures with a lantern. She died on the 8th of January, not in 670, as Miraeus says, but in 712, and was buried at Ham, near Villevord. In the reign of Charlemagne, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... generally denies him beard, so he shaves what a sailor would term the fore and after part of his head. He reaps his hirsute crop dry, using no lather. His cue is pieced out by silken braid, so interwoven as gradually to taper into a slim tassel, something like a Missouri mule-driver's "black snake" whip-lash. To lose this cue is to lose caste and standing among his fellows. No misfortune for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... pilgrim, ascetic, even the butcher and candlestick maker. And while we do not know it, really we are working together for one end hidden now in the divine economy of far-off destiny and justice.... To me the wonder of wonders is that I may some day light a little taper in your upper chamber myself, and kneel together with you before the same window to worship. Only, dear Heart, please get your deity named before ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... the saw is not approximately parallel to the axis of the log the grain of the lumber cut is not parallel to the edges and is termed diagonal. This is likely to occur where the logs have considerable taper, and in this case may be produced if sawed parallel to the axis of growth instead of parallel to ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... resounded in the desolate room, scantily lighted with the dim taper—no laughter as the queen and the princess put on their strange, fearful attire. It was no masquerade, but a dreadful, horrible reality; and as they looked at each other wearing the costume of revolutionists, tears ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... would have been immediate, and imprisonment inevitable. Keeping it, therefore, entirely to himself, he concealed it from every eye during the day, and at night, after the family had gone to bed, he sat up, lighted his taper, and, when every thing was still and silent about him, ventured, only then, to read over the paper, and to get by heart the most important parts of the intelligence regarding England; and he afterwards transmitted the invaluable present to some secret friend, who, in the ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... splendour—it was the pre-trapeze age, and we were caught by mild marvels, even if a friendly good faith in them, something sweet and sympathetic, was after all a value, whether of their own humanity, their own special quality, or only of our innocence, never to be renewed; but I light this taper to the initiators, so to call them, whom I remembered, when we had left them behind, as if they had given us a silver key to carry off and so to refit, after long years, to sweet names never thought of from then till now. Signor Leon Javelli, in whom the French and the Italian charm appear to have ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... think for slaves, to enjoy the chase and the race-ground, to extol their pedigree, and traduce labor, and lead retainers to war—would be a government for the few over the many, an aristocracy of blood and privilege, of curled moustache and taper fingers; but not a republic of patriots, of self-made men, of equal privilege and just laws. It would be a return to semi-barbarism, to the age of Louis XIV., or ...
— Government and Rebellion • E. E. Adams
... ground, 325 AEneas with the busy crew he found, Planning new structures for the rising town. Bright with a radiant gem his sword hung down, A mantle graceful o'er his shoulder thrown With sparkling gold and Tyrian purple shone. 330 'Twas Dido's present: thro' the blushing thread The docile gold her taper fingers led. The god accosts him.—"With uxorious care The walls of Carthage does AEneas rear, Himself forgotten and his future state? 335 But he that reigns—the pow'r who next to Fate, Roles Earth and Heav'n, and moves them with a nod, ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... tent there were heaps of luxuries—dining-rooms, dressing-rooms, libraries, bedrooms, drawing-rooms, oratories, all crowded into the space of a hearthrug. The first night, I remember, with my books and maps about me, I wanted light; they brought me a taper, and immediately from out of the silent Desert there rushed in a flood of life unseen before. Monsters of moths, of all shapes and hues, that never before perhaps had looked upon the shining of a flame, now madly thronged ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... Washington Monument, sending up a huge spout of dust that veiled it from his eyes. Instinctively Dick shot toward the scene. Slowly the dust subsided, and then a yell of exultation broke from Dick's lips. The noble shaft still stood, a slim taper pointing to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... give up thy nature to fly out and mingle among men. Then the years that would have belonged to thee will be contracted to half the span of the ephemeral fly, that lives but a day: one night, and thy life-taper shall be blown out—the leaves of the tree will wither and be blown away, to become green ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... is indeed an object deserving of particular admiration. It is next to that of Strasburg in height; being 432 feet of Vienna measurement. It may be said to begin to taper from the first stage or floor; and is distinguished for its open and sometimes intricate fretwork. About two-thirds of its height, just above the clock, and where the more slender part of the spire commences, there is a ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... Ramsay, taking up her hand, which lay listless at her side, and playing with her taper fingers, "you really think William of Nassau is ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... effect will be if an imperfect pivot is fitted into an unround hole jewel, and to demonstrate its action more clearly let us exaggerate the defects. Suppose we pick a perfectly round jewel and insert into the opening a three-cornered piece of steel wire, in shape somewhat resembling the taper of a triangular file. We find that this triangular piece of steel will turn in the jewel with the same ease that the most perfect cylindrical pivot will. Now suppose we change the jewel for one that is out of round and repeat the experiment. We now find that ...
— A Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting • Eugene E. Hall
... lighted taper in hand, the laughing Fandor closed the two leaves of the door with the utmost care, and went forward whistling a marching tune. His objective was a certain little staircase leading to the top story of the Palais, and this he mounted with vigorous determination. There was no likelihood of chance ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... streets and arranges fresh festivals; trade flourishes under his rule, and the people find themselves well off, in spite of the many taxes laid upon them. But what are the people? a vulgar multitude who, like the gnats, fly towards every thing brilliant, and, so long as the taper burns, will continue to flutter round it, even though they burn their wings in doing so. Let Pisistratus' torch burn out, Phanes, and I'll swear that the fickle crowd will flock around the returning nobles, the new light, just as they ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a brother's love to share"— I did not read thy features dreamingly, And peer into thine eye's deep azure, there Searching another's depths, in revery! I did not press, all passionless, thy hand Or idly dally with thy taper finger, Or coldly gaze, for I could not withstand The high and holy hope which bade ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... tunic streams to his very feet. He is girt in the Greek style, and a cloak covers either arm down to the wrists. The rest of the cloak hangs down in graceful folds. His lyre is fastened by an engraven baldric, which holds it close to the body. His hands are delicate and taper. The left touches the strings with parted fingers, the right is in the attitude of one that plays and is approaching the lyre with the plectrum, as though ready to strike as soon as the voice ceases for a moment to sing. Meanwhile the ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... sicknesse all the yeare. When every one receyved hath this odour, great and small, Then one takes up the pan with Coales, and Franckensence, and all, Another takes the loafe, whom all the rest do follow here, And round about the house they go, with torch or taper clere, That neither bread nor meat do want, nor witch with dreadful charme Have powre to hurt their children, or to do their cattell harme. There are, that three nightes onely do perfourme this foolish geare, To this intent, and ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... Isaac Newton's papers, by his little dog 'Diamond' upsetting a lighted taper upon his desk, by which the elaborate calculations of many years were in a moment destroyed, is a well-known anecdote, and need not be repeated: it is said that the loss caused the philosopher such profound grief that it seriously injured his health, and ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... to be all buttress, but here such an impression could never for a moment be gained, for the chapel filling each bay completely masks the widest portion of the adjoining buttresses. The upper portions are so admirably proportioned that they taper up to a comparatively slight finial ...
— Beautiful Britain—Cambridge • Gordon Home
... lantern," said Gregorios. "You did not know that? A long time afterwards the man who opens the towers confessed that when he had gone up with the brothers and the kavass he had found that his taper was burnt out. He picked up the kavass's lantern and carried it down, meaning to return with the next party of foreigners. No other foreigners came, and when he went up to find the Patoffs they were gone and the carriage was gone. He kept the lantern, ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... acted very well, causing ignition. With carbonic acid the results were still more striking. A mixture of three volumes of that gas with one of hydrogen caused ignition of the platina, yet that mixture would not continue to burn from the jet when attempts were made to light it by a taper. A mixture even of seven volumes of carbonic acid and one of hydrogen will thus cause the ignition of cold spongy platina, and yet, as if to supply a contrast, than which none can be greater, it cannot burn at a taper, but causes the extinction of the latter. On the other hand, ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... formed three columns of steamers and sailing vessels in tow; and brigade followed brigade. The shallow water of the sound was scarcely ruffled by a breeze. It lay like a field of silver before the furrows of the fleet. The tall, taper masts of the schooners pointed like needles to the sky under which they moved. The aisles between the three columns of ships were unbroken through the whole length of the fleet, which extended for two miles over the surface of the sound, and advanced with such ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... to trade awhile. It so chanced one day that he locked his shop and went home, and in the night there came to the bazar an artful thief disguised in the habit of the merchant, and pulling out keys from his sleeve, said to the watchman of the market, "Light me this wax-candle." The watchman took the taper and went to light it,—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... was awakened. Thorstan Black stood by the bed with a taper. She gaped at him, cold to ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... upward into the pot instead of horizontally. The inner ends are secured in position by one or two cords extending to the center frame. The funnels are about 11 or 12 inches deep, and therefore extend about halfway to the center of the pot. They taper rapidly and form a strongly inclined plane, up which the lobsters must climb in their search for the bait. A two-strand manila twine is most commonly used for the funnels. Cotton is also used, but is more expensive ...
— The Lobster Fishery of Maine - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Vol. 19, Pages 241-265, 1899 • John N. Cobb
... exquisitely cooked rice and another mountain of chapatis, which are something like brown pancakes. The dishes stood in four rows, each row containing twelve dishes; and between the rows burned three aromatic sticks of the size of a small church taper. Our part of the hall was brightly lit with green and red candles. The chandeliers which held these candles were of a very queer shape. They each represented the trunk of a tree with a seven-headed cobra wound ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... encounter. It was reduced to its original dimensions, within the compass of a single city; and depending for its preservation on the fortune of a siege, it was extinguished at a blow; and the brand, which had filled the world with its flames, sunk like a taper ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... passing shape of Feliu, making for the beach—a broad and bearded silhouette, bending against the wind. Still the waxen Virgin smiled her Mexican smile,—but now she was only seven inches high; and her bead-glass eyes seemed to twinkle with kindliness while the flame of the last expiring taper struggled for life in the earthen socket at ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... an estrade. The ladies of the emirs, viziers, those of the sultan's bed-chamber, and several other ladies of the court and city, were placed on each side, a little lower, every one according to her rank, and richly dressed, holding a large wax taper in her hands. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... saw not this: each wreath of smoke Appeared to him but as the magic vapour Of some alchymic furnace, from whence broke The wealth of worlds (a wealth of tax and paper): The gloomy clouds, which o'er it as a yoke Are bowed, and put the Sun out like a taper, Were nothing but the natural atmosphere, Extremely wholesome, though ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... still, she confronted me, and I now observed that she was not so tall as from below I had imagined. She was, in fact, of a short stature rather, but of proportions so exquisite that she conveyed an impression of some height. In her hand she held a taper by whose light she had been surveying herself in her mirror at the moment of my advent. Her unbound hair of brown fell like a mantle about her shoulders, and this fact it was drew me to notice that she was in her ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... the name of Hedge Taper, and used to be called Torch, because the stalks were dipped in suet, and burnt for giving light at funerals and other gatherings. "It is a plant," says the Grete Herball, "whereof is made a manner of lynke if it ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... same great dusky fresco in the concave ceiling. The daughter is not rich, I suppose, any more than the mother. The furniture is worn and faded, and I was admitted by a solitary servant, who carried a twinkling taper before me up the ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... saw the notary look over the will, while Schmucke lighted a taper (Pons watching her reflection all the while in a mirror). She saw the envelope sealed, saw Pons give it to Schmucke, and heard him say that it must be put away in a secret drawer in his bureau. Then the testator asked for the key, tied it to the corner of ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... had been placed by her own hands in the upper part of the bag, so that the books should not weigh on them, and had been carefully protected by wrappings of cotton wool. Taking them out, one by one, Herbert found a delicate china candlestick (intended to hold a wax taper) broken into two pieces, in spite of the care that had been taken to preserve it. Of no great value in itself, old associations made the candlestick precious to Sydney. It had been broken at the stem and could be easily ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... conclusion nor the means of attaining to it. Man works from ignorance towards greater knowledge with very limited powers. His little circle of light is surrounded by a wall of darkness, which he strives to penetrate and lighten, now groping blindly on its verge, now advancing his taper light and peering forward; yet unable to go far, and even afraid to venture, in case ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... long, and in bignesse answerable, hauing a horne of two yards long growing out of the snoute or nostrels. [Sidenote: The finding of an Vnicornes horne.] This horne is wreathed and straite, like in fashion to a Taper made of waxe, and may truely be thought to be the sea Vnicorne.[68] This home is to be seene and reserued as a Iewell by the Queenes Maiesties commandement, in ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... and retired through one of the draped openings. In his hand he held the taper with which he had lighted the lamps. In order that the draperies should not be singed he had to hold them widely apart. For it had not occurred to Hassan to extinguish the taper. The Egyptian mind is complex ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... other essential points, is likewise at one with him in his views on human knowledge, or, as he terms it, wisdom, which is the source of the highest good within the reach of man. The only light which we have to guide us through the murky mazes of existence, is at best but a miserable taper which serves only to render the eternal darkness painfully visible. "I set my heart to learn wisdom and understanding. And my heart discerned much wisdom and knowledge.... I realised that this also is but a grasping of wind."[121] The scenes it reveals in the moral ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... bosom. Even friendship is extinct. Your love for me has prompted me to this task; but I would not have complied if it had not been a luxury thus to feast upon my woes. I have justly calculated upon my remnant of strength. When I lay down the pen the taper of life will expire; my existence will terminate with ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... glorious; Et bonum quo antiquius, eo melius. If you, born in these latter times, When wit's more ripe, accept my rhymes, And that to hear an old man sing May to your wishes pleasure bring, I life would wish, and that I might Waste it for you, like taper-light. This Antioch, then, Antiochus the Great Built up, this city, for his chiefest seat; The fairest in all Syria, I tell you what mine authors say: This king unto him took a fere, Who died and left a female heir, So buxom, so blithe, and full of face, As heaven had lent her all his grace; ...
