"Spark" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The spark which lit up his genius could not live in that goodness which constituted the groundwork of his nature, but in passion, called forth by the sight of great misfortunes, great faults, great crimes, in fact, by the sight of all which attracted or repelled ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... Ronk, lay hold quick, and break this fellow's clasp," he cried, briefly. "The girl retains a spark of life yet, but the man's arms ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... opinion. In view of the great hopes, placed by our enemies and the newspapers in their service, on Rumania's entry into the war, these successes are recognized on all sides readily or grudgingly and without any spark of sympathy for the defeated country, and in some cases are even hailed as brilliant military achievements of the first rank. The preponderating opinion of the Press, however, passes over the fact that the conquest of Rumania, ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... and country, when all is said and done. All this does not suit an English gentleman. You think differently; or perhaps you do not care whether it does or not. I admit I can't hold forth as you do; nor string a lot of fine words together. I am only an old nincompoop compared to a clever young spark like you. But I request you to keep off these topics in the company I like to see round my table. They don't like Jacobins, you know, no more ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... shares with all the neighboring tribes. Two notches are cut through a section of bamboo, and tree cotton is placed below them. A second section of bamboo is cut to a sharp edge, and this is rubbed rapidly back and forth in the notches until the friction produces a spark, which when caught on tinder can be blown into a flame. [175] At the door of the house will be found a foot wiper (Fig. 5, No. 12) made of rice-straw drawn through an opening cut in a stick, or it may consist of coconut husks fastened together to make a ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... I'll tell you of this friend. He found me happiest of the happy; fortune and honour crowned me; and love and peace lived in my heart. One spark of folly lurked there; That too he found; and by deceitful breath, blew it to flames that have consumed me. This friend ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... to try and dictate to you a letter or a note, and begin the same without any spark of hope, my mind being entirely in abeyance. This malady is very bitter on the literary man. I have had it now coming on for a month, and it seems to get worse instead of better. If it should prove to be softening of the brain, a melancholy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a spark and a report away down in a field of maize, some six hundred yards below us, and the whizz of ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... heaven as he crossed himself repeatedly. "There," said Arthur, "is a man who has left a parcel of his cursed rockets and fireworks, with I don't know how much gunpowder, in the count's house, from which we have just fled. The wind blows that way. One spark of fire, and the whole ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... the strength of armored ships is the firing pin's frail spark, More sure than the helm of the mighty fleet are my rudders to their mark, The faint foam fades from the bright screw blades—and I strike from ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... speaking, France was our rival. But he well knew the distinction between political enmity and illiberal prejudice. If there was any great and enlightened nation in Europe, it was France, which was as likely as any country upon the face of the globe to catch a spark from the light of our fire, and to act upon the present subject with warmth and enthusiasm. France had often been improperly stimulated by her ambition; and he had no doubt but that, in the present instance, she would readily follow ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... which is willing enough to hear; and she recalled the thrill of delight that trembled through every nerve of her body when she looked up, and found her answer, when she saw and recognized what she sought in the glance which, flashing between them, was the spark that first fired the train of her blind passion for Colonel Colquhoun. She thought then that her prayer was answered at that moment; and she believed still that it had been answered so; but for a special purpose which she had not then perceived. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... adventurous life of Galla Placidia, a woman of considerable talent and no principle, the daughter of Theodosius (the great Theodosius, who subdued the Arian heresy, the first emperor baptized in the true faith of the Trinity, the last who had a spark of genius), the sister of one emperor, and the mother of another,—twice a slave, once a queen, and once an empress; and she, too, rests there in the great mausoleum builded for her. There, also, lies Dante, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... low down as to attract the notice of the bear when it awoke. Rising to its full height on its hind legs, and protruding its tongue to the utmost, it just managed to touch Tim's toe. The touch acted liked an electric spark, awoke him at once, and the leg ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... demonstrations whatever should be made. We were obliged to submit to the petty tyranny, but our hearts were filled with anger, and the love which we could not assert was strengthened in its concealment. It needed only a spark to bring about an explosion, and the theatre was so fortunate as to