"Taper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... 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
... 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
... 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
... the taper wing— The pilgrim there his thirst assuage, The wandering minstrel sit and sing, Or muse upon a ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... 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
... 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 ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... 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
... 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 blue of heaven's ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... 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
... 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. Enough that he seemed ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... 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
... sent to rest, and all their pleasure dies; Where yet they all the town-alert can see, And distant plough-boys pacing o'er the lea. These and the tasks successive masters brought - The French they conn'd, the curious works they wrought; The hours they made their taper fingers strike Note after note, all dull to them alike; Their drawings, dancings on appointed days, Playing with globes, and getting parts of plays: The tender friendships made 'twixt heart and heart, When the dear friends had nothing to impart: - All! all! are over;—now ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... 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 stopped ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... 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
... taper-stars, the altars gay; And those who crouch and pray; The white-robed crowd in close monastic stole, Who hither fled the world To find the world again ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... 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
... 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 ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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
... 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 which carried me up so that ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... 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
... 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. ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... 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 |