— Pericles Prince of Tyre • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... busy craftsmen and the o'er-labour'd hind Forget the travail of the day in sleep: Care only wakes, and moping pensiveness; With meagre discontented looks they sit, And watch the wasting of the midnight taper. Such vigils must I keep, so wakes my soul, Restless and self-tormented! O, false Hastings! Thou hast destroy'd my peace. [knocking without. What noise is that? What visitor is this, who, ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... it so difficult to wait when she had so much to say. But she only fidgeted a little as mamma scrawled off an address in letters which Quillie thought would cover half her copy-book, then the little taper was lighted, the wax was melted, the pretty crest was imprinted on the seal, and mamma turned with a relieved ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... with three others to assist, and in another minute or two the end of the tall taper stick was dropped into the hole and fixed there. A hole had been already bored in the top and a rope rove through it, to which Lumley soon attached the corners of ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... Ptolemaeus, an excellent describer of the world, has made mention of it in the second book of his work, saying: "There is a great island situated in the surge of the northern Ocean, Scandza by name, in the shape of a juniper leaf with bulging sides that taper down to a point at a long end." Pomponius Mela also makes mention of it as situated in the Codan Gulf of the sea, with Ocean lapping ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... breasts seraphic glow: 320 Thou, Abelard! the last sad office pay, And smooth my passage to the realms of day; See my lips tremble, and my eyeballs roll, Suck my last breath, and catch my flying soul! Ah, no!—in sacred vestments may'st thou stand, The hallow'd taper trembling in thy hand, Present the cross before my lifted eye, Teach me at once, and learn of me to die. Ah, then thy once-loved Eloisa see! It will be then no crime to gaze on me. 330 See from my cheek the transient roses fly! See the last sparkle languish in my eye! ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... throngs of Knights and Barons bold, In weeds of Peace high triumphs hold, 120 With store of Ladies, whose bright eies Rain influence, and judge the prise Of Wit, or Arms, while both contend To win her Grace, whom all commend. There let Hymen oft appear In Saffron robe, with Taper clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask, and antique Pageantry, Such sights as youthfull Poets dream On Summer eeves by haunted stream. 130 Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonsons learned ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... brought up his two children, Fanny and Felix, in the Lutheran faith. Between the brother and sister there existed the most intimate understanding and affection, lasting through their entire lives. Both were musically gifted, possessing delicate hands and taper fingers that were often spoken of as if made expressly ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... Amelia Island which is a quarter of a mile long with a medium depth of three feet and a breadth of nearly five. That of Bear's Point covers sixty acres of ground, that of Anercerty Point one hundred, and that of Santa Rosa five hundred. Others taper to a great height. Turtle Mound, near Smyrna, is formed of a mass of oyster shells attaining a height of nearly thirty feet, and the height of several others is more than forty feet.[119] In all of them bushels of shells have already been found, ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... manifesting their joy by all sorts of games and jokes during the whole course of the march. When at length we had reached a small rising ground overlooking my village the procession stopped, and every one who had a part to act in the ceremony received a taper, which was forthwith lighted. The procession then moved on with slow and measured steps, headed by my uncle, who, assisted by my other uncle from the Three Churches, sang psalms as they walked forward, amidst all the noise of the surrounding lookers-on. The Russian ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... Still, the child had no doubt contrived to make her way into the great gloomy cavern of the grim Doctor's heart, and stole constantly further and further in, carrying a ray of sunshine in her hand as a taper to light her way, and illuminate the rude dark pit into which she so ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... master seized the wax taper. "Pardon me, my lord," says he. "What! a servant do it, when your son is in the room? Ah, par exemple, my dear father," said he, laughing, "you think there is no politeness left among us." And he ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... exquisite beauty of form was there, but the light of joy which had lent its most transcendent charms to that heavenly face, was gone. Charles was by her side in a moment. He had her hand clasped in his, while his disengaged one was wound tenderly around her taper waist. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... was leaving the chapel, she saw the younger of the Mehudins, Claire, the dealer in fresh water fish, come in. The girl lighted a taper at the candelabrum, and then went to kneel behind a pillar, her knees pressed upon the hard stones, and her face so pale beneath her loose fair hair that she seemed a corpse. And believing herself to be securely screened from observation, she gave way to violent emotion, and wept hot tears with ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... mistress), who induced her to accuse Lord Hastings of want of allegiance to the lord protector. The duke of Gloucester commanded the instant execution of Hastings; and, accusing Jane Shore of having bewitched him, condemned her to wander about in a sheet, holding a taper in her hand, and decreed that any one who offered her food or shelter should be put to death. Jane continued an outcast for three days, when her husband came to her succor, but he was seized by Gloucester's myrmidons, and Jane ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... a visible reality! Unlighted as yet, unpeopled, but gorgeous, multiform, sentinelled, and ready, it needed but the touch of the taper to set forth all the glories of art and wealth tenfolded by self-sacrifice for a hallowed cause. Here was the Bazaar, and yonder, far away on the southern border of Tennessee, its wasted ranks still spruce in their tatters, the battery; iron-hearted Bartleson in command; its six yellow daughters ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... of these walls were stretching its whole width between us! Besides—we are both past our youth! And, according to certain highly instructed scientists and philosophers, the senses and affections grow numb with age. I do not believe this theory myself—for the jejune love of youth is as a taper's flame to the great and passionate tenderness of maturity, when the soul, and not the body, claims its due; when love is not dragged down to the vulgar level of mere cohabitation, after the fashion of the animals in a farmyard, but rises to the best height of human sympathy and intelligent comprehension. ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... his lodging. Neither he nor Rex spoke during the quarter of an hour they employed in reaching the street door, but Rex's arm was aching with the effort of sustaining and directing his companion. He lit a taper and prepared to help him up the stairs. But the sight of the familiar entrance recalled Greif to himself and dissipated the first stupor of his grief. He ascended the steps firmly, though he went like a man overcome with fatigue, to whom every movement is difficult. ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... probably in consequence of inordinate precautions, had left no mark upon his hands; and the Maletroit hand was famous. It would be difficult to imagine anything at once so fleshy and so delicate in design; the taper, sensual fingers were like those of one of Leonardo's women; the fork of the thumb made a dimple protuberance when closed; the nails were perfectly shaped, and of a dead, surprising whiteness. It rendered his aspect tenfold more redoubtable, that a man with hands like these should ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his mother had implanted in his heart. Then, when the daylight began to wane, and the moon and stars already grew beautiful in their places in the firmament, he would pass into the subterranean vaults of the edifice, trembling as his little taper scarcely dispelled the dull, solemn gloom, and listening with breathless attention for the voices of those guardian spirits whose fabled habitation was made in the apartments of the sacred place. Or, when the multitude had departed for their amusements and their homes, he would steal ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... fainting on the Duchess' skirt. She ordered her servants to fan him and to throw water in his face, and he regained consciousness just as one of the carts was passing. It was drawn by four oxen, completely covered with black cloth, and attached to each horn was a lighted wax taper. Leading the oxen were two demons with such horrible, frightful faces that Sancho shut his eyes tightly after having got one glance of them. An old, worthy-looking man with a long, snow-white beard sat on a raised seat on the cart; and when he passed Don Quixote he said in a deep voice: ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... a very valuable gold watch, a gold watch chain, 2 gold watch keys, a gold seal, a silver mustard pot and spoon, a silver salt stand, a scent bottle, a china basket, 3 china jugs, a china cup and saucer and mug 2 taper candlesticks, a ring stand, 2 spill cups, a card stand, a lamp, a claret jug, a pair of decanters, 6 hock glasses, 14 claret glasses, 6 finger glasses, and a set of china tea things. The donor has found true riches and peace to his soul in the Lord Jesus; and he is thus led to send ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... width of 5 inches, while the bottom piece has a width of 4 inches at the forward section. The deck measures 3-1/2 inches at the stern, while the bottom piece measures 4-1/2 inches at the stern. This produces a half-inch taper on each side of the stern. A half-inch taper is also produced on ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... the way of making several implements or weapons is not entirely clear. We got several obsidian maces or lance-heads—one about ten inches long—which were taper from base to point, and covered with taper flutings; and there are other things which present great difficulties. I have heard on good authority, that somewhere in Peru, the Indians still have a way of working obsidian by laying a bone wedge on ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... carts, covered with round awnings, and containing sides of pork hung on each side of the vehicle over a bed of straw. Seen from the back end, the interiors of the carts looked like recesses of some tabernacle, like some taper-lighted chapel, such was the glow of all the bare flesh they contained. And on the beds of straw were lines of tin cans, full of the blood that had trickled from the pigs. Thereupon Florent was attacked ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... refined in breasts seraphic glow; Thou, Abelard! the last sad office pay, And smooth my passage to the realms of day; See my lips tremble and my eye-balls roll, Suck my last breath and catch my flying soul! Ah no—in sacred vestments may'st thou stand, The hallowed taper trembling in thy hand, Present the Cross before my lifted eye, Teach me at once and learn of me ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... created Oedipus and his wife Jocasta. It was extraordinarily popular, as, indeed, were all the plays Mrs. Behn marshalls forth in this preface. The scene particularly referred to is Act ii, I: 'Oedipus enters, walking asleep in his Shirt, with a Dagger in his Right-Hand and a Taper in his Left.' A little after 'Enter Jocasta, attended with Lights, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... fare. Fairies you have by scores in flesh-coloured tights, spangles, and paucity of petticoats; gnomes of every description, from the gigantic glittering diamond beetle, to the grotesque and dusky tadpole. Epicene princes, whose taper limbs and swelling busts are well worth the scrutiny of the opera-glass—dragons vomiting at once red flames and witticisms about the fountains in Trafalgar Square—Dan O'Connell figuring in the feathers of a Milesian owl—and the Seven Champions of Christendom ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... light of the small taper there was a mutual search for it—why mutual Miss Gascoigne best knew. It was she who picked it up, and before she had delivered it back she had clearly seen it all— handwriting, seal and tinted envelope, with the initials "E. U." ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... elder of the two men lean over the bed and raise one of the sleeper's eyelids with his thumb. The nurse took up a lighted taper by the table beside her and passed it in front of the opened eye. The man closed the eyelid, and turned and said something to the Countess and the other man. The Countess nodded and smiled, not quite as a man likes to see a woman smile, and, with a swift glance ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... you've gathered them for me, I know!' said Cynthia, sitting down and beginning to feed herself daintily, touching them lightly with the ends of her taper fingers, and dropping each ripe berry into her open mouth. When she had eaten about half she ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the children was sick and Gussie had not told him? The last thought sent him flying up the stairs three steps at a time, and he reached the flag room door so breathless that he could scarcely turn the knob. The bed was empty. Only a wee taper from the Christmas tree burned ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... a small sombre room within, with a bare yellow-washed floor and ragged curtains at the little window. In a corner was a diminutive altar draped with threadbare lace. The red glow of the taper lighted a cheap print of St. Joseph and a brazen crucifix. The human element in the room was furnished by a little, wizened yellow woman, who, black-robed, turbaned, and stern, sat before an uncertain table ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... "Peste!" said he in a vicious whisper. But the other laid his hand on his shoulder and whispered, "Look to the front." He looked, and, his own candle being out, saw a glimmer on ahead. He crept towards it. It was a taper shooting a feeble light across a small aperture. They caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a small apartment. Yet Edouard recognized the carpet of the tapestried room—which was a very large room. Creeping a yard nearer, he discovered that it was the tapestried ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... not wait for any one. In another minute, a bouncing and scratching was heard on the stairs, and a white bulldog rushed in, a gem in his way; for his brow was broad and massive, his skin was as fine as a lady's, and his tail taper and nearly as thin as a clay pipe. His general look, and a way he had of going 'snuzzling' about the calves of strangers, were not pleasant for nervous people. Tom, however, was used to dogs, and soon became friends with him, which evidently pleased ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... flowing blue robes and red caps; then follow musicians, and the squires of the Doge in black velvet; then the guards of the Doge, two chancellors, the secretary of the Pregadi, a deacon clad in purple and bearing a wax taper, six canons, three parish priests in their sacerdotal robes, and the Doge's chaplain dressed in crimson. The grand chancellor is known by his crimson vesture. Two squires bear the Doge's chair and ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... this taper burns! Ha! who comes here? I think it is the weakness of mine eyes That ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... weather, as I intend it must be, in a recess in the garden. I was going to tell you that my house is so monastic, that I have a little hall decked with long saints in lean arched windows, and with taper columns, which we call the Paraclete, in ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... fingers fine, The sea-shell tint of their taper tips, The sight of them stirred my blood like wine, Oh, to hold them ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... who falls per force into the reptile's mouth, so do I plunge into its columns, read it with desperation, and when the poison has circulated, throw it away in despair. If I am reminded to say grace at dinner, I commence "My Lords, and gentlemen;" and when I seek my bed, as I light my taper, I move "that the House do now adjourn." The tradesmen's bills are swelled by my disease into the budget, and the checks upon my banker into supplies. Even my children laugh and wonder at the answers ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... stalwart, strapping Hindoo before you. He turns round, and lo, a bashful maiden. Her eyes are stained with henna (myrtle juice) or antimony. Her long-hair neatly smoothed down is tied into a knot at the back, and glistens with the pearl-like ornaments. The taper arm is loaded with armlets and bracelets. The very toes are bedecked with rings. The bodice hides the taper waist and budding bosom, the tiny ear is loaded with jewelled ear-rings, the very nose is not forgotten, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... host o'erthrown upon Pavia's plains, That, bound for Naples, halts upon its way: As an ill-nourished lamp or taper wanes, For want of wax or oil, with flickering ray. Lo! the king leaves his sons in Spanish chains, And home returns, his own domain to sway. Lo! while in Italy he leads his band, Another wars upon ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... hills and rocks and streams, and strange new races of men. These are incidents in which the authentic history of the discovery of our continent exceeds the specious wonders of romance, as much as gold excels tinsel, or the sun in the heavens outshines the flickering taper. ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... had taken her down to Walton in mid-July; she had chanced to meet Melusine there, and the two had embraced as sisters should. It is to be owned that her adoption by Charles Street had restored her credit with her family more certainly than any white sheet and taper which she could have supported would have done. Her mother was highly gratified, though she affected a shrug when good Mr. Percival, in the simplicity of his heart, overflowed with the joy of it. "Sancie in Berkeley Square—where Lord Rosebery lives: think of that, my dear!" And ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... stood a large pitcher of iced water; a square case-bottle of cut crystal filled, as the flavor which pervaded the whole room sufficiently demonstrated, with superb old Antigua Shrub; several large rummers corresponding to the fashion of the bottle; a twisted taper of green wax, and a small silver plate with six or ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... have a superstition in the East, That Allah, written on a piece of paper, Is better unction than can come of priest, Of rolling incense, and of lighted taper: Holding, that any scrap which bears that name In any characters its front impress'd on, Shall help the finder thro' the purging flame, And give his toasted feet a ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... more, glancing with careful, uninterested nonchalance at the gas-burners which exploded one after another with a little plop under the application of the maid's taper. The white table gleamed more whitely than ever under the flaring gas. People at the end of the room away from the window instinctively smiled, as though the sun had begun to shine. The aspect of the dinner was changed, ameliorated; ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... interest, till Dundas drew up his chair opposite at the table. There the light from the tallow dip, guttering in the centre, fell upon his handsome face and eyes, his carefully tended beard and hair, his immaculate cuffs and delicate hand, the seal-ring on his taper finger. ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... increases in diameter the bundles become broader and broader toward the outside, and taper to a point toward the centre, appearing wedge-shaped, the inner ends projecting into the pith. The outer limits of the bundles are not nearly so distinct, and it is not easy to tell when the phloem of the bundles ends and the ground ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... lifted the lantern now, and I was striving to touch the wax taper to the wick, with imminent danger ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... By thinking else than that thy love was true. But I obtain no response to my cries, Making within my soul all void, and cold, And comfortless. Ay, empty, as this grate, Of life, wherefrom the fire has well nigh fled, Leaving but chasmed ugliness and ruin: And weak as faltering of these taper flames Half sunken in their sockets, by whose gleam I see, though faintly, where my books stand ranged Most mute; though sometime eloquent to me; And where my pictures hang with other forms Instinct from what I know: where ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... running stream's chieftain[93] Is trailing to land, So flabby, so grimy, So sickly, so slimy,— The spots of his prime he Has rusted with sand; Crook-snouted his crest is That taper'd ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... calcareous beads (as may be known by their dissolving with effervescence in any acid, and breaking easily under the needle); these are the 3/2000ths of an inch in their larger external diameter; they are rather deeply imbedded in the outer integument, and taper a little downwards ending in a concave terminal point, into which a minute tubulus enters, like those passing into and through the valves of ordinary Cirripedia: along the axis of imbedment, they are often 4/2000ths of an inch in length. These calcareous ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... the clergy began to leave the church, the lower orders coming first. All, in surplices, covered their heads with their caps, under the porch; and each one held a large, lighted wax taper; those at the right in their right hand, and those at the left in their left hand, outside the rank, so there was a double row of flame, almost deadened by the brightness of the day. First were representatives from the great seminaries, the parishes, ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... shall see them afterwards?" Charles resumed, in a sharp, eager whisper. "In our dreams, man? Or when the watchman cries, and we awake, and the monks are singing lauds at St. Germain, and—and the taper ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... a gate where honeysuckle grew, and above, on the low-dormered roof, a white pigeon sat preening its feathers. Up the main street, where a few sunken bricks of a vanished pavement were still visible, an old negro woman, sitting on the stone before her cabin, lighted her replenished pipe with a taper, and leaned back, smoking, in the doorway, her scarlet handkerchief making a spot of ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... shaking with malaria, caught in the rice-fields, and hardly able to hold the taper in his trembling hands, hesitated at ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Cristobal; or so thought the lad. He had no money to spend, and little but pain for his holiday-cheer. A patch here and there in his worn clothes was the best present his thrifty mother was able to make; always excepting the little variegated taper, which few were too poor ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... from those that deck Thy taper fingers, white brow or neck; Young girl, a rose from thy glossy hair, One inch of that lace so costly and rare, Would give food and heat, and cheerful light To that wretched home, for at ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... not know,—a new arrival. Just then Miss Stanley looked round, saw her, and signalled smilingly to her to come and join them. Slowly she walked towards the little party, still twirling the card in her taper fingers. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... they have dragged the mouldering carcass of paganism from the grave, animated her lifeless form with a spark stolen from the sacred altar, arrayed her in the spoils of Christianity, re-lighted her extinguished taper at the torch of revelation, dignified her with the name of natural religion, and exalted her in the temple of reason, as a goddess, able, without divine assistance, to guide mankind to truth and happiness. ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Bordereau's room was open and I could see beyond it the faintness of a taper. There was no sound—my footstep caused no one to stir. I came further into the room; I lingered there with my lamp in my hand. I wanted to give Miss Tita a chance to come to me if she were with her aunt, as she must be. I made no noise to call her; I only waited to see ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... himself represents him in a dark doublet having wide sleeves and a square collar closed in front. His thumb is in his pallet, and the other hand, with fingers taper and delicate as those of a hand by Van Dyck, holds one of his brushes. The smooth face, with regular features, is pale and thoughtful, and with the womanliness of the aspect increased from the dark hair, which is divided slightly to one ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... audience, a long seat with a high back and pew- like ends. At the rise of the curtain, Thomas Rigby, the rubicund landlord, is lighting with a taper the candles that stand on the mantelshelf, the buttons on his plum-colored waistcoat twinkling in the gleam. He has only lighted one when the door is pushed open, and there enter two young British lieutenants, mere lads, whose scarlet cloaks, exaggerated ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... how Hymen's taper-light Shows you how much is spent of night. See, see the bridegroom's torch Half wasted in the porch. And now those tapers five, That show the womb shall thrive, Their silv'ry flames advance, To tell all prosp'rous chance Still shall crown the happy life Of ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... Noah, has suffered himself to be cajoled by that most beguiling of all beguiling little divinities, Miss Walter, of The Transcript. We have been looking all over her article with the aid of a taper, to see if we could discover a single syllable of truth in it—and really blush to acknowledge that we cannot. The adorable creature has been telling a parcel of fibs about us, by way of revenge for something ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... continental fashion, as he remembered it in the case of a great, stern, burly ecclesiastic in Florence. The coffin stood on tressels in the aisle of Chapelizod church; and, of all persons in the world, he and Charles Nutter stood side by side as chief mourners, each with a great waxen taper burning in one hand, and a ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... good deal of graceful verse, and one or two pretty idyllic stories, and there were people who looked very hopefully on him as a rising light of literature. His sudden accession to wealth had almost buried the poor taper of his genius when the hands of Love triumphant took it suddenly at the time of that lazy lounge beneath the awning, and gave it a chance once more. He was meditating, as lovers will, upon his own unworthiness and the all-worthy attributes of the divine Lilian. And it came to him to ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... mile, and again to cross the main river to arrive at our camp. The Shillook canoe has often been described. It is formed of long pieces of the ambatch-wood, which is lighter than cork. These curious trees, which grow in the swamps of the White Nile, are thick at the base, and taper to a point, thus a number are lashed securely together, and the points are tied tightly with cord, so as to form a bow. These canoes or rafts generally convey two persons, and they are especially adapted for the marshy navigation of the river, ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... a larger diameter than the punch, the piece of metal thrust out is of larger diameter on the bottom side, and it comes out with an ease proportionate to the difference between the lower and upper diameters; or, in other words, it produces a taper hole in the plate, but allows the punching to be done with less consumption of power and, it is said, with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... whole width between us! Besides—we are both past our youth! And, according to certain highly instructed scientists and philosophers, the senses and affections grow numb with age. I do not believe this theory myself—for the jejune love of youth is as a taper's flame to the great and passionate tenderness of maturity, when the soul, and not the body, claims its due; when love is not dragged down to the vulgar level of mere cohabitation, after the fashion of the animals in a farmyard, but rises to the best height ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... affected indifference; but, alas! our courage was failing—at least mine was—very fast. However, we gained the cross-trees pretty well, and then sat down for a little to recover breath. The topgallant-mast still reared its taper form high above me, and the worst was yet to come. The top-gallant shrouds had no ratlines on them, so I was obliged to shin up; and, as I worked myself up the two small ropes, the tenacity with which I grasped them was fearful. At last I reached the top, and with my feet on the small ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... from Akil his stead is come again; Prize hath he made of steeds and many a baggage-train; Yea, horses hath he brought, full fair of shape and hue, Whose collars, anklet-like, ring to the bridle-rein. Taper of hoofs and straight of stature, in the dust They prance, as like a flood they pour across the plain; And on their saddles perched are warriors richly clad, That with their hands do smite on kettle-drums amain. Couched are their limber spears, right long and lithe of point, Keen- ground ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... no doubt of a presence, or disturbed by the light of the taper on his eyelids. The doctor retired on tiptoe to the door which he noiselessly closed; then he went back to his room, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... wax candle, shedding its white light over the sharp features of the corpse. Moll Doyle was not to be put down by the Captain, whom she hated, and accordingly, in her phrase, "he got as good as he gave." And the Captain's wrath waxed fiercer, and he chucked the wax taper from the dead hand, and was on the point of flinging it ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... bearing the banner of the church, and followed by two boys, holding long flambeaux in their hands. Next came a double file of priests in their surplices, with a missal in one hand and a lighted wax taper in the other, chanting the funeral dirge at intervals—now pausing, and then again taking up the mournful burden of their lamentation, accompanied by others, who played upon a rude kind of bassoon, with a dismal and wailing sound. Then followed various symbols ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... ninety-six sides, the perimeter of the upper plane corresponding with a circle of eight feet diameter, that of the lower plane being six feet. The corresponding sides of these planes are connected by flat taper mirrors composed of thin glass silvered on the outside. When the reflector faces the sun at right angles, each mirror intercepts a pencil of rays of 32.61 square inches section, hence the entire reflecting surface receives the radiant heat of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... head of raven black hair, which hung in one dense mass of luxuriant curls all round his broad, marble-like brow, and quite over his manly shoulders, was leaning in a careless, graceful attitude against a splendid mahogany-cased piano, that stood in the centre of the apartment, and moving his white, taper fingers over the pearl-tipped keys, waking now rich bursts of song, and, anon, dwelling long on deep, solemn notes, that pierced the soul with melancholy. He did not move when the door opened, and Edith crossed the room and stood beside him ere he ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... passed, and still sweet slumber shed Its magic power around the hero's head— When forth Tahmineh came—a damsel held An amber taper, which the gloom dispelled, And near his pillow stood; in beauty bright, The monarch's daughter struck his wondering sight. Clear as the moon, in glowing charms arrayed, Her winning eyes the light of heaven displayed; Her cypress form entranced the gazer's view, Her waving curls, the heart, resistless, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... wanted her white neck a mite less full or her beautiful arms more slender. Never were hands more exquisite than hers, and it was a joy to look at them when she threaded her needle or adjusted her gold thimble to her taper middle finger as she sewed away on the little night-drawers or fashioned a bodice or ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... it was too likely that this exposure would bring on another attack. The Panther patted her two little hands between his own. Like most of his race, he had beautiful hands, soft and rounded even in his old age, with long taper fingers that had, I dare say, taken more than one scalp in ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... repeated strokes of the axe, wielded by brawny arms, the strong door presently fell with a crash into the room, and stepping over its fragments, the assailants stood in the presence of the occupants. By a taper, which was burning on a small table, the apartment was sufficiently lighted to make all ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... which he ever observed in his official intercourse with men. It was written by his own hand, a secretary copying as he wrote. When finished, the original was put into an envelope, which the secretary was about to seal with a wafer; but this Nelson would not permit, directing that taper and wax should be brought. The man sent was killed before he could return. When this was reported to the admiral, his only reply was, "Send another messenger;" and he waited until the wax came, and then saw that particular care was exercised to make ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... receyved hath this odour, great and small, Then one takes up the pan with Coales, and Franckensence, and all, Another takes the loafe, whom all the rest do follow here, And round about the house they go, with torch or taper clere, That neither bread nor meat do want, nor witch with dreadful charme Have powre to hurt their children, or to do their cattell harme. There are, that three nightes onely do perfourme this foolish geare, To this ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... deerskins in which one's feet sank deeply at every step; a blazing fire burned in a neat fireplace in one corner, and flooded the room with cheerful light; the tables were covered with bright American table-cloths; a tiny gilt taper was lighted before a massive gilt shrine opposite the door; the windows were of glass instead of the slabs of ice and the smoky fish bladders to which I had become accustomed; a few illustrated newspapers lay on a stand in one corner, and everything in the house ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... said Miriam with a smile, remarking the bewilderment of her guest—who in truth forgot to smoke—and taking up a thousand pound note from a bundle on the piano, she lighted it at the taper and proceeded to re-illumine the extinguished chibouk of ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... strong emotions to the spot, though it be a wilderness, where the ashes of those we have loved repose. Where the heart has laid down what it loved most, there it is desirous of laying itself down. No sculptured marble, no enduring monument, no honorable inscription, no ever-burning taper that would drive away the darkness of the tomb, can soften our sense of the reality of death, and hallow to our feelings the ground which is to cover us, like the consciousness that we shall sleep, dust to dust, with the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... end pointing horizontally. It should be quite round in its whole length, smooth and devoid of fringe or coarse hair. It should be moderate in length, rather short than long, thick at the root, and taper quickly to a fine point. It should have a downward carriage, and the dog should not be able to raise it above the level of the backbone. The tail should not curve at the end, otherwise it is known as "ring-tailed." The ideal length of tail is ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... which had lent its most transcendent charms to that heavenly face, was gone. Charles was by her side in a moment. He had her hand clasped in his, while his disengaged one was wound tenderly around her taper waist. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... note was written upon gilt-edged paper With a neat little crow-quill, slight and new;[ar] Her small white hand could hardly reach the taper, It trembled as magnetic needles do, And yet she did not let one tear escape her; The seal a sun-flower; "Elle vous suit partout,"[85] The motto cut upon a white cornelian; The wax ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the flames was more terrible than the roar of wild beasts, and the hour had come now in which he must think of his own safety, for the river of fire was flowing nearer and nearer from the direction of the island, and rolls of smoke covered the alley almost completely. The taper which he carried was quenched from the current of air. Vinicius rushed to the street, and ran at full speed toward the Via Portuensis, whence he had come; the fire seemed to pursue him with burning ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... an extended belly." {Thus} he says; and, as a serpent, he is lengthened out into an extended belly, and perceives scales growing on his hardened skin, and his black body become speckled with azure spots; and he falls flat on his breast, and his legs, joined into one, taper out by degrees into a thin round point. His arms are still remaining; those arms which remain he stretches out; and, as the tears are flowing down his face, still that of a man, he says, "Come hither, wife, come hither, most unhappy one, and, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... savage across the plain to Puzzoli. There we took bark and rowed out into the blue ocean, by the remains of a sturdy mole: many such, I imagine, adorned the bay in Roman ages crowned by vast lengths of slender pillars; pavilions at their extremities, and taper cypresses spiring above their balustrades: this character of villa occurs very frequently ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... asleep when Ruth, trembling with excitement, reached the house. Outside the sick room, lighted by a single taper, she met the nurse whose few hurried words, spoken with authority, calmed her, as Jack had been unable to do, and reassured her mind. "Compound fracture of the right arm, Miss," she whispered, "and badly bruised about the head, as they ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... tapestry door, which led to her apartments. Esmond stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce seemed to see until she was gone; and then her image was impressed upon him, and remained for ever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating, the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and her shining golden hair. He went to his own room, and to bed, where he tried to read, as his custom was; but he never knew what he was reading until afterwards he remembered ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... from him in every degree. By Wu Chi's own acts every tie of kinship had been effaced between them: the bowl had been broken, the taper blown out, empty air had filled his place. Wu Chi acknowledged no memory of a son; he could claim no reverence as a father. . . . Tiao's husband. . . . Then he was doubly childless. . . . The woman and her seed had withered, as ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... white, lying in her bed. Her face was thinner, but wonderfully beautiful. She stretched out her arms like two wings, and I rushed forward to this white, loving nest. My mother cried silently, as she always did. Then her hands played with my hair, which she let down and combed with her long, taper fingers. Then we asked each other a hundred questions. I wanted to know everything, and she did too, so that we had the most amusing duet of words, phrases, and kisses. I found that my mother had had a rather severe attack of pleurisy, that she was now getting better, but was not yet ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... is the inmost shrine of all within, where the darkness broods, lit at intervals by the shining of a divine light, that glimmers on the ark and touches the taper wings of the adoring angels. The contents indeed of the sacred chest are of the simplest; a withered branch, a pot of food, two slabs of grey stone, obscurely engraved. Nothing rich or rare. But those who have access to the inner shrine are face to face with the mystery. Some have ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... creature who is denied the milk of its mother's breast. Vouchsafe that she resemble her hapless parent in nothing but a chaste life. And thou, celestial warrior, that didst deliver the maiden out of the serpent's mouth, if I have ever lit humble taper on thine altar, and set before thee offerings of gold and incense, be, I implore thee, her advocate. Be her advocate to such purpose, that in every turn of fortune she may be enabled to count on thy good help.' Here she ceased, torn to her very heart-strings, with a face painted ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... game called itte-dhandu, after the names of the two pieces of wood with which it is played. It is a little like tip-cat. The itte is a rounded bit of wood 2-1/2 inches long and perhaps an inch in diameter. Sometimes the ends are made to taper, but experts say that this is not correct. The dhandu is a stick of similar diameter and about 15 inches long. It is a most exciting game, with an elaborate code of unwritten rules. It can be played by any ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... put out, and the gloom of the room was only lightened by a single bed-room taper, which, as it stood near the door, only served to render palpable the darkness of the further end of the chamber. For half an hour Lord Cashel walked to and fro, anxious, wretched, and in doubt, instead of going to his room. How he wished that Lord Ballindine had married his ward, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... in sumptuous liveries, and the fifty Comandadori in their flowing blue robes and red caps; then follow musicians, and the squires of the Doge in black velvet; then the guards of the Doge, two chancellors, the secretary of the Pregadi, a deacon clad in purple and bearing a wax taper, six canons, three parish priests in their sacerdotal robes, and the Doge's chaplain dressed in crimson. The grand chancellor is known by his crimson vesture. Two squires bear the Doge's chair and the cushion of cloth of gold. And the Doge—the representative, and not the master of his ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... of mighty pow'r, Charmer of an idle hour, Object of my warm desire, Lip of wax, and eye of fire: And thy snowy taper waist, With my finger gently brac'd; And thy pretty swelling crest, With my little stopper prest, And the sweetest bliss of blisses, Breathing from thy balmy kisses. Happy thrice, and thrice agen, Happiest he of happy men; Who ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... breath of life which, blowing from Paris, has revolutionized painting without much discomposing the placid shallows of British culture. Standing in the broad light of European art, these can hardly detect that sacred taper which the New English Art Club is said to shield from the reactionary puffings of the Royal Academy. And, although it is a dangerous thing in the suburbs to ignore nice points of precedence and venerable feuds, such magnanimity makes for progress. ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... and monstrous figurehead. Its forefoot rests upon the strip of gravel in yonder bay at the foot of the cliff, whose summit is lost in the clouds. The hull reposes on its own reflected image, and the taper mast is repeated in a wavy but distinct line below. It is the "longship"; the "war vessel"; the "sea horse" of Solve Klofe, the son of King Hunthiof of More, whom Harald ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... but if he, with malice aforethought, lays deliberate plans, he finds it the most awkward traverse to work in the world to follow them—but I did not know this. I sat by the table, and in my embarrassment kept pushing the solitary taper farther and farther from me, until at last over it went, and was extinguished ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... trackless heath, at midnight seen, No more the windows ranged in long array (Where the tall shaft and fretted arch between Thick ivy twines) the taper'd rites betray. ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... dark. The expense of lighting, had no doubt to be considered, for for several days past no candle or taper was to be had for money. And no doubt the kindness of a motorist of the Red Cross had been appealed to for the supply of all the candles which lit up the altar. This was indeed resplendent. The vestry had been ransacked for candlesticks, and the tabernacle ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... exists, and its appearance indicates the terror into which it threw the earl. It reached him at midnight. With it came a summons to attend the privy council. He read it apparently by the light of a taper, and with such agitation that the sheet caught fire. The scorched letter still exists, and is burnt through at the most critical part of its story. The poor old earl learned enough to double his terror, and lost ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... for a day and a night. But at that same hour of the evening, when he had fallen asleep, Gudruda, watching him by the light of a taper that was set upon a rock, saw him smile in his dreams. Presently he opened his eyes and stared at the fire which glowed in the mouth of the cave, and the great shadows ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... waited on the queen with anxious care, Allowed the prince to enter; took his light, (Which only glimmered in the midst of night,) Then put it out, and quickly left the room:— A little lantern to dispel the gloom, With waxen taper that emitted rays— In diff'rent countries ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... saw how Passion strove; That snowy Lawn which covered thy Bed, Me thought lookt white, to see thy cheeke so red, Thy rosye cheeke oft changing in my sight, Yet still was red to see the Lawn so white: The little Taper which should give the Light, Me thought waxt dim, to see thy ...