kindle this spark in the hearts of the loyal Prussians. On the evening of that 10th of March, a small family drama which I had written was to be performed. It was the simple and affecting history of a family celebrating ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... Seth Robson ( as is my own brother's son, and mate to a collier) to be cotched up by a press-gang, and ten to one his wages all unpaid? Div yo' think I'd send up Measter Cholmley to speak up for that piece o' work? Not I.' He took up his pipe again, shook out the ashes, puffed it into a spark, and shut ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... recover, or the Prince should come of age. At the same time the Duke of Somerset was committed to the Tower. So, now the Duke of Somerset was down, and the Duke of York was up. By the end of the year, however, the King recovered his memory and some spark of sense; upon which the Queen used her power—which recovered with him—to get the Protector disgraced, and her favourite released. So now the Duke of York was down, and the Duke ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... shallows, and the may-flies flickered and rustled round him like water fairies, with their green gauzy wings; the coot clanked musically among the reeds; the frogs hummed their ceaseless vesper-monotone; the kingfisher darted from his hole in the bank like a blue spark of electric light; the swallows' bills snapped as they twined and hawked above the pool; the swift's wings whirred like musket-balls, as they rushed screaming past his head; and ever the river fleeted ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... Hope of all men . . . Thou gavest us the spark, The spark of faith. But to-day, little father, Thou hidest the light, Thou hidest the ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... at your shrine, Have sung this hymn, and here entreat One spark of your diviner heat To light upon a love ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... trying to make this clod understand. His brain was not built with the right cells for understanding me. 'Lord Southminster,' I said, turning upon him and clasping my hands, 'I will not go away while you stop here. But you have some spark enough of a gentleman in your composition, I hope, not to inflict your company any longer upon a woman who does not desire it. I ask you to leave me here alone. When you have gone, and I have had time to ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... leaping upon its back and fastening his fangs in the creature's neck. Tibo had shuddered at the sight, but he had thrilled, too, and for the first time there entered his dull, Negroid mind a vague desire to emulate his savage foster parent. But Tibo, the little black boy, lacked the divine spark which had permitted Tarzan, the white boy, to benefit by his training in the ways of the fierce jungle. In imagination he was wanting, and imagination is but another name ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... me to own, that I have a little spark—not a little one, perhaps of secret pride and vanity, that will arise, now and then, on the honours done me; but which I keep under as much as I can; and to this pride, let me tell your ladyship, I ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Magnetic touch of spark divine, Speak to the inert soul, Let light from out the darkness shine, And truth her page unroll; Speak to the minds that waiting, starve, And give them power to see, That he who patiently will ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... the survivors from a terrible explosion of ammunition near Naples many years previously. That muffled sound of quick firing came from metallic cartridges exploding within the cases that held them; each case would burst and set fire to others beside it; like the spark that runs along a fuse, the train of boxes would blow up in quick succession till the large stores of gunpowder were fired and then a mass of dynamite beyond. There were divisions in the vaults, there were doors, there ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... introduced her a short time before. It is an old story—it has been played again and again to its Da Rimini finish. The friend introduces the friend, and the lauded virtues of this friend inflames imagination, until love strikes a spark; then soon instead of three we find one—one groping blindly, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... district. There is no use talking about it I will not throw that tiny mouthful to all the four winds. It will do no good if divided among so many, but it is a comfort to me, to me alone. No, I will not part with it as long as there is a spark of life in me. That I will not, ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... main roof-timbers blazing. "The best conjecture seems to be that the dry twigs, straw, and similar debris, carried into the roof by birds, and which it has been the custom to clear at intervals out of the vault pockets, had caught fire from a spark that had in some way passed through the roof covering, perhaps under a sheet raised a little at the bottom by the wind." Assistance was quickly summoned, and "by half-past twelve the whole was seen to be extinguished. At four o'clock the authorities held the evening service, ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... knocked the wind out of you? My friend and helper—Mr. Elsmere. Come and sit down, won't you, a minute. They've left us the chairs, I perceive, and there's a spark or two of fire. Do you ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... crimson and silver; and then coals of fire. These glimmered a while on the sea line, and seemed to brighten and darken and spread out, and still the night and the stars reigned undisturbed; it