— An Apology For The Study of Northern Antiquities • Elizabeth Elstob
... on happy night; * Taper of waist, with shape of magic might: She hath an eye whose glances quell mankind, * And Ruby on her cheeks reflects his light: Enveils her hips the blackness of her hair; *Beware of curls that bite with viper-bite! Her sides are silken-soft, the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... together for their supper, for at that hour the lamplighter went his rounds and threw a golden string of dots upon the street. He drove an old thin horse and he stood on the seat of the cart with up-stretched taper. But when the world grew dark the flare of the fire was enough for the child to read, for he lay close against the hearth. And as the shadows gathered in the room, there was one story chiefly, of such intensity that the excitement of it swept through his body and out into ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... us, most beauteous Dan, That roughness best becomes a man; 'Tis women should be pale, and wan, and taper; ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... hills lying parallel with the shore, and forming a monotonous barrier between the basin of cultivated country inland and the wilder scenery of the coast. Up the hill stretched a road nearly straight and perfectly white, the two sides approaching each other in a gradual taper till they met the sky at the top about two miles off. Throughout the length of this narrow and irksome inclined plane not a sign of life was visible on this garish afternoon. Troy toiled up the road with a languor and depression greater than any he had ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... the likeness of vast teocallis to Tonatiuh, over whose apex the struggling rays fell red and presageful. Dulled by the stained glass windows, the light that filled the semi-circular chapel at "The Lilacs", was chill and sombre, until the fair sacristan held a taper over the tall wax candles on each side of the altar, whence a mellow radiance soon streamed over all; flashing along the golden letters under the cross, and upon the gilded pipes of the little organ. On the marble steps in front of the altar were ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... copper coins at the Maldives. The ancient coin was of various shapes, that of the Maldives being about as long as the finger and double, having Arabic characters stamped on it; that of Ceylon resembled a fishhook: those of Kandy are described as a piece of silver wire rolled up like a wax taper. When a person wishes to make a purchase, he cuts off as much of this silver as is equal in value to the price of the article. Its probably first mention by an European writer occurs in the Lembrancas das Cousas de India (Subsidios iii, 53), in 1525, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... Graceful, gentle, retiring, taking upon herself the lowliest duties as if she had been born to them, this woman, who stood up that her light might shine on all, and reveal to them the terrible atrocities of slavery, was like Jeremy Taylor's taper, which cast ever a modest shadow round itself. She had a very lofty idea of what a woman should be. 'Whatever it is morally right for a man to do, it is morally right for a woman to do. I recognize ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... A poor taper burns upon the toilet,—just bright enough to give the cognizance of something in woman's shape and in negligent attire scribbling near it. Thou needst not tap her on the shoulder; she need not look up and smile a welcome to the friendly vision. She knows that thou ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... this insult, Skuld proudly rose and declared that her sister's gifts should be of no avail, since she would decree that the child should live only as long as the taper then burning near the bedside. These ominous words filled the mother's heart with terror, and she tremblingly clasped her babe closer to her breast, for the taper was nearly burned out and its extinction could not be very long delayed. The eldest Norn, however, had no intention of seeing ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... radiance, and as brief in the article of sleeves and neck as that of any modern belle. A circlet of pearls were clasped round her snow-white throat, and bracelets of the same jewels encircled the snowy taper arms. On her head she wore a bridal wreath and veil—the former of jewels, the latter falling round her like a cloud of mist. Everything was perfect, from the wreath and veil to the tiny sandaled feet and lying there in her mute repose she looked more like some exquisite piece ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... cabins of the settlement were one by one lit up by the miners returning from tunnel and claim. These stars were of varying brilliancy that evening, two notably so—one that eventually resolved itself into a many-candled illumination of a cabin of evident festivity; the other into a glimmering taper in the window of a silent one. They might have represented the extreme mutations of fortune in the settlement that night: the celebration of a strike by Robert Falloner, a lucky miner; and the sick-bed of Dick ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... so do I plunge into its columns, read it with desperation, and when the poison has circulated, throw it away in despair. If I am reminded to say grace at dinner, I commence "My Lords, and gentlemen;" and when I seek my bed, as I light my taper, I move "that the House do now adjourn." The tradesmen's bills are swelled by my disease into the budget, and the checks upon my banker into supplies. Even my children laugh and wonder at the answers which they receive. Yesterday one brought me her book of animals, and pointing ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... melts them into one glowing and glorious conception of the God of power, wisdom and love. But even then the heart whispers: "He is that, and infinitely more than that, even as the sun is more than the little taper man has made." But if the reason and memory, through misuse, furnish but few of the truths about God, and if the imagination has been weakened in its power, then how poor the ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... have her head, shoulders, and chest small and compact; arms and limbs relatively short; her haunches apart; her hips elevated; her abdomen large and her thighs voluminous. Hence, she should taper from the center, up and down. Whereas, in a well-formed man the shoulders are more prominent than the hips. Great hollowness of the back, the pressing of the thigh against each other in walking, and the elevation of one hip above ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... your influence be quite damm'd up With black usurping mists, some gentle taper, Though a Rush-candle from the wicker hole Of some clay habitation, visit us With thy long levell'd rule of ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... help laughing to hear one fellow bawling out, so that he might be sure to be heard, a promise to Saint Christopher of Paris—the monstrous statue in the great church there—that he would give him a wax taper as big as himself. 'Mind what you promise!' said an acquaintance that stood near him, poking him with his elbow; 'you couldn't pay for it, if you sold all your things at auction.' 'Hold your tongue, you donkey!' said the fellow,—but softly, so that Saint Christopher should not hear him,—'do you ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... was the keeper of Tasso's prison; and knowing me, by the instinct which teaches an Italian custodian to distinguish his prey, for a seeker after the True and Beautiful, he relinquished his romance, lighted a waxen taper, unbolted a heavy door with a dramatic clang, and preceded me to the cell of Tasso. We descended a little stairway, and found ourselves in a sufficiently spacious court, which was still ampler in the poet's time, and was then a ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... symbol of wisdom (sal sapientiae); placing a lighted taper in the child's hand, typifying the illuminating Spirit; turning to the west to renounce the enemy of the Faith, and then to the east to recite our belief in that Faith; striking three blows with the hand, symbolical of fighting against the world, the flesh, ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... life, undegraded by any scale of graduated classes, and the countless bars these present to the free enjoyment of existence. His motions in walking were more graceful than can be imagined by any who have only seen those of the draped and shod animal. The deeply set yet flexible spine; the taper form of the limbs; the fulness yet perfect elasticity of the GLUTEI muscles. The hollowness of the back, and symmetrical balance of the upper part of the torso, ornamented as it was, like a piece of fine carving, with raised scarifications most tastefully placed; such were some of the characteristics ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... and candlestick maker. And while we do not know it, really we are working together for one end hidden now in the divine economy of far-off destiny and justice.... To me the wonder of wonders is that I may some day light a little taper in your upper chamber myself, and kneel together with you before the same window to worship. Only, dear Heart, please get your deity named before ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... boots, little boys, beadles, policemen, tall life-guardsmen, charity children, pumps, dustmen, very short pantaloons, dandies in spectacles, and ladies with aquiline noses, remarkably taper waists, and wonderfully long ringlets, Mr. Cruikshank has a special predilection. The tribe of Israelites he has studied with amazing gusto; witness the Jew in Mr. Ainsworth's "Jack Sheppard," and the immortal Fagin of "Oliver Twist." Whereabouts lies the comic vis in these persons and things? Why ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... later that sun-blistered morning, the bookkeeper Case "blew in for a bottle," as he expressed it; remarked with engaging frankness that he believed he had still a day or so in which to taper, and would be home and on deck if the Apaches didn't get him meantime; and, being delicately invited to state where he had spent the night, replied as frankly as before, "Down at Jose Sanchez's," meaning thereby the down-stream resort two miles distant, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... sleeves, which were long, He had twenty-four packs,— Which was coming it strong, Yet I state but the facts; And we found on his nails, which were taper, What is frequent ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... pocket Bible open in his hand, which he seemed to study with intense meditation. His broadsword, which he had unsheathed in the first alarm at the arrival of the dragoons, lay naked across his knees, and the little taper that stood beside him upon the old chest, which served the purpose of a table, threw a partial and imperfect light upon those stern and harsh features, in which ferocity was rendered more solemn and dignified by a wild cast of tragic enthusiasm. His brow was that of one in whom some strong ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... schooner gave a lurch and shook her feathers alow and aloft by way of chorus. "I like this kind of life very much; how gracefully this vessel moves; what a beautiful union of strength, proportion, lightness, in the taper masts, the slender ropes and stays, the full spread and sweep of her sails! Then how expansive the view, the calm ocean in its solitude, the receding ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... By the trim taper, and the blazing hearth, (While loud without the blast of winter sung), Now thrill'd with awe, and now relax'd with mirth, Paris, I've roam'd thy varied haunts among, Loitering where Fashion's insect myriads spread Their painted wings, and sport their little day; Anon, by ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... and for me, Thy most long-suffering master, bring In April, when the linnets sing And the days lengthen more and more, At sundown to the garden door. And I, being provided thus, Shall, with superb asparagus, A book, a taper, and a cup ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his strange Court, with such an Heir-Apparent growing up in it, there is no real light to be had, except what Wilhelmina gives,—or kindles dark Books of others into giving. For that, too, on long study, is the result of her, here and there. With so flickery a wax-taper held over Friedrich's childhood,—and the other dirty tallow-dips all going out in intolerable odor,—judge if our success ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... their reception. The demeanor of these fair companions, always widely different, was particularly so at the present moment. Miss Haviland, with her chin gracefully resting on one folded hand, and her calm and beautiful, but now deeply-clouded brow, shaded by the white, taper fingers of the other, was abstractedly gazing into the glowing coals on the hearth before her, while the gentle, but less reflective McRea, with a countenance disturbed only by the passing emotions of sympathy that occasionally flitted over it, as she glanced at the downcast face of her ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... committed. The horse in the stable, I dare say, belonged to some belated traveler caught like ourselves in a storm afar from an inn. Marked you how she answered me not when I spoke on't? How the wind howls, and how blue the taper burns! 'Sblood! I'd sooner ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... of Miss Bordereau's room was open and I could see beyond it the faintness of a taper. There was no sound—my footstep caused no one to stir. I came further into the room; I lingered there with my lamp in my hand. I wanted to give Miss Tita a chance to come to me if she were with her aunt, as she must be. I made no noise to call her; I only waited to see if she would not notice ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... said. And I handed them a box of taper matches which I had in my pocket. One of the soldiers had another box. I ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... retired from the bed, he drew forth the writing which had occupied him so long, and holding it in the flame of the taper burnt it to ashes. That done, he extinguished the light, and turning his face away with a heavy sigh, drew the coverlet about his head, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... tower is pale, almost ethereal, at the end of the vista. Its great clock, pricked out with golden lamps, seems scarce a third of the way up its side. The white walls rise on, and on, with here and there a spot of gold, and taper into nothing. They are lost in the gloom of coming night. But still they must go on, for far aloft you see the lantern glowing like a star, hung between earth and heaven. In this twilight hour of blue and gold the tower is the mighty guardian ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... love's undershrieve, Why this reprieve? Why doth my she-advowson fly Incumbency? To sell thyself dost thou intend By candle's end, And hold the contrast thus in doubt, Life's taper out? Think but how soon the market fails, Your sex lives faster than the males; And if, to measure age's span, The sober Julian were th' account of man, Whilst you live by the fleet ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... the Kaffre project outwards; and where the cheek-bones so project beyond a certain limit, the chin appears to taper downwards, and the vertex upwards. When this becomes exaggerated we hear of lozenge-shaped crania; the Malay skulls being currently quoted as instances thereof. Be this as it may, the breadth in the malar portion of the face is a remarkable feature in the ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... dark-lantern; complexion superlatively feminine (call it not pale but white, as if she lived on blanched almonds, peach-stones, and arsenic); hands so fine and so bloodless, with fingers so pointedly taper there seemed stings at their tips; manners of one who had ranged all ranks of society from highest to lowest, and duped the most wary in each of them. Did she please it, a crown prince might have thought her youth must have passed in the chambers of porphyry! Did she please it, an old soldier ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and sixty is the whole range of the maxima of the present race of trotting horses. The same thing is seen in the running of men. Many can run a mile in five minutes; but when one comes to the fractions below, they taper down until somewhere about 4.30 the maximum is reached. Averages of masses have been studied more than averages of maxima and minima. We know from the Registrar-General's Reports, that a certain number of children—say ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... which gleamed At the poor hoof's protesting as it stamped Idly the granite? Let me glide unseen From thy proud presence: well may'st thou be queen Of all those strange and sudden deaths which damped So oft Love's torch and Hymen's taper lit For happy marriage till the maidens paled And perished on the temple-step, assailed By—what except to envy must man's wit Impute that sure implacable release Of life from warmth and joy? ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... the demure look of a young woman who might shriek at the sight of a man in his shirt-sleeves. Which shows that it is exceedingly unsafe to judge by appearances,—of a woman, especially. The slender figure showed that the physical indications in the delicately rounded arm, the taper fingers, and shapely feet were justified by the proportionate development of the rest of her anatomy. Nature had been gentle rather than generous. Mlle. Fouchette was in demand for ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... when we meet. Meanwhile it will be proper to adhere to the frame, etc., at present, until we see how the other alterations answer." In another he says: "I have done a Cicero without any plaits—the different segments meeting exactly. The fitting the drills into the spindle by a taper of 1 in 6 will do. They are perfectly stiff and will not unscrew easily. Four guide-pullies answer, but there must be a pair for the other end, and to work with a single hand, for the returning part is always cut upon some part ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... Fleet prison to St. Paul's Cathedral. The warden of the Fleet was there, and the knight marshal, and the tipstaffs, and "all the company they could make," "with bills and glaives;" and in the midst of these armed officials, six men marching in penitential dresses, one carrying a lighted taper five pounds' weight, the others with symbolic fagots, signifying to the lookers-on the fate which their crimes had earned for them, but which this time, in mercy, was remitted. One of these was Barnes; the other five were "Stillyard men," undistinguishable by any ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... the young man up-stairs, Mrs. Sandford put on a shawl, and, by the time he had reached the second flight, she opened a door, and lighted the gas with a taper, saying,— ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... words of Tahitian I gained from her that the joss-house was open. We entered it, and found no one there. The center was wide to the sky, that the rain might fall and the stars shine within it. The altars were brilliant with memorial tablets, the green, red, and gold flower vases, and sandalwood taper-holders, so familiar to me, and all about were the written prayers of devotees, soliciting the favor of Heaven, asking success in business, or the averting of illness. They were evidently painted by the bonze of the fane, for his slab of India ink was on a table nearby, as ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... reads from the missal, this book is held by the first, and a taper by the second, patriarch or assisting bishop[25]. The Kyrie eleison, the Gloria in excelsis, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei are said by all persons within the sanctuary: the cardinals descend from their seats to say them, and form a circle in the middle of ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... so chanced one day that he locked his shop and went home, and in the night there came to the bazar an artful thief disguised in the habit of the merchant, and pulling out keys from his sleeve, said to the watchman of the market, "Light me this wax-candle." The watchman took the taper and went to light it,—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... one of the windows that overlooked an expensive tree and lake vista of Central Park, he had wanted very suddenly and very badly to feel those fingers in his and to kiss down on them. He liked their taper and the rosy pointedness, those fingers, and the dry, neat way they had of slipping in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... like fires on the domestic hearth, goes out in the sunshine. Milton's morning hymn in Paradise, we would hold a good wager, was penned at midnight; and Taylor's rich description of a sunrise smells decidedly of the taper. "This view of evening and candle-light as involved in literature may seem no more than a pleasant extravaganza; and no doubt it is in the nature of such gayeties to travel a little into exaggeration, but substantially it is certain that Lamb's feelings pointed habitually in ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... O hear when we call; Hear, for Christ's sake, who is Savior of all. Feeble and fainting, we trust in thy might; In doubting and darkness thy love be our light; Let us sleep on thy breast while the night taper burns, Wake in thine arms when ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... said Bouvard. And the taper which he held in his hand shed its light on the portrait ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... no wish a brother's love to share"— I did not read thy features dreamingly, And peer into thine eye's deep azure, there Searching another's depths, in revery! I did not press, all passionless, thy hand Or idly dally with thy taper finger, Or coldly gaze, for I could not withstand The high and holy hope which bade ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... white hand, with many jewelled rings upon the taper fingers, and the nails, as with all ladies of quality, dyed the deep orange red of henna. Although I knew well that the jealously watchful eyes of her lord were upon me, I made no hesitancy in encompassing the wrist ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... that monstrous passion which had at first view of her possessed the priest, now, like a sheltered taper, glowed an adoration which made him yearn, in defiance of common-sense, to suffer somehow for this beautiful and gracious comrade; though very often pity for her loneliness and knowledge that she dared trust no one save him ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... $1,000. After all, it was more than I had ever before held in my hand at once. But what was a paltry thousand, aye a paltry ten thousand, to a man's pride? I bit off the end of my cigar, creased the check into a taper, and struck a match. I watched it burn and burn. I struck another. I held it within an inch of the check, but for the life of me ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... if his very glance had become dim. I arose hastily, and approaching his bed, inquired if he wished for a drink; he made a slight movement of his eyelids, as if to thank me, and at that instant the first ray of the rising sun shone in on his bed. Then the eyes lighted up, like a taper that flashes into brightness before it is extinguished—he looked as if saluting this last gift of his Creator; and even as I watched him for a moment, his head fell gently on the side, his kindly heart ceased ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... kissed it reverently. Then he laid it down before the gilded gateway of the sanctuary, with the thought in his mind that perhaps her foot might touch it as she passed and make it sacred. Then he lit a taper at a lamp, and in obedience to the order given him by Father Hieronymus the previous night, he carried the tiny flame to each of the candles on the altar, till all were lighted. This task done, he prostrated himself on the steps before ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... long-expected brother,—the brother of the soul, that some secret instinct taught me to expect, and whose image, foreshadowed in my fancy, had made me indifferent to all real beings. Yes," she said, covering her eyes with her rosy taper fingers between which I saw one or two tears trickle; "oh, yes, the dream of all my nights was embodied in you this morning, when I awoke! ... Oh, if it were not too late to live on, I would wish to live for centuries, to ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... civilians, the clergy began to leave the church, the lower orders coming first. All, in surplices, covered their heads with their caps, under the porch; and each one held a large, lighted wax taper; those at the right in their right hand, and those at the left in their left hand, outside the rank, so there was a double row of flame, almost deadened by the brightness of the day. First were representatives from the great seminaries, ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... hoping bitter platter stopper hopping diner shiny tiny doted dinner shinny tinny dotted cuter hater poker offer cutter hated paper wider holy hatter taper spider holly riding favor diver bony ridding fever gallon bonny biting clover racer bogy bitting over cider boggy caning halo label Mary canning solo yellow marry planer polo jolly mate planner flabby jelly matter ruder shabby maker ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... in a church. I hold a torch in my hand and light one taper after another. For every taper that is lighted, the church grows larger and more beautiful. But I am a thief. If I am caught I must be buried alive, and now the church-bells are ringing. I hear ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... hill which we first climbed to take a look at the lake. It could be seen almost from end to end. The lower part which we had passed was clear, but above us the lake was a network of islands and water. The hills on either side seemed to taper off to nothing in the north, and I could see where the land appeared to drop away beyond this northern horizon which looked too near to be natural. North of Michikamats were more smaller lakes, and ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... with unsurpassed vehemence. One morning A'Dale and I were strolling beside the cathedral, when a small party of idle boys and ragamuffins happened to come that way intent on mischief, if they could possibly achieve it. One of them with a grave air walked up to the old woman's table, and, taking a taper in one hand and a saint in the other, inquired the price of the articles. A loud laugh followed ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... slightest detail. You would fancy you saw a stalwart, strapping Hindoo before you. He turns round, and lo, a bashful maiden. Her eyes are stained with henna (myrtle juice) or antimony. Her long-hair neatly smoothed down is tied into a knot at the back, and glistens with the pearl-like ornaments. The taper arm is loaded with armlets and bracelets. The very toes are bedecked with rings. The bodice hides the taper waist and budding bosom, the tiny ear is loaded with jewelled ear-rings, the very nose is not forgotten, but is ornamented with a golden circle, bearing on its circumference a ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... come?" he suddenly broke out at dessert. "Does it come of itself, unobserved, unrecorded, unmeasured? Or do you woo it and set baits and traps for it, and watch it like the dawning brownness of a meerschaum pipe, and make it fast, when it appears, just where it peeps out, and light a votive taper beneath it and give thanks to it daily? Or do you forbid it and fight it and resist it, and yet feel it settling and deepening about you as ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... "Friendship Village," p. vii, author's note.] And this is but one of thousands of "home towns" in that great basin, towns with Daphne streets and Queen Anne houses, and gloomy court-houses and austere churches and miniature libraries, towns that taper off into suburban shanties, towns that have in these new bottles, of varied and pretentious shapes, the best wine ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... rule, and the people find themselves well off, in spite of the many taxes laid upon them. But what are the people? a vulgar multitude who, like the gnats, fly towards every thing brilliant, and, so long as the taper burns, will continue to flutter round it, even though they burn their wings in doing so. Let Pisistratus' torch burn out, Phanes, and I'll swear that the fickle crowd will flock around the returning nobles, the new light, just as they now do around ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... cruel-featured little idol his mother had brought in her bundle—the old Scythian Artemis, hanging there on the wall, side by side with the forgotten Ares, blood-red,—the goddess reveals herself to the lad, poring through the dusk by taper-light, as at once a virgin, necessarily therefore the creature of solitude, yet also as the assiduous nurse of children, and patroness of the young. Her friendly intervention at the act of birth everywhere, her claim upon the nursling, among tame and wild creatures equally, among men ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... gone down to the farm-house after tea, and inquired about the safety of my prizes, but Kate wanted to play chess. Peter couldn't, and Peggy wouldn't; I had to, of course, and we played late. Kate had such pretty hands; long taper fingers, rounded to the tiniest rosy points; no dimples, but full muscles, firm and exquisitely moulded; and the dainty way in which she handled her men was half the game to me;—I lost it; I played wretchedly. The next day Kate went with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... and you draw in life at every pore—a thousand merry figures come to meet you: maidens clad in the gay costumes of the elder time, all fluttering with ribbons, rosy cheeks and lips!