was as though a spark should catch and glow and creep along the foot of some heavy and almost incombustible wall-hanging, and the room itself be scarce menaced. Yet a little after, and the whole east glowed with gold and scarlet, and the hollow of heaven was filled ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... means all forms of carbon, whether as peat, muck, charcoal dust from the spark-catchers of locomotives, charcoal hearths, river and swamp deposits, leaf mould, decomposed spent tanbark or sawdust, etc. In short, if any vegetable matter is decomposed with the partial exclusion of air (so that there shall ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... doubt, on the beach," said he, "but they are of no use at all without a steel. However, we must try." So saying, he went to the beach, and soon returned with two flints. On one of these he placed the tinder, and endeavoured to ignite it; but it was with great difficulty that a very small spark was struck out of the flints, and the tinder, being a bad, hard piece, would not catch. He then tried the bit of hoop-iron, which would not strike fire at all; and after that the back of the axe, with no better success. During all these trials Peterkin sat with his hands in his pockets, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... was a little better, for somewhere hidden within him this pale young man had a spark of the divine fire, but it was so dampened by the atmosphere of the church that it never rose above a ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... for that!" Ronald said. "I have no reason for feeling one spark of regret at what has befallen him. He was the cruel persecutor of my parents, and did his best to get me removed. There is but one obstacle now to obtaining my father's release, and as he is neither a relation nor an old man I shall ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... things, Reared up by the hero, preserved by the sage, And drawn out in rich hues on the chronicler's page, Had sunk in the blast, and in ruins lay spread, While the altar of freedom was reared in its stead. And a spark from that shrine in the free-roving breeze, Had crossed from fair France to that isle of the seas; And a flame was there kindled which fitfully shone Mid the shout of the free, and the dark captive's groan; As, mid contrary breezes, a torch-light will play, Now ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... modified profoundly the course of history in the age in which they lived, but also because that, hidden deep down, somewhere, in these men stained by a thousand crimes, ruthless, lustful, bloodthirsty, cruel as the grave, was the germ of true greatness, some dim spark of the divine fire of genius. Contending against principalities and powers, they held their own; in the welter of anarchy in which they lived they proved that there existed no finer fighting men, which alone give them some claim to consideration; but that which is most ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... solution is concentrated by evaporation and cooled down, about five-sixths of the chlorate of potash crystallizes out. It is purified by redissolving and crystallization, and is sold either in the state of crystals or finely ground. During these operations care must be taken lest a spark should produce the inflammation of the chlorate on contact with any organic substance. Large quantities of potassium chlorate exposed to strong heat in contact with the wood of casks or the timber of a roof have produced ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... which fell from my shoulders at these words! I was to hear, then, what had intervened between me and my purpose. The wearing night I had anticipated was to be lightened with some small spark of knowledge. I had confidence enough in the kind-hearted inspector to be sure of that. I caught at my uncle's arm and squeezed it delightedly, quite oblivious of the curious glances I must have received ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... stood before some blades of copper pushing at them with a wooden stick, while above his head fat sparks leaped the gap between two brassy spheres. As if to complete this illustration for a bronze-age edition of "First Steps in Electricity" another cable twisted up from the spark gap and vanished out a small window. The entire thing might have been labeled "How to Generate A Radio Signal in the Crudest Manner." As Jason reached this conclusion in the smallest fraction of a second, and at almost the very same instant, ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... alone,—with what right does it endeavor to delude itself into the conviction that it is not an animal, as the wolf, the hyena, and the tiger are, but a somewhat nobler, a spirit destined to be immortal, a spark of the essential Light, Fire and Reason, which are God? What other immortality than one of selfishness could this creature enjoy? Of what other is it capable? Must not immortality commence here and is not life a part of it? How shall ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... than through that of his neighbours. They had been five years married before she brought him an heir to his poverty, and she lived five years more to train him—then, after a short illness, departed, and left the now aging man virtually alone with his little child, coruscating spark of fresh vitality amidst the ancient surroundings. This was the Cosmo who now, somewhat sore at heart from the result of his cogitations, entered the kitchen in search ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... electric spark they tell us life is extinguished almost without a quiver of pain. But, however this may be in natural things, we know the Holy Spirit can touch with celestial