—maidens who smile, and with their taper fingers point at those who follow them; gay shepherds, gallant in silk stockings and embroidered doublets, carrying their crooks wreathed round with flowers; while over all, the sun laughs gladly, and the breezes bear away the merry voices, sprinkling ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... a paper from his pocket with better success. A brief glance into the room at their left showed signs of recent occupancy. His quick survey marked an oil lamp in the corner, which, upon investigation, proved to be in working order, so he lit it with the end of his expiring taper. ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... so his Gospel also, is called Light, and was therefore anciently never read without a burning taper, 'etiam Sole rutilante' ('tis Saint Hierome's testimony), though it were lighted in the sun.... The careful Church, perceiving that God was so much taken with this outward symbol of the Light, could do no less than go on with the ceremony. Therefore, the day of Our Lord's nativity ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... on March 17th, 1648, and made her profession five months after. As a preparation for this solemn act, she made a public confession in the presence of the community. She also recited her faults, kneeling, and wearing a cord about her neck, and bearing a lighted taper in her hands. Mere Helene de St. Augustin lived only six years in her convent at Meaux, and died on December 20th, 1654, at the age of fifty years, leaving the memory of ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... of mighty power, Charmer of an idle hour, Object of my warm desire Lip of wax, and eye of fire, And thy snowy taper waist With my finger gently braced, And thy pretty smiling crest With my little stopper pressed, And the sweetest bliss of blisses Breathing from thy balmy kisses, Happy thrice and thrice again Happiest he of happy men, Who, when again the night returns, When again the taper ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... followed, then the door was sharply closed, and the queerly acting girl faced Dyke Darrel once more. She looked weirdly beautiful, with a mass of golden hair falling below her taper waist, her face white as the winter's snow, almost ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... eye had caught a gleam of something to the left of the last pillar. He snuffed the wavering taper with his fingers and leaned forward. A face grew out of the ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... it, darling?" said I, putting my arm round her taper little waist, and drawing her ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... cookery. An omelet au rhum is simply a sweet omelet, plain, with plenty of powdered sugar sprinkled over the top, with some rum ignited poured over it just before it is sent to table. The way to ignite the rum is to fill a large spoon, like a gravy-spoon, and hold a lighted wooden taper (not wax; it tastes) underneath the spoon till the rum lights. The dish should be hot. It may be a consolation to teetotallers to reflect that the fact of burning the rum causes all the alcohol to evaporate, and there is nothing left but ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... the footmen's liveries to the bunches of red carnations; and the blazing electric lights confused her brain. She, the little country mouse, accustomed only to old William's gentle shufflings, and the two tall silver candlesticks with their one wax taper in each! ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... if my face is thin, my mind is firmly fixed So to fire my golden buds that they shall excel all beside, But how know I, who'll put them in jewelled cup? Whose taper fingers will leisurely give them to the ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... between the combustion of a candle and that living kind of combustion which goes on within us. In every one of us there is a living process of combustion going on very similar to that of a candle. For it is not merely true in a poetical sense—the relation of the life of man to a taper. A candle will burn some four, five, six, or seven hours. What, then, must be the daily amount of carbon going up into the air in the way of carbonic acid? What a quantity of carbon must go from each of us in respiration! A man ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... about three times as large and coarse as those of the boy who had carried the thrush before, but they seemed to him three times more light and tender—they were handy and kind, and this goes farther than taper fingers. ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Europe, too, Christmas loaves or cakes are very conspicuous. The chesnitza and kolatch cakes among the southern Slavs are flat and wheel-like, with a circular hole in the middle and a number of lines radiating from it. In the central hole is sometimes placed a lighted taper or a small Christmas-tree hung with ribbons, tinsel, and sweetmeats. These cakes, made with elaborate ceremonial early in the morning, are solemnly broken by the house-father on Christmas Day, and a small piece is eaten by each member of the family. In some places one is fixed on the horn ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... in the universe. She displays a good length of striped stockings, and wears thin slippers, or sandals; her skirts are like a hogshead in size and shape, and reach so near her shoulders as to make her appear hump-backed; the sleeves are hugely swelled out at the shoulder, and taper to the wrist; the bodice is a stiff and most elaborately ornamented piece of armor; and there is a kind of breastplate, or center-piece, of gold, silver, and precious stones, or what passes for them; and the head is adorned with some monstrous heirloom, of finely worked ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... extended upon the sofa as he lay, though a little attenuated like the face, showed that they were well-formed and athletic. And the hand, drooping over the side of the couch, though too thinly white to suggest a love-pressure, indicated, in the taper of the fingers, and the fine round of the back, without any coarse protruding knuckles, what a handsome little Napoleonic hand it must have been when the owner was in full health and the life-blood coursing ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... alternately over a strand and under a strand of the rope, and then taper off by halving the strands before tucking the third time, and again halve them ...
— Knots, Bends, Splices - With tables of strengths of ropes, etc. and wire rigging • J. Netherclift Jutsum
... Laitkor nine stones are standing, an illustration of which will be found in this book. The stones are of hewn gneiss granite, or sandstone, to be met with in many places in these hills. They are rough hewn, and generally taper gradually to their tops, which are sometimes neatly rounded off. The tallest stone is usually in the middle, and is occasionally ornamented with a small stone, through the middle of which a hole has beam drilled so that it may fit ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... doubt of a presence, or disturbed by the light of the taper on his eyelids. The doctor retired on tiptoe to the door which he noiselessly closed; then he went back to his room, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... fashioned with pens and paper, And fashioned in black and white, With Life for a flickering taper And Death for a blazing light— With the Armed and the Civil Power, That his strength might endure for a span— From Adam's Bridge to Peshawur, The Much ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... but taking a green silk purse out of her bosom, she opened it, and, after inserting her long, white, taper fingers into it, she brought out a valuable emerald ring, and placing it in the hands of ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... resounds Along these lonely bounds:— Spare, savage blast! the taper's quiv'ring fires, Deep in these gath'ring shades its flame expires. Ye host of heaven! the door recedes— It mocks my grasp—what unseen hands Have burst its iron bands? No mortal force this gate unbarr'd Where danger lives, which terrors guard— Dread ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... Omniscient dwells, Dupes from all nations seek the sacred cells; Inquiring strangers, with astonish'd eyes, Dive deep to read these subterranean skies, To taste that holiness which faith bestows, And fear promulgates thro its world of woes. The bold Initiate takes his awful stand, A thin pale taper trembling in his hand; Thro hells of howling monsters lies the road, To season souls and teach ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... thy nature to fly out and mingle among men. Then the years that would have belonged to thee will be contracted to half the span of the ephemeral fly, that lives but a day: one night, and thy life-taper shall be blown out—the leaves of the tree will wither and be blown away, to become green ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... to my quarters at Mr Finnie's in time for their six o'clock dinner. On the day week after my first visit she was out of Fisher's hands, and as I left her late that afternoon I thought I had never seen a prettier little craft. Her tall, slim, taper spars had a jaunty little rake aft, and were encumbered with only so much rigging as was absolutely necessary to prevent them from going over the side. Her yards, though light, were of immense spread, ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... the note, hoping that some chance exclamation, or even perhaps an answer, might give her curiosity the food it longed for. But Margaret read and reread the note, and tore it up into very small pieces, thoughtfully; and, as an afterthought, she burned them one by one over a wax taper till nothing was left. Then she sent her maid away and fell to thinking. But that did not help her much; and the warm sun stole through the windows, and the noise in the street prevented her from sleeping, ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... so well, and so clear in her intellects, [so much alive, she used to say,] if she exceeded this proportion. If she slept not, she chose to rise sooner. And in winter had her fire laid, and a taper ready burning to light it; not loving to give trouble to the servants, 'whose harder work, and later hours of going to bed,' she used to say, ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... and restless in Winston's nostrils, as seen by the light of the tiny taper he raised to extinguish, when his prize was secured. The devil supplied him with another crafty hint, as he was in the act of folding one edge of Frederic's letter that it might fit into the new cover. Why not strip off the letter entirely, that it might ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... middle of the night, accompanied by a summons to attend the privy council. In the perusal of a letter written in a small hand, and filling more than two folio pages, such was his agitation, that in holding the taper he must have burnt what he probably had not read; the letter is scorched, and the flame has perforated it in so critical a part, that the poor old earl journeyed to town in a state of uncertainty and confusion. Nor was his terror so unreasonable as it seems. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... eve, within yon studious nook, I ope my brass-embossed book, Portray'd with many a holy deed Of martyrs crown'd with heavenly meed; Then, as my taper waxes dim, Chant, ere I sleep, my measured hymn. * * * * * Who but would cast his pomp away, To take my staff and amice grey, And to the world's tumultuous stage, Prefer the peaceful ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... which a fair, Who waited on the queen with anxious care, Allowed the prince to enter; took his light, (Which only glimmered in the midst of night,) Then put it out, and quickly left the room:— A little lantern to dispel the gloom, With waxen taper that emitted rays— In diff'rent ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... spar on which you have been perched whilst gazing so dreamily over the ship's quarter, give the last half of your grog to the old lad at the wheel, peep in on the compass, find she heads about west-north-west, and, well satisfied, descend the stair. The steward lights the waxen taper which fixes on a branch before your glass; when, having performed such ceremonies as you delight in, thank God and sleep: and thus ends the chapter ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... city. The battle of Lincoln was preceded by a trifling incident to which the chroniclers have attached importance. It was the Feast of the Purification; and at the mass which was celebrated at the dawn of day, when the King was holding a lighted taper in his hand it was suddenly extinguished. "This was an omen of sorrow to the King," says Hoveden. But another chronicler, the author of the Gesta Stephain, tells us, in addition, that the wax candle was suddenly relighted; and he accordingly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... the gloomy hall was not pleasant. The red wall-paper was soiled and torn, and weird shadows flickered from the small gas taper that blinked from the ceiling. There were suggestions of old dinners, stale fried potatoes and pork in all the corners, and one moving toward the stairs seemed to stir them up and set them going again ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... of Miss Dale illuminated him as the burning taper lights up consecrated plate. Deeply respecting her for her constancy, esteeming her for a model of taste, he was never in her society without that happy consciousness of shining which calls forth the treasures of the man; and these it is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... it might prove to proceed from some cottage, he could not refrain from stopping once or twice to catch these lovely creatures; and when he succeeded in doing so, and placed one on the palm of his hand, the light emitted from it was more brilliant than that of a small taper, and much more beautiful, for it was of a bluish colour, and very intense,—more like the light reflected from a jewel than a flame of fire. He could have read a book by means ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... results, which have been published, show that there are now alive in this country 213 persons who are over one hundred years old. Of these 147 are women, the alleged stronger sex being thus only able to show 66 specimens who are managing to still "husband out life's taper" after the lapse of a century. The preponderance of centenarians of the supposed weaker sex has led to the revival of some amusing theories tending to explain this phenomenon. One cause of the longevity ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... spindled-legged tables, and breast-waisted dresses; sometimes in the struggle of the Roses, when barons swam rivers in full armour after a bloody bout; sometimes in the Civil War, when Vandyke drew the arched eyebrow and taper hand, and when the shadow of death ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... striking point of the speaker's appearance was the extraordinary brilliancy of his complexion, which shamed with its whiteness that of all fair ladies round, save where open on each cheek a bright red spot gave warning, as did the long thin neck and the taper hands, of sad possibilities, perhaps not far off; possibilities which all saw with an inward sigh, except she whose doting glances, as well as her resemblance to the fair youth, proclaimed her at once ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... desolate room, scantily lighted with the dim taper—no laughter as the queen and the princess put on their strange, fearful attire. It was no masquerade, but a dreadful, horrible reality; and as they looked at each other wearing the costume of revolutionists, tears ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... clay pipe, filled with ill-smelling tobacco, was feeling in his vest pocket for a match. "I should think nice white paper would be sweeter to light a pipe with than a greasy old match scratched on your pants," and the boy lighted a taper and handed it to ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... man is obstinate about small things, and I moved the taper nearer. As I did so a point of light, a flashing sparkle that shone for a second among the dirt and refuse on the floor, caught my eye. It was gone in a moment, but I had seen it. I stared, and moved the light again, and the spark flashed ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... boy, rushing forward as he spoke. 'My own Auriola—mine, now and for ever!' He threw himself before her, seized her hand, and in an instant fixed a golden ring upon her taper finger. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... rest, a firm, round figure, no angles, everything, including elbows, in curves; blooming cheeks and smooth-skinned, taper-fingered hands tanned a very honest brown,—the hands of ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... effervescence in any acid, and breaking easily under the needle); these are the 3/2000ths of an inch in their larger external diameter; they are rather deeply imbedded in the outer integument, and taper a little downwards ending in a concave terminal point, into which a minute tubulus enters, like those passing into and through the valves of ordinary Cirripedia: along the axis of imbedment, they are often 4/2000ths of an inch in length. These calcareous beads or rudimental ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... a dainty white hand, with many jewelled rings upon the taper fingers, and the nails, as with all ladies of quality, dyed the deep orange red of henna. Although I knew well that the jealously watchful eyes of her lord were upon me, I made no hesitancy in encompassing the wrist with my own fingers. But the little hand within ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... dip the taper wing— The pilgrim there his thirst assuage, The wandering minstrel sit and sing, Or muse ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... reside on the shore. The most prominent objects on the horizon were the great churches that have the customary gilded spire and the clusters of white cottages about them. The shore rises steeply and the farms taper back into the forests that crown the hills of the background, which rise fully one thousand feet above the sea. On our left hand as we left the Basin were huge clay or sandstone cliffs cut away by the fierce swells of the Gulf. A lighthouse crowned the Point, with ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... the government in this way, he forgot the governing class he knew. The slack-trousered Raeburn, the prim, attentive Philbert, Lady Frensham at the top of her voice, stern, preposterous Carson, boozy Bandershoot and artful Taper, wily Asquith, the eloquent yet unsubstantial George, and the immobile Grey, vanished out of his mind; all those representative exponents of the way things are done in Great Britain faded in the glow of his imaginative effort; he forgot the dreary debates, ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... a church. I hold a torch in my hand and light one taper after another. For every taper that is lighted, the church grows larger and more beautiful. But I am a thief. If I am caught I must be buried alive, and now the church-bells are ringing. I hear the ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... social friends at a cheerful board! The usual time of sitting at table, a walk, and tea, bring me within the dawn of candlelight; previous to which, if not prevented by company, I resolve that, as soon as the glimmering taper supplies the place of the great luminary, I will retire to my writing-table and acknowledge the letters I have received; but, when the lights are brought, I feel tired, and disinclined to engage in this ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... down the staircase with the taper light in her hand, looking unnaturally tall and thin in the long dove-coloured dressing-gown she wore. She did not stop to think of the propriety or otherwise of this midnight interview under such circumstances. She thought that the tragedy ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... raised about eight or ten feet above ground, and the under part of the floor, closed with bamboos, is used as a store: I descended. Anyone who could have seen me—a white man, a European, the child of another hemisphere—wander by night, with a taper in my hand, about the hut of a Tinguian Indian, would have been really surprised at my audacity, and I may almost say, my obstinacy, in seeking out danger while pursuing the wonderful and unknown. But I went on, without reflecting on the strangeness of my conduct: as the Indians say: "I ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... a taper's light, Thine eyes, and not thy noise, waked me; Yet I thought thee— For thou lov'st truth—an angel, at first sight; But when I saw thou saw'st my heart, And knew'st my thoughts beyond an angel's art, When thou knew'st what I dreamt, when ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... those of nature, which alone is to be blamed; unless we are to join in the blame the ministers who placed such a twinkling taper as a "shining ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... Al-Rashid sit over against him and signed to Ja'afar and Masrur to take their places in due degree,[FN115] whilst the negroes and the eunuchs stood expecting their commands for suit and service. Presently was brought to them a huge waxen taper which lighted up the whole of the hall and the young house-master accosted the King and said to him, "Well come and welcome and fair welcome to our guests who to us are the most esteemed of folk and may Allah honour their places!" Hereupon he began ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... village church among the trees, Where first our marriage-vows were given, With merry peals shall swell the breeze And point with taper spire to Heaven. ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... lovely taper fingers—they were more like bunches of frosted carrots, dipped in a tar—bucket, with the tails snapt short off, where about an ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... his sleeves, which were long, He had twenty-four packs,— Which was coming it strong, Yet I state but the facts; And we found on his nails, which were taper, What ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... by touch, and opening his match-box, Sam struck a little wax taper, began to light his cigarette, and naturally held the flame so near his face that, as he knelt there, it was well illumined for the benefit of the prowler, who crouched close and stared hard, expecting moment by moment ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... ornamental. Then came the oblong tray of convenient shape, following in its decoration and ornament prevailing styles in other domestic tin or metal work. In this connection it should be pointed out that there are many varieties of taper holders and stands used for the small wax tapers, then common ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... have dragged the mouldering carcass of paganism from the grave, animated her lifeless form with a spark stolen from the sacred altar, arrayed her in the spoils of Christianity, re-lighted her extinguished taper at the torch of revelation, dignified her with the name of natural religion, and exalted her in the temple of reason, as a goddess, able, without divine assistance, to guide mankind to truth and happiness. But we also know, that all her boasted pretensions are vain, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Jesuit took the book of the Gospels and the holy water sprinkler, and went slowly out of the chapel, while the old man followed him, with the holy water basin in one hand and a taper in the other. Then the police director left his hiding place, and stooping down, so as not to be seen, he crept to the chapel window, where he cowered down carefully, and the young man followed his example. They were now looking ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Rombus (diamond) The Fuzie or spindle, called Romboides (narrow diamond) The Triangle or Tricquet (pyramid) The Square or quadrangle (square) The Pillaster or Cillinder (tall rectangle) The Spire or taper, called piramis (tall pyramid) The Rondel or Sphere (circle) The egge or figure ouall (vertical egg) The Tricquet reuerst (triangle) The Tricquet displayed (hour-glass) The Taper reuersed (narrow triangle) The Rondel displayed ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... should be hard, Christopher. It is not I; it's God's law that is of iron. Think! if the blow were to fall now, some cord to snap within you, some enemy to plunge a knife into your heart; this room, with its poor taper light, to vanish; this world to disappear like a drowning man into the great ocean; and you, your brain still whirling, to be snatched into the presence of the eternal Judge: Christopher French, what answer would you make? For these gifts wasted, for this rich mercy scorned, ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... to the present day," Pao-y went on to explain, "that, in the western quarter, there exists a stone, called Tai, (black,) which can be used, in lieu of ink, to blacken the eyebrows with. Besides the eyebrows of this cousin taper in a way, as if they were contracted, so that the selection of these two characters is most appropriate, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... letters, mamma, you know. They are not like your wax taper at all; they are little wax matches, that burn just long enough to seal one or two letters; Miss Allen showed me how she used them. Hers were in a nice little box just like the inkstand on the outside; and there was a place to light the matches, and a place ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... ground, its usual lining of horsehair makes its interior especially smooth and shapely, and the nest in the haymow showed only a little falling-off, as is usually the case in the second nest of the season. The songs of the birds, the construction of their nests, and the number of their eggs taper off as ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... southing; the generous sweep of his deep elastic belly, nobly pulped out with rich nurture, showed what the power of his brain must be, and seemed to undulate, time for time, with the vibrant vigilance of his large wise eyes. His latter end was consistent also. An elegant taper run of counter, coming almost to a cylinder, as a mackered does, boldly developed with a hugeous spread to a glorious amplitude of swallow-tail. His colour was all that can well be desired, but ill-described by any poor word-palette. ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... powers which shape the mould of races, —that you may look in vain for verification of ethnological assertions.... No: the heel does not protrude;—the foot is not flat, but finely arched;—the extremities are not large;—all the limbs taper, all the muscles are developed; and prognathism has become so rare that months of research may not yield a single striking case of it.... No: this is a special race, peculiar to the island as are the shapes of its peaks,—a mountain race; and mountain ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... changed less than the character of the forms they rendered; the conception of the design as a whole had advanced more rapidly than the skill and sleight of hand which expressed it. The engraver has by 1511 become capable of expressing a greater variety of speed in the stroke, makes it taper more finely, and can follow the tongue-like lap and flicker as the pen rises and dips again before leaving the surface of the block (as in the outer ends of the strokes that represent the radiance ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... muttered. "The more the natives progress the more nearly they'll equal our abilities. I wouldn't want anything to happen to our overall plans. As it is now, their abilities taper off at sixty and they reach senility at seventy or eighty. I think until the end we should ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... her breathing that Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o' the taper Bows toward her; and would underpeep her lids To see the enclos'd lights, now canopied Under those windows, white and azure, lac'd With ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... altar. At length a fine psalm was sung, the chief door was thrown open, the high altar and its splendid decorations were displayed, and from the side doors issued forth the whole troop of officiating priests bearing the bread and wine for the sacrament, preceded by one man with a lighted taper, and the high priest coming in the rear with a silver chalice; the procession is closed by a priest with a salver on his head. Again they all entered the sanctuary, the bread and wine were placed on the altar, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... beautifully formed, and shown to great advantage by the close jacket and petticoat which she wore after a foreign fashion, the last not quite long enough to conceal a very pretty foot, which rested on a bar of the table at which she sate; her round arms and taper fingers very busily employed in repairing—the piece of tapestry which was spread on it, which exhibited several deplorable fissures, enough to demand the utmost skill of the ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... sundry scars and bruises inflicted by hammer and chisel. Her look of pride in her wounds was comically in contrast to her companion's distress, as his glance wandered from the little hard-worked fingers to his own white hands,— almond-nailed, soft-palmed, taper-fingered, the hands of a man who has lived an idle life, and known little or nothing of the reality of work. Nan's eyes followed his, and she laughed in amused fashion. "Mine look like the man's, and yours like the woman's! The contrast makes mine browner than ever. How do you manage to ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Old Man of the Sea, to be sure!" answered one of the damsels. "He has fifty daughters, whom some people call very beautiful; but we do not think it proper to be acquainted with them, because they have sea-green hair, and taper away like fishes. You must talk with this Old Man of the Sea. He is a seafaring person, and knows all about the garden of the Hesperides, for it is situated in an island which he is often in the habit ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... he appeared as an old grey man, with a taper in one hand and a staff in the other, a book under his arm, and a three-cornered hat on his head. As he went from house to house, he looked up the names of his victims in his book, let his taper shine on their faces to make sure that he had made no mistake, and ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... others to assist, and in another minute or two the end of the tall taper stick was dropped into the hole and fixed there. A hole had been already bored in the top and a rope rove through it, to which Lumley soon attached the corners of a small ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... steamer from the southern hemisphere—the Trident—and a right royal vessel she looks with her towering iron hull, and her taper masts, and her two thick funnels, and her trim rigging, and her clean decks—for she has an awning spread over them, to guard from smoke as ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... incapable of continuing. But she turned away, somewhat confused, and slowly he continued: "One time I discovered that in us all there is a secret temple, with a very small but highly prized altar lighted by a tiny taper flame, where we keep just our own little treasures—our wonderful selves." She glanced up in some surprise, but this time he was staring at the ground. "In some, its door is studiously, carefully locked; in others, its paths of approach are overgrown with weeds and almost lost; ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... sable "curtains" and solicitude for his bags and portmanteau. If his pale cheek and lack-lustre eye could speak but for a moment, like Balaam's ass, what painful truths would they discover! what weary watchings over the midnight taper would they describe! If those fingers, which are now as white as windsor soap can make them, could complain of their wrongs, what contaminations with dusty Ainsworth and Scapulas would they enumerate! if his brain were to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... within us. In every one of us there is a living process of combustion going on very similar to that of a candle. For it is not merely true in a poetical sense—the relation of the life of man to a taper. A candle will burn some four, five, six, or seven hours. What, then, must be the daily amount of carbon going up into the air in the way of carbonic acid? What a quantity of carbon must go from each of us in respiration! A man in twenty-four hours converts as ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... pillows when you had drank too strong a cup of green tea, and vinaigrettes that you could hold to your nose to keep you from fainting when you saw a dandy. Oh! I can tell you that Mr. Nonesuch understood keeping a toy shop; there were plenty of carriages always in front of it, plenty of taper fingers pulling over his wares, and plenty of husbands and fathers who returned thanks that New ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... extinguishes their taper Till they hail the rising sun? Who discards the garb of winter Till the ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... been brought up by the nobles, who closely guarded both it and the queen, into her apartments, and there examined and replaced it in the chest. The next night, one of the queen's ladies upset a wax taper, without being aware of it, and before the fire was discovered, and put out, the corner of the chest was singed, and a hole burnt in the blue velvet cushion that lay on the top. Upon this, the lords had caused the chest to be taken down again ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... became the guest of the Cogia. It happened at night, some time after they had lain down, that the light went out. 'O Cogia Efendi,' said the guest, 'the taper is gone out. But there is a taper on your right side; pray bring it, and let us light it.' 'Surely you must be a fool,' said the Cogia. 'How should I know my right side in ...
— The Turkish Jester - or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi • Nasreddin Hoca
... by train, and I let him in gently myself. I had been so much absorbed in the coming experiment that I passed the ruins in going to meet him, almost without thought, if you can understand that. I had my lantern; and he showed me a coil of taper which he had ready for use. "There is nothing like light," he said, in his scoffing tone. It was a very still night, scarcely a sound, but not so dark. We could keep the path without difficulty as we went along. As we approached the spot we could hear a low moaning, ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... bedroom windows, there was a dull yellow glimmer. The merchant knocked loudly, and, as he turned his dark face towards the light, Douglas Stone could see that it was contracted with anxiety. A bolt was drawn, and an elderly woman with a taper stood in the doorway, shielding the thin flame with ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... often found growing in the same swamp, and having, like it, flower-heads measuring about an inch and a half across, has rays that vary from light violet purple to rose pink. Its oblong to lance-shaped leaves, only two inches long at best, taper to a point at both ends, and are seated on the stem. We look for this aster in sandy bogs from New Jersey northward and ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... given proof of life. Over this little wavering taper in the vaults Emma cowered, cherishing the hand, silently ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... far from mistrusting its goodness, I only fear it will be too good to expose to the weather, as I intend it must be, in a recess in the garden. I was going to tell you that my house is so monastic, that I have a little hall decked with long saints in lean arched windows, and with taper columns, which we call the Paraclete, in memory of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... she said she wanted to write something. A desk was put upon her bed with pen and paper, and at her request she was left alone. She remained writing for a short time, folded her paper carefully, called Elizabeth-Jane to bring a taper and wax, and then, still refusing assistance, sealed up the sheet, directed it, and locked it in her desk. She had ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... Four or five priests and as many choristers were singing Miserere before the high altar when I went in. There was no congregation but a few old women on chairs and old men kneeling on the pavement. After a while a long train of young girls, walking two and two, each with a lighted taper in her hand, and all dressed in black with a white veil, came from behind the altar, and began to descend the nave; the four first carrying a Virgin and child upon a table. The priests and choristers arose from their knees and followed after, singing 'Ave Mary' as they went. ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reached the top of the stairs, Virginia went into her room to light a wax taper in one of the tall silver candlesticks on her dressing-table. "I think that Aunt Allison must have left those arrows in the blue room," she said, leading the way down the cross hall which went to the north wing. "She made the pie in ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... that threatened building. Vinicius sprang to the interior. The little atrium was empty, and dark with smoke. Feeling for the door which led to the sleeping-rooms, he saw the gleaming flame of a small lamp, and approaching it saw the lararium in which was a cross instead of lares. Under the cross a taper was burning. Through the head of the young catechumen, the thought passed with lightning speed that that cross sent him the taper with which he could find Lygia; hence he took the taper and searched for the sleeping-rooms. He found one, pushed aside the curtains, and, holding ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... and by being drove round very quick to and fro by means of a small Wheel, which may be mov'd with ones foot, serves to grind the Glass: The other Mandril is shap'd like this, but it has an even neck instead of a taper one, and runs in a Collar, that by the help of a Screw and a joynt made like M in the Figure, it can be still adjustned to the wearing or wasting neck: into the end of this Mandril is screwed a Chock N on which with Cement or Glew is fastned the piece of Glass Q that is to be form'd; ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... candlelight, the kitling's eyne, Corrupted wood, serve here for shine; No glaring light of broad-faced day, Or other over-radiant ray Ransacks this room, but what weak beams Can make reflected from these gems, And multiply; such is the light, But ever doubtful, day or night. By this quaint taper-light he winds His errors up; and now he finds His moon-tann'd Mab as somewhat sick, And, love knows, tender as a chick. Upon six plump dandelions high- Rear'd lies her elvish majesty, Whose woolly bubbles seem'd to drown ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... this she was sore afraid, and wept no more. And the babe came upon another night, holding in his hand a little taper, and ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... trees are sixty or seventy feet high, and all are very graceful, this species being considered the most beautiful of the numerous birch family. The leaves, which are just coming out, are two or three inches long and about half as wide; they taper to a point and have serrate, or sawlike, edges. The wood is firm and durable, and is much used for cattle-yokes as well as for bedsteads and chairs. The large trees yield a great quantity of sweetish ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... the burrs of a plant something like a thistle. They are about the size of a small egg, only not quite so large around, and they do not taper so much, though one end is a little larger than the other. They have sharp points, sort of like hooks, which all turn down toward the stem, so you can run your hand over them one way and the points won't hurt; but if you pull your hand back they dig ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... higher throne, with three golden crowns upon her head, and she was surrounded with priestly state. On each side of her were two rows of candles, the biggest as thick as a tower, down to the tiniest little taper. Kings and emperors were on their knees before her, kissing ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... is all, for I am a foundling, and my only happy remembrance is of my earliest childhood, at the Asylum. The sheets were white on our little beds in the dormitory; we played in a garden under large trees, and a kind Sister took care of us, quite young and as pale as a wax-taper—she died afterwards of lung trouble—I was her favorite, and would rather walk by her than play with the other children, because she used to draw me to her side and lay her warm thin hand on my ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... who could be spending the summer there. A bay of the river loftily shut in by rugged hills lay before him, and on the shore, just above high-tide, stood what a wandering shadow told him was the ancient church of Tadoussac. The windows were faintly tinged with red as from a single taper burning within, and but that the elements were a little too bare and simple for one so used to the rich effects of the Old World, Mr. Arbuton might have been touched by the vigil which this poor chapel was still keeping after ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... white stripes: our sailors caught one, but it got away again. The mole here is larger than in Europe; the upper part of the body is of a greyish brown, the lower part an ash grey; the legs are covered with a white fur, and the taper tail is one-fifth of the length of the body. A shrew-mouse also was caught. Two or three kinds of large cats are said to have been seen; a mustela, something of the nature of the Lutreola, was ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... picture: the workman, with his superb hand, brown and sinewy, yet elegant and shapely as a duchess's, and the fingers almost as taper, and his black eye that glowed like a coal over the model, which grew under his masterly strokes, now hard, now light: the enchanting girl who sat to him, and seemed on fire with curiosity and innocent admiration: and the simple rural beauty, that plied the needle, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Saharan female dress is naturally that of female beauty. The beau ideal of an Arab beauty, according to the Arabian poets Havivi and Montannibi, is, that "Her person should be slender like the bending rush, or taper lance of Yemen." This is also the beau ideal of female beauty amongst Touaricks. I have seen no fat fed-up women amongst Touaricks, like those in such esteem and the bon-ton of the Moors. The enbonpoint ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Genesis when he described the shield of Achilles, or (as Clemens of Alexandria gravely informs us) that Miltiades won the battle of Marathon by copying the strategy of the battle of Beth-Horon! To say that Pagan morality "kindled its faded taper at the Gospel light, whether furtively or unconsciously taken," and that it "dissembled the obligation, and made a boast of the splendour as though it were originally her own, or were sufficient in her hands for the moral illumination ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... in a livelier tone than usual, but it was like the last kindling of the taper in its oil-less socket — for instantly the paleness of death overspread his face, and after a feeble effort to vomit, with convulsions, the natural effect of great loss of blood, he sunk ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... part.—Many will say, that in thus indulging the right of a gentleman to the son of a clod-breaking peasant, I derogate from my sphere, even as the blessed sun would derogate should he condescend to compare and match his golden beams with the twinkle of a pale, blinking, expiring, gross-fed taper. But no consideration of rank shall prevent my avenging the insult thou hast offered me. We bear a smooth face, observe me, Sir Villagio, before the worshipful inmates of yonder cabin, and to-morrow we try conclusions with our swords." ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... somehow obtained a key that opens the door of Randolph's room, and takes advantage of his absence upstairs to explore it. Under her is Lord Pharanx, certainly in bed, probably asleep. Hester, trembling all over in a fever of fear and excitement, holds a lighted taper in one hand, which she religiously shades with the other; for the storm is gusty, and the gusts, tearing through the crevices of the rattling old casements, toss great flickering shadows on the hangings, which frighten her to death. She has just ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... finding salvation out of the communion of Rome, and that his conscience would not let him rest till he had renounced the heresies in which he had been brought up. The news spread fast. At all the coffeehouses it was told how the prime minister of England, his feet bare, and a taper in his hand, had repaired to the royal chapel and knocked humbly for admittance; how a priestly voice from within had demanded who was there, how Sunderland had made answer that a poor sinner who had long wandered from the true Church implored her to receive and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... irregularly twisted ribbons, with thick rounded edges. The thickest part is the root end, or point of attachment to the seed. The free end terminates in a point. The diameter is fairly uniform through 3/4 to 7/8 of its length, the rest is taper. In Fig. 1 is given some illustrations of the cotton fibre, showing this twisted and ribbon-like structure, while in Fig. 1A is given some transverse sections of the fibre. These show that it is a collapsed cylinder, the walls being of considerable thickness when compared ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... about a hundred and sixty is the whole range of the maxima of the present race of trotting-horses. The same thing is seen in the running of men. Many can run a mile in five minutes; but when one comes to the fractions below, they taper down until somewhere about 4.30 the maximum is reached. Averages of masses have been studied more than averages of maxima and minima. We know from the Registrar-General's Reports, that a certain number of children—say from one to two ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... is likewise at one with him in his views on human knowledge, or, as he terms it, wisdom, which is the source of the highest good within the reach of man. The only light which we have to guide us through the murky mazes of existence, is at best but a miserable taper which serves only to render the eternal darkness painfully visible. "I set my heart to learn wisdom and understanding. And my heart discerned much wisdom and knowledge.... I realised that this also is but a grasping of wind."[121] ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... the stillness of the grave. The lights within the chapel threw a rich glow through the painted windows; and here and there, from a few scattered casements in the vast pile of St. Agnes, streamed a few weak rays from a taper or a lamp, indicating the trouble of a sick bed, or the peace of prayer. But these rare lights did but deepen the massy darkness of all beside; and Paulina, with her attendant, had much difficulty in making her way to the appointed ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... confession and penance in one or more specifically designated churches, usually in the nearest parish church, constituted the customary penalty.[51] In a few instances it was coupled with the requirement that the criminal should stand in the pillory, taper in hand, at several places at stated times.[52] The ecclesiastical records are so full of church penances that a student is led to wonder how effectual they were in shaming the penitent into better conduct. It may well be guessed that most of the criminals ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... her beautiful smooth and white belly and pressed against the hair of her mount. With her long taper fingers she guided my prick—I trembled in every limb and almost felt sick with excitement—but when I felt the delicious sensation caused by the insertion of my skinned pintle between the smooth warm oily folds of the lady's cunt—I gave but one shove ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... she replied, with her small taper finger on her lip, "it's the fairies I'm after—the 'good people,' nurse Bridget has told me so much about. I am sure there must be some of them in this still, shady place. I've found their 'rings' in the fresh, ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... the lady's name, Miss Wilmot and I made attempts to entertain each other. Her person was tall, her shape taper, her complexion delicate, and her demeanour easy. Her remarks were not profound, but they were delivered without pretension. She was more inclined to let the conversation die away than to sustain it by that flux of tongue, which ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... by himself represents him in a dark doublet having wide sleeves and a square collar closed in front. His thumb is in his pallet, and the other hand, with fingers taper and delicate as those of a hand by Van Dyck, holds one of his brushes. The smooth face, with regular features, is pale and thoughtful, and with the womanliness of the aspect increased from the dark hair, which is divided ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... that sun-blistered morning, the bookkeeper Case "blew in for a bottle," as he expressed it; remarked with engaging frankness that he believed he had still a day or so in which to taper, and would be home and on deck if the Apaches didn't get him meantime; and, being delicately invited to state where he had spent the night, replied as frankly as before, "Down at Jose Sanchez's," meaning thereby the down-stream resort two miles distant, where prospectors, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... other things, Edward placed in his hands a long wax taper, made for the sugar camp, lighted, and with a kiss to his mother, and a cheery good-night to the boys, ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... ten or twelve attendants; and instead of the usual bearers and sextons, hirelings of the lowest of the populace undertook the office for the sake of gain; and accompanied by only a few priests, and often without a single taper, it was borne to the very nearest church, and lowered into the first grave that was not already too full to receive it. Among the middling classes, and especially among the poor, the misery was still greater. Poverty or negligence induced most of these to remain in their dwellings or in the immediate ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... which are an easy fit for the bore of the gear C. The inner surface of the centering jaws is in the shape of a female cone. The upper die is shown at E. In the center (separate from it, but a snug sliding fit in it) is the expander G, which, during quenching, enters the taper in the centering jaws D, expanding them against the bore of the gear C. The faces F of the upper die E fit two angles at the back of the gear and are grooved for the passage of the quenching oil. The ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... Lantern-light, taper-light, Torchlight, no-light: Darkness at the shut of day, And lions roaring, Their wrath pouring In wild ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... sunny vapor, And a radiance mild was shed From each tree that like a taper At a feast stood. Then we said, "Our feast, too, shall soon be spread, ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... she's gone; when thou know'st this, What fragmentary rubbish this world is Thou know'st, and that it is not worth a thought; He honours it too much that thinks it nought. Think then, my soul, that death is but a groom, Which brings a taper to the outward room, Whence thou spiest first a little glimmering light, And after brings it nearer to thy sight; For such approaches doth heaven make in death. DONNE, Anatomy ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... which this solid matter is transformed. I will blow out one of these candles in such a way as not to disturb the air around it, by the continuing action of my breath; and now, if I hold a lighted taper two or three inches from the wick, you will observe a train of fire going through the air till it reaches the candle. I am obliged to be quick and ready, because, if I allow the vapour time to cool, it becomes ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
... Dismounted; and, from yon sequester'd cot, Whose lonely taper through the crannied wall Sheds its faint beams, and twinkles midst the trees, Have I, adventurous, grop'd my darksome way. My servant, and my horses, spent with toil, ...