fire the surrendered thing, and slay it in a moment, after it is really yielded up to the sentence of death. That is our business, ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... stammering, that she had not been destined in the first place for the throne of France, and that this want of forethought had injured her education; then, feeling a spark of courage in her heart, she said that the late Queen had more than once confided to her that the Court of France was disorderly in its fashions, because it was never the princesses who gave ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... so serene, So innocent, befits the scene: There's magic in that small bird's note— See, there he flits—the Yellow-throat; A living sunbeam, tipped with wings, A spark of light ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... served to them. We want to know about life's origin and meaning and destiny. We cannot keep our questions at home. We cannot stop thinking. If this universe is fundamentally physical, if the only spark of spiritual life which it ever knew is the fitful flame of our own unsteady souls, if it came from dust and to dust will return, leaving behind no recollection of the human labour, sacrifice and aspiration which for a little time it unconsciously enshrined, that outlook ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... his catalogue of charges. He closed it tight and smote the table. 'Like mother—and grandmother too—like daughter!' he said, and generalised again to preserve his dignity: 'They're aflame in an instant. You may see them quiet for years, but it smoulders. You dropped the spark, and they ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... standing triumphant over England and France, and in a position to make good his claim with three stalwart brothers to back him. All these young men had died prematurely. Their only descendant was Henry VI., and that meagre and wretched representative of the ambitious Henry V. had had no spark of the character of his father and uncles. The one vigorous element in his life was his wife, Margaret of Anjou, who diligently exerted herself to keep her husband on his throne. In vain were her efforts. By 1467, Edward of York ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... "could I with you." I should have said so, perhaps, but a livid, vivid spark leapt out of a cloud at which I was looking, and there was a crack, a crash, and a close rattling peal; and I thought only of hiding my dazzled eyes against Mr. ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... some of us when the heart of the one man beats for the one woman, and there alights and resides in their breasts that spark of devotion that we call "love." When there is born to that union a child, even though in Nature's stupid way, then a bond is created more precious than anything else in this world. Without this little circle of loving ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis
... not only receive but will retain a charge equal in pressure to that of the device sending the current. And when you go even farther and bring the terminals near together, the quick discharge that takes place creates an electric spark which is in reality a series of alternating flashes that come so fast as to be blurred into what appears to be one. Could we separate these flashes we should find that each of them lasts less than a thousandth part of a second. The frequency of such oscillations ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... several things besides the consciousness of his own pleasure. He saw that Gordon looked well and happy, but that he looked older, too, and more serious, more marked by life. He looked as if something had happened to him—as, in fact, something had. Bernard saw a latent spark in his friend's eye that seemed to question his own for an impression of Blanche—to question it eagerly, and yet to deprecate judgment. He saw, too—with the fact made more vivid by Gordon's standing there beside her in his manly ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... mother's incitement she replied merely by such phrases as are wrongly called Jesuitical—wrongly, because the Jesuits were strong, and such reservations are the chevaux de frise behind which weakness takes refuge. Then the mother regarded the girl as a dissembler. If by mischance a spark of the true nature of the Wattevilles and the Rupts blazed out, the mother armed herself with the respect due from children to their parents to reduce ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... with their steady ways,—of the girls in his neighborhood with their reading societies, their sewing-circles for the poor, their book-clubs and art-unions for practice in various accomplishments,—he thought, with apprehension, that there appeared not a spark of interest in his charmer's mind for any thing in this direction. She never had read any thing,—knew nothing on all those subjects about which the women and young girls in his circle were interested; ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... concern with them, he was the son of an inn-keeper—Simon Taverner, of the Emperor's Head, Garlick Hill—who had been recently mined by their exactions, his licence taken from him, and his house closed: enough to provoke a less mettlesome spark than Dick, who had vowed to revenge the parental injuries on the first opportunity. The occasion now seemed to present itself, and it was not to be lost. Chancing to be playing at bowls in the alley behind the Three Cranes with some of his comrades ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... she'd want to, with so few jewels—" She dropped the paper and turned to her husband. "If you had a spark of ambition, that's the kind of thing you'd try for. You could have got it just as ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... together once during the day, and their eyes met. It was just as the line of soldiers passed. Those of the elder lighted with a sudden spark of mingled triumph and hate, those of the younger flashed back for a moment and then fell beneath the elder's gaze. There was much enthusiasm about the war, and among others, both of the Mills boys enlisted before the ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... soul. It was all there—the thoroughly worldly shrewdness, the mordant, somewhat cynical humour, and the genuine kindness of heart which went to make up Lady Arabella's personality as her world knew it. And something more. Behind all these one sensed the glamour of a long-past romance, the unquenched spark of a faith that, as Lady Arabella had herself once put it in a rare moment of self-revelation, "love is the best thing this queer old world of ours has to offer." The portrait on the easel was that of a woman who had visioned the miracle of love only ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... the wood, the laughter and talking before it growing louder. Each grey marksman twitched his cartridge box in place, glanced at his musket, glanced toward his immediate officer. Across the intervals ran an indefinable spark, a bracing, a tension. Some of the men moistened their lips, one or two uttered a little sigh, the hearts of all beat faster. The step had quickened. The trees grew more thinly, came down to a mere bordering fringe of sumach. Cleave motioned to the bugler; the latter ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... ev'ry tam on de fashion, An' 'bout nices' t'ing dat was never be seen. Got not'ing for say me—I spark it sam' way me W'en I go see de moder ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... to the entanglement, he probed the barbed wire carefully with his wand, watching for an ensuing spark. For the Germans more than once had been known to electrify their wires, with fatal results ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... you would be an insult; but if in the red ditch-water that runs through your heart there be a spark of courage, mount your horse, choose what arms you please, and come forth. I defy ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... recognized by the two bright blue lines (of wave length 4555 and 4593) in their flame spectrum, but these are not present in the spark spectrum. The other lines include three in the green, two in the yellow, and two in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... "ye are NOT the young spark who is to marry Mistress Amy at the Hall, yet makes a pother and mess of it all by a duel with Sir Roger de Cadgerly, the wicked baronet, for his over-free discourse with our fair Maudlin this very eve? Ye are NOT the traveler ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... trip, and I want the crew in good condition." I studied the two charts, one showing our surroundings laterally, the other vertically, all bodies about us represented as glowing spots of green light, of varying sizes; the ship itself as a tiny scarlet spark. Everything shipshape: perhaps, a degree or two of elevation when ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... A coarse black-and-gray striped woolen petticoat, too short by several inches, left her legs bare. She might have belonged to some tribe of Redskins in Fenimore Cooper's novels; for her neck, arms, and ankles looked as if they had been painted brick-red. There was no spark of intelligence in her featureless face; her pale, bluish eyes looked out dull and expressionless from beneath the eyebrows with one or two straggling white hairs on them. Her teeth were prominent and uneven, but white ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... within a mile of her still. She felt relieved that he did not write more bitterly of the quarrel with her father, whatever its nature might have been; but the general frigidity of his communication quenched in her the incipient spark that events ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... too—there's this curse about the drink, when it's got its footing in a home it eats out all warm affections. I don't think my mother had much love left for my father in her heart when he died. His drunkenness had nearly stamped out the last spark." ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... now he seized on them as an excuse for the course he wanted to follow. And so the slip of paper went back into his pocket-book, tucked in carefully, though he knew every word that was on it; and he sat down again, and remained, thinking and wondering, until the fire had ceased to show even a spark of red, and the chill of the room sent him shivering to bed, to ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... quiet, with scarcely a writhe, nor any sign of flurry, she died, holding the calf to her side until her last vital spark had fled, and left it to a swift despatch with a single lance-thrust. No slaughter of a lamb ever looked more like murder. Nor, when the vast bulk and strength of the animal was considered, could a mightier example have been given of the force and ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... quiet dame Who plies with' rock and spindle The patient flax, how great a flame Yon little spark shall kindle! The lurid morning shall reveal A fire no king can smother Where British flint and Boston steel Have clashed against each other! Old charters shrivel in its track, His ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... if remembering that Betsy had asked her a question. "Any man could strike a spark from his flint and steel that he had for his gun. And he'd keep striking it till it happened to fly out in the