— Andre • William Dunlap
... exquisite a collection. Pure, thin, rain-water Madeira, full threescore years in bottle! Pale, limpid Port, whose color had long since gone with age, and left only the musk-like odor; flasks of Johannisberg of pearly light; bottles of Tokay for lips of cardinals; tall, slim stems of the taper flasks of the Rhine; while the ruby hues of wine from the Rhone stood clustering about amid pyramids of pine-apples, oranges, and bananas, and all loading the air of the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... earl sat and watched the young man (for he could not be thirty yet), struck down thus in the prime of his days—carried away into the other world—while he himself, with his frail, flickering taper of a life, remained. Wherefore? At length, in a whisper, he called "Helen!" and she came and knelt ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... sixty feet in the middle. These are all gilt, and show "architectural refinements," for the teak trees they are made of are not absolutely straight, and they have an entasis that is quite natural where they taper away into the golden gloom of the sloping timber roofs. The rooms are lofty, and all on one floor, because the Burmese do not like to live in rooms with people above. There are infinite intricacies of gilded teak carving, and some rooms ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... done all the growth for both himself and Felix, and was doing his best to be a light of the Church by resembling nothing but an altar-taper. When they all repaired to the back of the cupboard door in Mr. Audley's room to be measured, his head was found far above Edgar's mark at fourteen, and therewith he was lank and thin, not yet accustomed to the length of his own legs and arms, and seeming ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to glance backward down the steep stairway up which I had sprung with such furious precipitation. Something white lay in a corner on the seventh step from the top. Curious to see what it was, I descended cautiously and with some reluctance; it was the half of a thick waxen taper, such as are used in the Catholic ritual at the burial of the dead. No doubt it had been thrown down there by some careless acolyte, to save himself the trouble of carrying it after the service had ended. I looked at it meditatively. If I only had a light! I plunged my hands half ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Is it so? Methought it had been to do honour to my fair mistress's own taper waist. And pray how much an ell was ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... placed high up in a corner of the living room facing the door, and every good Orthodox peasant on entering the door bows in the direction of the icon and crosses himself repeatedly. Before and after meals the same ceremony is always performed and on holiday or fete days a small taper or candle is kept burning before the icon ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... vision! his hour was not yet, And waking, he turn'd on his pallet of straw, And a form by his side he could never forget, By the pale misty light of a taper he saw. "'Tis I! 'tis thy Winifred!"—softly she said, "Arouse thee, and follow—be bold, never fear! There was danger abroad, but my errand has sped, I promised to save thee—and lo I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... bordered round with a garland of freshly-gathered flowers, roses and carnations and heliotrope, the only thing that looked real and living in the whole scene; and in the middle of this knelt the novice, still arrayed in her blue satin, white lace veil and jewels, and also with a great lighted taper in her hand. ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... Edward, whose sternness gave place to excessive fondness among his children. Moreover, she in the end became the wife of that same red- haired Earl Gilbert of Gloucester, who at this time stood holding his wax taper, and looking at the small swaddled morsel of royalty with all a bachelor's contempt for infancy, and little dreaming that he beheld ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... didn't mean to smoke only this once. That is, I didn't mean to at first, but after I got to smoking I thought it would be a good plan to taper off." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... overspread with the stillness of the grave. The lights within the chapel threw a rich glow through the painted windows; and here and there, from a few scattered casements in the vast pile of St. Agnes, streamed a few weak rays from a taper or a lamp, indicating the trouble of a sick bed, or the peace of prayer. But these rare lights did but deepen the massy darkness of all beside; and Paulina, with her attendant, had much difficulty in making her way to the appointed station. Having reached ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the prisoner gleamed like the flash of an expiring taper, wild and fitful, on our entering forms. He was dreadfully altered,—I should scarcely have recognized him through the gloomy shade of his long-neglected hair, and ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... dead with cold; one little match from her bundle would warm them, perhaps, if she dare light it. She drew one out, and struck it against the wall. Bravo! it was a bright, warm flame, and she held her hands over it. It was quite an illumination for that poor little girl—nay, call it rather a magic taper—for it seemed to her as though she were sitting before a large iron stove with brass ornaments, so beautifully blazed the fire within! The child stretched out her feet to warm them also. Alas! in an instant the flame had died away, the stove vanished, the little girl sat cold and ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... easy couches. These pleasant little abodes, in which the greatest cleanliness is everywhere observable, are all surrounded by cultivated gardens. In the evening, they are lighted by the oily nuts of the taper-tree, fastened in ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... ill this taper burns! Ha! who comes here? I think it is the weakness of mine eyes That shapes this monstrous apparition. It comes upon me. Art thou any thing? Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil That makest my blood cold, and my hair to stare? Speak ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... his conscience would not let him rest till he had renounced the heresies in which he had been brought up. The news spread fast. At all the coffeehouses it was told how the prime minister of England, his feet bare, and a taper in his hand, had repaired to the royal chapel and knocked humbly for admittance; how a priestly voice from within had demanded who was there, how Sunderland had made answer that a poor sinner who had long wandered from the true Church implored her to receive and to absolve him; ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with thick rounded edges. The thickest part is the root end, or point of attachment to the seed. The free end terminates in a point. The diameter is fairly uniform through 3/4 to 7/8 of its length, the rest is taper. In Fig. 1 is given some illustrations of the cotton fibre, showing this twisted and ribbon-like structure, while in Fig. 1A is given some transverse sections of the fibre. These show that it is a collapsed cylinder, the walls ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... a plant something like a thistle. They are about the size of a small egg, only not quite so large around, and they do not taper so much, though one end is a little larger than the other. They have sharp points, sort of like hooks, which all turn down toward the stem, so you can run your hand over them one way and the points won't hurt; but if you pull ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... from the danger of running aground on a sandbank. The whole country-side is changed. Instead of the low and luxuriantly-wooded shores the banks become higher with each passing hour. Soon the land adjacent to the river merges into foothills and these in turn taper off into mountains. The effect is noble and striking. No wonder Stanley went into ecstasies over this scenery. He declared on more than one occasion that it was as inspiring as any he had seen in ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... sacred orders by the Lord Bishop of Marseilles, his diocesan, and afterwards condemned to make honorable amends one audience day, having his head and feet bare, a cord about his neck, and holding a lighted taper in his hands—to ask pardon of God, the king, and the court of justice—then, to be delivered into the hands of the executioner of the high court of law, to be taken to all the chief places and cross-roads of this city of Aix, and torn with red-hot pincers in all parts ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... over his face, the light in his eyes went out, and he rose from his stool with a short, dissatisfied sigh, which was repeated once or twice as he put away his work and arranged his tools. He made the rounds of the workshop, looked to the fastenings of the windows, lighted a taper, and then extinguished the lamp. He threw a loose overcoat over his shoulders without passing his arms through the sleeves, and went out into the street. Glancing up at the windows of his house opposite, he saw that the lights were burning brightly, and he guessed that his wife ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... morning, returning to my quarters at Mr Finnie's in time for their six o'clock dinner. On the day week after my first visit she was out of Fisher's hands, and as I left her late that afternoon I thought I had never seen a prettier little craft. Her tall, slim, taper spars had a jaunty little rake aft, and were encumbered with only so much rigging as was absolutely necessary to prevent them from going over the side. Her yards, though light, were of immense spread, and the new suit of sails with which she had been ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... flickering taper's ray To light departing feet, my shadowed way You brighten with your faith. Faith makes the man Alas, that my poor foolish age outran Its early trust in God! The death of art And progress follows, when the world's hard heart Casts out religion. 'Tis the human brain Men ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... usual growth to which they attained, though at the back of the run they were much larger. Spaniards grow in clusters, or patches, among the tussocks on the plains, and constitute a most unpleasant feature of the vegetation of the country. Their leaves are as firm as bayonets, and taper at the point to the fineness of a needle, but are not nearly so easily broken as a needle would be. No horse will face them, preferring a jump at the cost of any exertion, to the risk of a stab from the cruel points. The least touch of ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... not immediately withdraw, but taking a green silk purse out of her bosom, she opened it, and, after inserting her long, white, taper fingers into it, she brought out a valuable emerald ring, and placing it in the hands of the ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... You have had a most fatiguing day. Permit me!" said Mr. Force, and he lighted a wax taper and ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... his wrist. It had not been there before. Of course the spirits had slipped it on. He let this pass then. He had not the discourtesy to explain that a very pretty girl at his side had gently manoeuvred it into its place. Her taper fingers were very soft and worked as ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... Perdita presented Raymond with a lovely girl. It was curious to trace in this miniature model the very traits of its father. The same half-disdainful lips and smile of triumph, the same intelligent eyes, the same brow and chestnut hair; her very hands and taper fingers resembled his. How very dear she was to Perdita! In progress of time, I also became a father, and our little darlings, our playthings and delights, called forth a thousand new ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... live forever, and that the Infinite God loves all of us, we can look on all the evils of the world, and see that it is only the hour before sunrise, and that the light is coming; and so we also, even we, may light a little taper, to illuminate the darkness while it lasts, and help until the day-spring come. Eternal morning follows the night: a rainbow scarfs the shoulders of every cloud that weeps its rain away to be flowers on land and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... canary-birds' notes at one eend, and thunder at t'other, accordin' to the humour she was in, for she was a'most a grand bit of stuff was Happy, she'd put an edge on a knife a'most. She was a rael steel. Her figur' was as light as a fairy's, and her waist was so taper and tiny, it seemed jist made for puttin' an arm round in walkin'. She was as active and springy on her feet as a catamount, and near about as touch me-not a sort of customer too. She actilly did seem as if she was made out of steel springs and chicken-hawk. If old Cran, was to slip off the ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... passion which had at first view of her possessed the priest, now, like a sheltered taper, glowed an adoration which made him yearn, in defiance of common-sense, to suffer somehow for this beautiful and gracious comrade; though very often pity for her loneliness and knowledge that she dared ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... temple: the pair, after listening to a lengthy harangue from one of the attendant priests, approach the altar, where large tapers are presented to them; the bride, instructed by the priest, lights her taper at the sacred censer on the altar, and the bridegroom, igniting his from hers, allows the two flames to combine, and burn steadily together, thus symbolizing the perfect unity of the marriage state; ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver
... had not come to a determination till it was near ten o'clock of the Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing you should be too late—and when the old bookseller with some grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting bed-ward) lighted out the relic from his dusty treasures—and when you lugged it home, wishing it were twice as cumbersome—and when you presented it to me—and when we were exploring the perfectness of it (collating you ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... should be 4 feet 10 inches long for a three-wire aerial and 7 feet 1 inch long for a four-wire aerial as the distance between the wires should be about 27 inches. The end spreaders can be turned cylindrically but it makes a better looking job if they taper from the middle to the ends. They should be 2-1/4 inches in diameter at the middle and 1-3/4 inches at the ends. The middle spreader can be cylindrical and 2 inches in diameter. It must have holes bored through ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins
... held sacred by the Hindoos and freely used at their religious ceremonies. Its leaves are very long and taper to a needle-like point. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... mounted the steps leading to his own chamber. Once there, he closed and barred the door. He kindled a light, and flinging the letter on the table, he sat and contemplated its exterior and the great red seal that gleamed in the yellow light of his taper. ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... not in truth, Since truth is self consistent ever? But, close in fleshly wrappings held, The blinded mind of man can never Discern—so faint her taper shines— The ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... within my tent there were heaps of luxuries—dining-rooms, dressing-rooms, libraries, bedrooms, drawing-rooms, oratories, all crowded into the space of a hearthrug. The first night, I remember, with my books and maps about me, I wanted light; they brought me a taper, and immediately from out of the silent Desert there rushed in a flood of life unseen before. Monsters of moths, of all shapes and hues, that never before perhaps had looked upon the shining of a flame, ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... a moodier Lara, Through the world, as prowls the bat, And habitually wear a Cypress wreath around my hat: And when Death snuffs out the taper Of my Life, (as soon he must), I'll send up to every paper, "Died, T. Mivins; ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... wounded at various posts. The long spring twilight sunk through an orange horizon rim and filled up the measure which makes night, before firing reluctantly stopped. Marie had ground opened near the powder magazine to make a temporary grave for her three dead. They had no families. She held a taper in her hand and read a service over them. One bastion and so many men being disabled, a sentinel was posted in the turret after the gunners descended. The Swiss took this duty on himself, and felt his way up the pitch-black stairs. He had not seen Marguerite in the hall when he hurriedly ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... wife, Jacqueline, had been persuaded by a sorcerer that her husband would be king, and she joined him in acts of witchcraft in order to bring this about. She was condemned (October, 1441) to do penance by walking three successive days in a white sheet and carrying a lighted taper, starting each day from St. Paul's and visiting certain churches. Her husband, says the chronicler Grafton, "took all patiently and said little." Still retaining some power in the Council, he lived until 1447, when he died and ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... letter. Theodora read it through, then, with calm contempt, she tore it up, lighted a taper, and ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Corso we see a kind of temporary theatre, the deal sides of which are gaudily lined with Catania silk, and on its stage a whole dramatis personae of sacred puppets. It is lighted by tapers of very taper dimensions, and its stalle are to be let for a humble consideration to the faithful or the curious. It turns out to be a religious spectacle, supported on the voluntary system—but there is something for your money. A vast quantity of light ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... sea. He also gives some professional hints for the guidance of gunners. He tells us (and Sir Richard Hawkins confirms him) that no sea-cannon ought to be more than seven or eight feet long; that they ought not to be taper-bored, nor honey-combed within the bore, and that English ordnance, the best in Europe, was sold in his day for ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... glad to get on dry land again, "brown furze or any thing"—and here we must question one of his truths of vegetation: he asserts, that the stems of all trees, the "ordinary trees of Europe, do not taper, but grow up or out, in undiminished thickness, till they throw out branch and bud, and then go off again to the next of equal thickness." We have carefully examined many trees this last week, and find it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... reflector is contained within two regular polygonal planes twelve inches apart, each having ninety-six sides, the perimeter of the upper plane corresponding with a circle of eight feet diameter, that of the lower plane being six feet. The corresponding sides of these planes are connected by flat taper mirrors composed of thin glass silvered on the outside. When the reflector faces the sun at right angles, each mirror intercepts a pencil of rays of 32.61 square inches section, hence the entire reflecting ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... pharmaceuticals, and special-purpose machines, will therefore be more reliant on export markets at the same time they are being squeezed by the strong franc. Consequently, growth in machinery and equipment investment, for example, is expected to taper off. On the other side, import growth in 1997 also is likely to be lower than the 1995 rate of 6.6%, but higher than ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... way toward the altar. Unless you strain your eyes, or lamps are burning, side chapels pass unnoticed. If you are looking for inscriptions or want to admire the old master's picture, with which every church claims to be endowed, you must get the verger with his taper. Altars are gaudily decorated and statues bejeweled and be (artificial) flowered in Hispano-Italian fashion. The mairie, reconstructed from an ancient palace or castle, was more interesting. Beside the mairie ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... picked up the candle and beckoned me to follow him. We passed through the empty corridors of the house, a long line of pictured Buggams looking upon us as we passed, their portraits in the flickering light of the taper assuming a strange and life-like appearance, as if leaning forward from their frames ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... ankles, scratched by casual thorns and already beginning to blush brown from the June sun's ardent kisses, were as delicate as any he had ever seen enmeshed in silken hose. Her hands, long, slender, taper-fingered, actually dainty, although brown and roughened by hard labor, were, it seemed to him, better fitted for the fingering of a piano's keys than for the coarse and heavy tasks to which he knew they must ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... lagoon lies a man-of-war, its sails neatly furled, and its trim rigging, dark hull, and taper spars, perfectly ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... tower, where busy science plies Her vast antennae, feeling thro' the skies; That little vernier, on whose slender lines The midnight taper trembles as it shines, A silent index, tracks the planets' march In all their wanderings thro' the ethereal arch, Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns, And marks the ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... to her side. Music could not chase away the mysterious shadow from her heart. Again she rose. Putting on a white crape bonnet, and carefully drawing a pair of lemon-colored gloves over her taper fingers, she seized her parasol and plunged into the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... watched our pursuers, first one raised a mast and a long taper yard, then another, and they were soon under all sail standing after us. The breeze increased; we gave a cheer, hoping soon to get well ahead of them. Still on they came, and it seemed very doubtful whether we should succeed. I ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... where Edith sat there came a low, choking sound, but it died away in her throat, and with her hands locked so firmly together that the taper nails made indentation in the tender flesh, she ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... shuffled into the cabin and came back with his corncob pipe and a lighted taper. "We all ain' rid in de ole coach den," he said with a sigh, as he sucked at the long stem, and threw the taper at the chickens. "De ole coach hit uz th'owed away in de out'ouse, en I 'uz des stiddyin' 'bout splittin' it up fer kindlin' wood—en ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... twelve attendants; and instead of the usual bearers and sextons, hirelings of the lowest of the populace undertook the office for the sake of gain; and accompanied by only a few priests, and often without a single taper, it was borne to the very nearest church, and lowered into the first grave that was not already too full to receive it. Among the middling classes, and especially among the poor, the misery was still greater. Poverty or negligence induced most of these to remain in their dwellings or in the immediate ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... death, and which was dashed out by one of the murderers; of the torches that flared in the hall on the face of the Ghost and the blanched cheeks of Macbeth; of the flames beneath the boiling caldron from which the apparitions in the cavern rose; of the taper which showed to the Doctor and Gentlewoman the wasted face and blank eyes of Lady Macbeth. And, above all, the colour is the colour of blood. It cannot be an accident that the image of blood is forced upon us continually, ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... abideth Round they pillow in the night, And gentle feet creep to thy bed, And o'er thy quiet face is shed The taper's darken'd light. But that sweet Hymn shall pass away, By thee no more those feet shall stay; Then ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... sat upon a sort of throne, with one hand resting on a table beside her. A tall wax-taper supplied the place of the light of day, which was studiously excluded from the room by thick, dark curtains. Over the woman's face was a black veil, which gave her ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... had forgotten her. She felt, too, that this man was gripped by the desert influence more fiercely even than she was, and that he must have a stronger imagination, a greater force of projection even than she had. Where she bore a taper he lifted a ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... and, with Bob leading, all four boys piled out to the big barn back of the house. Bob produced his scantling and hunted up a big plane. Then the boys set to with a will, and in a short time had the rough timber nicely smoothed off, with a slight taper toward the top. Then they screwed in a large hook, bought for the purpose, and after providing themselves with a generous length of rope, repaired to the roof ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... of a lathe centre shaded by lines, the lines on the taper parts meeting those on the parallel part A, and becoming more nearly parallel to the axis of the piece as the centre of the piece is approached. The same is the case where a piece having a curved outline is drawn, which is shown in Figure 107, where the set of ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... into a great oval of green and gray growths. It was the hub of an oblong wheel, and from it, at regular distances, like spokes, ran the outgoing canyons. Here a dull red color predominated over the fading yellow. The corners of wall bluntly rose, scarred and scrawled, to taper into towers and ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... led to her apartments. Esmond stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce seemed to see until she was gone; and then her image was impressed upon him, and remained for ever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating, the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and her shining golden hair. He went to his own room, and to bed, where he tried to read, as his custom was; but he never knew what he was reading until afterwards he remembered the appearance ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... there be to remember Of us in the days to be? Whose faith was a trodden ember And even our doubt not free; Parliaments built of paper, And the soft swords of gold That twist like a waxen taper In the weak aggressor's hold; A hush around Hunger, slaying A city of serfs unfed; What shall we leave for a saying To praise us when we are dead? But men shall remember the Mountain That broke its forest ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... forget their Rulers' faults, And waste in ancient lore the midnight taper, Inquire if Orpheus first produced the Waltz, How Gas-lights differ from the Delphic Vapor. Whether Hippocrates gave Glauber's Salts, And what the Romans wrote on ere obey'd paper,— This night the subject of their disquisitions Was ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... finely rounded limbs half buried in billowy cushions; the attitude is the very poetry of repose, languid it may be, but glowing life thrills beneath that flower-soft exterior, from the varying cheek and flashing eye, to the henna-dyed taper fingers, that capriciously play with her rosary of beads. The blaze of sunshine is round her kiosk, but she sits in the softened shadow so dear to the painter's eye. And so she dreams away the warm hours in such a calm of thought within, and sight or sound without, ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... let us cherish, while yet the taper glows, And the fresh flow'ret pluck ere it close; Why are we fond of toil and care? Why choose the rankling thorn ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... K is to contain the Sand, and by being drove round very quick to and fro by means of a small Wheel, which may be mov'd with ones foot, serves to grind the Glass: The other Mandril is shap'd like this, but it has an even neck instead of a taper one, and runs in a Collar, that by the help of a Screw and a joynt made like M in the Figure, it can be still adjustned to the wearing or wasting neck: into the end of this Mandril is screwed a Chock N on which with Cement or Glew is fastned ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... wide velvet collar and large gold buttons. His velvet knee-breeches and the wide riband which tied his queue were of the same rich shade of dark green. The most delicate ruffles filled the front of his swan's-down vest and fell over his hands, which were remarkably white and small and taper-fingered, like a fine lady's. His white silk stockings and his low shoes were held by silver buckles. So looked Philip Alston, Gentleman,—and so he was called,—as he stood in the great room of Cedar House on that night of October, ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... Her brown russet short-gown set off a shape, which time, perhaps, might be expected to render too robust, the frequent objection to Scottish beauty, but which, in her present early age, was slender and taper, with that graceful and easy sweep of outline which at once indicates health and beautiful ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... there, and the knight marshal, and the tipstaffs, and "all the company they could make," "with bills and glaives;" and in the midst of these armed officials, six men marching in penitential dresses, one carrying a lighted taper five pounds' weight, the others with symbolic fagots, signifying to the lookers-on the fate which their crimes had earned for them, but which this time, in mercy, was remitted. One of these was Barnes; the other five were "Stillyard men," undistinguishable ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... absorbed in a melancholy silence, Scholastique left her old wooden chair, fixed a taper on the end of a candlestick, lit it, and placed it near a small waxen Virgin, sheltered in her niche of stone. It was the family custom to kneel before this protecting Madonna of the domestic hearth, and to beg her kindly watchfulness during the coming night; ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... glad that conference is coming. I shall see the bishop, and have you removed to some other part of the Lord's vineyard. You are too plain a Pulpit for such an elegant Pew. Just look at your big hands and feet. We want a spiritual guide whose fingers taper to a fine point, and one who could wear, if need be, a lady's shoe. Get out, with your great paws and clodhoppers! We want in this church a Pulpit that will talk about heaven, and make no allusion to the other place. I have a highly educated ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... come. Another brother was also added to our number about a fortnight ago, so that we are now two-and-twenty altogether, who break bread. This is a small company certainly, but though it be only like a taper on a candlestick, yet there is some light, however little, and I trust that, with God's blessing, this light will be more and more bright in Germany, where it is so much needed. The Lord is also blessing my labours among the dear brethren here, so that ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... cigarette by touch, and opening his match-box, Sam struck a little wax taper, began to light his cigarette, and naturally held the flame so near his face that, as he knelt there, it was well illumined for the benefit of the prowler, who crouched close and stared hard, expecting moment by moment ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... the wondrous moonwort (Botrychium lunaria), which was doubly valuable from its mystic virtue, for, as Culpepper[22] tells us, it was believed to open locks and possess other magic virtues. The mullein, popularly termed the hag-taper, was also in request, and the honesty (Lunaria biennis), "in sorceries excelling," was equally employed. By Scotch witches the woodbine was a favourite plant,[23] who, in effecting magical cures, ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... same evening, about midnight, when silence rested on the monastery, and the priests were all wrapped in slumber, Chan, with a lighted taper in his hand, stole with noiseless footsteps along the dark passages into the chamber of death where his beloved lay. Kneeling beside the coffin with a heart full of emotion, in trembling accents he called upon Willow to listen to the ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... carrying a trident-shaped sort of candlestick, another with cymbals, a lot of little boys, and two young ecclesiastics of some sort in the yellow satin copes (contrasting queerly with the familiar tarboosh of common life on their heads), these carried little babies and huge wax tapers, each a baby and a taper. They marched round and round three times, the cymbals going furiously, and chanting a jig tune. The dear little tiny boys marched just in front of the priest with such a pretty little solemn, consequential air. Then they all stopped in front of the sanctuary, ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... natural powers which shape the mould of races, —that you may look in vain for verification of ethnological assertions.... No: the heel does not protrude;—the foot is not flat, but finely arched;—the extremities are not large;—all the limbs taper, all the muscles are developed; and prognathism has become so rare that months of research may not yield a single striking case of it.... No: this is a special race, peculiar to the island as are the shapes of its peaks,—a mountain race; and ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... the margin of the beautiful lake, and backed by the grand amphitheatre of the fells at the other side, whose snowy peaks show faintly against the sky, tinged with the vaporous red of the western light. As you descend towards the margin of the lake, and see Golden Friars, its taper chimneys and slender gables, its curious old inn and gorgeous sign, and over all the graceful tower and spire of the ancient church, at this hour or by moonlight, in the solemn grandeur and stillness ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... of the children was sick and Gussie had not told him? The last thought sent him flying up the stairs three steps at a time, and he reached the flag room door so breathless that he could scarcely turn the knob. The bed was empty. Only a wee taper from the Christmas tree burned faintly on ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... then a bit,—an inch bore would be large enough, but I suppose it would be just as easy, perhaps easier, to make a two-inch bore,—the auger would be more apt to get clogged and cramped in a smaller hole; then a reamer and a circular joint-plane, to make your joints,—the taper end of one log is to be fitted into the bore of the next, you know. You will also need some apparatus for holding your log and directing the rod, so that you sha'n't bore out, but make your holes meet in the middle, when you bore ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... upon gilt-edged paper With a neat little crow-quill, slight and new: Her small white hand could hardly reach the taper, It trembled as magnetic needles do, And yet she did not let one tear escape her; The seal a sun-flower; 'Elle vous suit partout,' The motto cut upon a white cornelian; The wax was superfine, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... certainly immensely good-natured and indulgent towards me, and, in the absence of my mother, tried to teach me to be less of an Orson; she had hands which were true works of art, flexible, fine-grained, taper-fingered, and lily-white; these she used very effectively, and would fain have induced me to attempt the regeneration of my own dirty and ragged little fists. She would beseech me, also, to part my hair ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... arranges fresh festivals; trade flourishes under his rule, and the people find themselves well off, in spite of the many taxes laid upon them. But what are the people? a vulgar multitude who, like the gnats, fly towards every thing brilliant, and, so long as the taper burns, will continue to flutter round it, even though they burn their wings in doing so. Let Pisistratus' torch burn out, Phanes, and I'll swear that the fickle crowd will flock around the returning nobles, the new light, just as they ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to her mind the day of her first communion, and how pretty she had been at vespers, with her white veil and her large wax-taper, whilst the girls were all taking their places in a row around the choir, and the ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... with details with little taper-finger touches of nicety, but she could not judge as well as he of generalities and the final scope of combinations. It was doubtful if Abigail ever fairly ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the side of the bed a taper Shall ever with matches be, A pencil and piece of paper, To note what occurs to me. * * * * * Since then I have tried, but the late joke, As seen in my bedside scrawl, Is always so poor,—that the great joke, I'm sure, was no ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various
... with sighes (O fatal voice) pronounc'd these words, yet did the acc[e]ts faile: How blessed is my mother in her choise, How fully she with nature did preuaile. This said, her blushing face sinkes in her shroud like Cinthia muffel'd in an enuious cloud. When loe, the dying taper in his toombe, gaue darknes to it selfe ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... min agreeable?" said Mr. Swiveller in an undertone. "What is the odds so long as the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conviviality, and the wing of friendship never moults a feather! But, only one little whisper, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... have lain here, these many empty days I thought to pack with Credos and Hail Marys So close that not a fear should force the door— But still, between the blessed syllables That taper up like blazing angel heads, Praise over praise, to the Unutterable, Strange questions clutch me, thrusting fiery arms, As though, athwart the close-meshed litanies, My dead should pluck at me from hell, ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... time it has never ceased to exist. The clerk is the last representative of the minor orders which the ecclesiastical changes wrought in the sixteenth century have left us. Prior to the Reformation there were sub-deacons who wore alb and maniple, acolytes, the tokens of whose office were a taper staff and small pitcher, ostiaries or doorkeepers corresponding to our verger or clerk, readers, exorcists, rectores chori, etc. This full staff would, of course, be not available for every country church, and for such parishes a clerk and ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... an instant, on his way to the barber's; and, taking out the false key, (which, though made of baser metal, was almost as bright as the original), put it carefully into his waistcoat pocket. He then stopped at an oil and candle shop, and bought a wax taper and a box of matches. "The garden door's safest: I'll chance it with the garden-door," thought Mat, as he sat down in the shaving-shop chair, and ordered the barber to operate on ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... next looked at it. I remember how it glowed when his father said of her in his presence, "She's an intelligent girl: she will be a good housewife." At Latkin's house they told me that the old man had gone quietly, like a burned-out taper, and that so long as he had strength and consciousness he had stroked his daughter's hair, had said something unintelligible, but not sad, and had smiled continually. At the burial my father went to the church and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... stairs. He followed, trembling. When it had reached the bottom of the stairs, it turned through the hall towards the back door of the mansion. Dolph held the light over the balustrades; but, in his eagerness to catch a sight of the unknown, he flared his feeble taper so suddenly, that it went out. Still there was sufficient light from the pale moonbeams, that fell through a narrow window, to give him an indistinct view of the figure, near the door. He followed, therefore, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... to her that he had asked for no caress. He was going unassoiled to his God, with the divine indifference of the dying. Only his imagination looked backward and forward. And she thought, "It is a little light flame that I have lit with my own taper that has gone out, and presently the grave will extinguish that." She sat quiet and sombre in the growing darkness and ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
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