right direction, and you'd catch it in some fluff where it would start a smoulder, and you'd blow on it till you got a little flame, and drop tiny bits of ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... call beside the pickril pond, And the crows air cawin' in the pines uv the pasture lot beyond; Where folks complain uv bein' poor, because their money's lent Out West on farms 'nd railroads at the rate uv ten per cent; Where we ust to spark the Baker girls a-comin' home from choir, Or a-settin' namin' apples round the roarin' kitchen fire: Where we had to go to meetin' at least three times a week, And our mothers learnt us good religious Dr. Watts to speak, And where our grandmas sleep their sleep—God rest their souls, I say! And ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... and Hal could see that the gasoline flow had been turned on nearly to the full capacity. It was the poor ignition work that was making the motors respond so badly. A little less, and a little less, of the electric spark that burned the gasoline, and air mixture—that was the secret of the gradually decreasing speed, while all the time it looked as though the "Farnum" was doing her level ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... proved how feebly words essay To fix one spark of Beauty's heavenly ray? Who doth not feel, until his failing sight Faints into dimness with its own delight— His changing cheek—his sinking heart confess ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... Hicks, his thought, being a fanciful man. But I'll bid you gude-marnin' now. Awnly mind this, as between friends and without a spark of malice: Will Blanchard means to marry your maid, sure as you'm born, if awnly she keeps strong for him. It rests ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... that there was no more hope. It was not long, in fact, before she was observed to rise in her bed and fall back as if struck with death. "For four hours she appeared to me," says Dr. Pfendler, "completely inanimate. With Messrs. Franck and Schaeffer, I made every possible effort to rekindle the spark of life. Neither mirror, nor burned feather, nor ammonia, nor pricking succeeded in giving us a sign of sensibility. Galvanism was tried without the patient showing any contractility. Mr. Franck believed her ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... many more, whose names on earth are dark But whose transmitted effluence cannot die So long as fire outlives the parent spark, Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. 'Thou art become as one of us,' they cry; 5 'It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long Swung blind in unascended majesty, Silent alone amid an heaven of song. Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... influence. I would wish to show that had it not burned thus strangely concentrated and pure, the poets of succeeding ages could not have taken from that white flame of love which Dante set alight upon the grave of Beatrice, the spark of ideal passion which has, in the noblest of our literature, made the desire of man for woman and of woman for man burn clear towards heaven, leaving behind the noisome ashes and soul-enervating vapours of ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... at the wheel of the touring car and, once the farm was left behind, and they were on a fairly good country road, he advanced the spark and the gasoline control until they were running at twenty-five and ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... Colonel, I thought you did, by your taking fire so quickly. I am glad to hear you say you did not. How soon a little spark kindles into a flame; especially when it meets with such ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... a cowardly yielding to family persuasion, some one who she knew did not love her, or whom she did not love, with the only sort of love which makes marriage sacred. What agonies such women must have endured, if they had any spark of feminine feeling left alive, they themselves know; and what Christian, far more guiltless than they, also endured during the three minutes that she kept Mrs. Ferguson waiting at the locked door, was a thing never to be spoken of, but also never to be forgotten during the longest and happiest ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... two souls have somewhere been acquainted In former beings, or, struck out together, One spark to Africk flew, and ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... south," he said, "and a spark of the hot refuse shot down the bank has been blown ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... same enlightening and invigorating quality. He did not fumble among dreary details, but saw swiftly into the essence of things, so that he smiled as he sate. A book would, on such occasions, touch into life a whole train of pretty thoughts, as a spark leaps along a scattered line of gunpowder. A few remembered lines of poetry, a few notes played by unseen hands on a musical instrument, from a window that he passed in the street, would give a sense of completed happiness; ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... young may club to help the old, And what alone can be achieved by neither, Is often brought about by both together. The briskest of you all have felt alarms, Finding the fair one prostitute her charms With broken sighs, in her old fumbler's arms: But for our spark, he swears he'll ne'er be jealous Of any rivals, but young lusty fellows. Faith, let him try his chance, and if the slave, After his bragging, prove a washy knave, May he be banished to some lonely den And never ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... And however perverted their belief may have become, they seem in early days to have contemplated a real destruction of self,—the flame of self-love and self-life being so put out that it should never more be a flame, and should not long be a spark. For instance, their writings tell us such things ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris
... justly to be reckon'd so, for she Had no additions to set off her beauty. Her hair dishevel'd, barefoot, woe-begone, In tears, and miserably clad: that if The life and soul of beauty had not dwelt Within her very form, all these together Must have extinguish'd it.—The spark, possess'd Already with the music-girl, just cried, "She's well enough."—But our ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... have no clue to his movements. If it had been any one else, we might almost conjecture that, like Hermonymus, he was in prison. It was just during this period that Cornelius Agrippa was in London. If either had mentioned the other, we should have a spark to illumine ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... of danger of my doing that," she called after him, mockingly. "There isn't a spark of fire, nor likely to be to-day, unless some of your admirers send me a shovel of coal. Mercy knows, ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... from a spark from the fire. No matter how it was done now. It is done, and can't be helped. I have lost the satisfaction of seeing half the Yankee fleet burnt up. I would rather have given a year's pay than have had ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... me ae spark o' Nature's fire, That's a' the learning I desire; Then tho' I drudge thro' dub an' mire At pleugh or cart, My Muse, though hamely in attire, ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... leave to refer them to the paper itself. I hope that there is none here, who, considering the subject in the calm light of philosophy, will advance an objection dishonorable to Virginia; that at the moment they are securing the rights of their citizens, an objection is started that there is a spark of hope, that those unfortunate men now held in bondage, may, by the operation of the general government, be made free. But if any gentleman be terrified by this apprehension, let him read the system. I ask, and I will ask again and again, till I be answered (not by declamation) ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... called combs, for the purpose of receiving the electricity from the glass plate, the arms of the U being held upon either side. The other ends of the conductors are connected by a rod from the middle of which projects another rod terminating in a knob, for delivering the spark. ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... stretched to capacity every waking moment, his memory aching with a million details, and lay awake nights thinking his mind would crack under the strain. Then Alpha faded to a dim bluish shimmer, Beta was eclipsed, Gamma was gone, Procyon dimmed to a failing spark; and suddenly Bart's memory accustomed itself to the load, the new habits were firmly in place, and he found himself eating, sleeping and ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... understand that when the big English dirigible R-34 came across the Atlantic last summer she was filled with hydrogen, and that her commander and crew all wore felt-soled shoes, so that they would not by any chance cause a spark when they walked over her metal floors and ladders just beneath ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... not till after the terrible passage of the bridge of Lodi that the idea entered my mind that I might become a decisive actor in the political arena. Then arose for the first time the spark of great ambition.—Napoleon. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... Jules Verney, you might say; improbable and far-fetched. But here it was, coming up on us again, much more wonderful than any picture! We were doing about twelve knots, and I suppose that machine was coming up at thirty. Just above the big triangle of three green lights was a blue spark snapping, and in the shadow between the wings the shape of a man. I stood there watching, watching, feeling nervous because of that peculiar drone that the propeller made, when all of a sudden it stopped and the whole thing swooped down to within twenty ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... doubtful whether she realised the fact of Elma's existence. Up till now he himself had drifted along in the easy-going manner of bachelors approaching their thirtieth birthday before the crucial moment arrives which acts as a spark to smouldering flames. He had indulged in lazy day-dreams in which Elma played the part of heroine; had thoroughly enjoyed her society when fate placed her in his way, without, however, exerting himself to take any active steps to secure additional meetings. This afternoon ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the lightning have had their victims. It is said that only two or three years ago one branch towards the East was still living, but when I saw it, the trunk was bare and bark-less, full of little worm-holes, and quite without a spark of vitality. The last remaining fragment has since fallen, and now the site of the tree is only marked by the row of young cypresses which have been planted in a circle round the base of the Oak of Mamre. But who shall prophesy that, a century hence, a tree will not have acquired ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... more a conquest of Norman's, and of Melanesia,' said Ethel. 'If it were not nonsense to build upon people's generous visions at seventeen, I should sometimes hope a spark had been lit that would shine some ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that sent a shudder through me, and when I lighted a match and looked around the sight made me crawl. Two poor wretches lay there, both dead, as we thought, but after giving them a thorough examination I decided there was a spark left in this poor fellow, at least, and after working over him a while we were sure of it. The other could not be revived, so we weighted his feet, and let him slide the plank to his watery grave. But that wasn't all—however I guess I won't tell any more. ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... we field the whole day long Hope's spark refuses to expire; A wily lob's successful job At once renews the slackening fire. Be Spartan, then! Crave not to flirt With Tennis and her female ball! 'Tis better to have tossed, And lost, Than never to have tossed ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... the very devils, both for the knowledge of sin, and also for the knowledge of God's eternal power and Godhead, have more experience than all the unregenerate men in the world; and yet have not the least spark of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... know. When I came back from abroad, knew I'd lost you, I was unhappy, terribly. Yet, it was enough for me to learn that you at least remembered me. Afterward, when we became friends, and you were kind to me, and into our friendship wavered a spark of something more than friendship, ah, I was almost happy! Only one thing tormented me: fear that such a feeling wronged Fedya. Afterwards, when Fedya tortured you so, I saw I could help. Then a certain definite ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... But in an artist this is strangely balanced by his love for his work. When he has ceased to wish for life or heed it for himself he still feels instinctive revolt against extinguishing that diviner spark than life itself, his genius, lent him from ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... Persons three eterne believe I, and these One essence I believe, so one and trine, They bear conjunction both with sunt and est. With the profound conjunction and divine, Which now I touch upon, doth stamp my mind Ofttimes the doctrine evangelical. This the beginning is, this is the spark Which afterwards dilates to vivid flame, And, like a star in heaven, is sparkling in me." Even as a lord, who hears what pleases him, His servant straight embraces, giving thanks For the good news, as soon as he is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... Charles the First, the map would undoubtedly be red where it is now an odious green. But it must be supposed that the political mind of that age lacked imagination, and, merely for want of a few thousand pounds and a few thousand men, the spark died that should have been a conflagration. From the interior came Indians with subtle poisons, naked bodies, and painted idols; from the sea came vengeful Spaniards and rapacious Portuguese; exposed to all these enemies ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... was upon the golden incline leading to his doom, when that buried something which marks a man—the spark of divinity which sets him ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... this condition of affairs it needed but a spark—I do not say a suggestion, I do not say a hint—from this butterfly Brierly; this rejected rival, to cause the explosion. I make no charges, but if this woman was in her right mind when she fled from Washington and reached this city in company—with Brierly, ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... flared with a purple spark, And the mist hung emerald in the dark: Now he stooped to the lilac flame Over the glare of the amber embers, Thrice to utter no earthly name; Thrice, like a mind that half remembers; Bathing his face in the magic mist Where the brilliance ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... woman: The little urchin smiles, and spreads her lure, And tries to kill, ere she's got power to cure. Thus 'tis with all — their chief and constant care 25 Is to seem everything but what they are. Yon broad, bold, angry spark, I fix my eye on, Who seems to have robb'd his vizor from the lion; Who frowns, and talks, and swears, with round parade, Looking as who should say, D ! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... the story with our Lord's first journey through Galilee, which was signalised by many miracles, and had excited much stir and talk. The news of the Healer had reached the isolated huts where the lepers herded, and had kindled a spark of hope in one poor wretch, which emboldened him to break through all regulations, and thrust his tainted and unwelcome presence into the shrinking crowd. He seems to have appeared there suddenly, having forced ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... entirely unconscious of doing any thing disagreeable. If not, perhaps he did not consider it of much consequence. He may have grown up with the opinion that little things are of small importance. Now, that this is not always so, you may easily see if you drop a spark of fire in a pile of shavings: the whole will be immediately in flames, and will do as much injury as if it had been kindled by a ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... taken fire; perhaps to the Destruction of the whole City, or, at least, as far as the Bridge and Parts adjacent. Let his Thoughts proceed to examine, why, or how, in that precipitate Fall, not one Nail, nor one Piece of Iron, in that large Fabrick, should afford one little Spark to enflame that Mass of sulphurous Matter it was loaded with; and if he is at a loss to find a Providence, I fear his Friends will be more at a loss to find his Understanding. But the Battle of Landen happening while our Regiment was here on Duty, we were soon remov'd ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe |
