"Torch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... increasing fierceness of the squalls, sometimes by a faint flash of lightning like the signal of a lighted torch waved far away behind the clouds, the shift of wind comes at last, the crucial moment of the change from the brooding and veiled violence of the south-west gale to the sparkling, flashing, cutting, clear- eyed anger of the King's north-westerly mood. You behold another phase of his passion, ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... case, they have done more than recall an agent. Had they confined themselves to depriving him of his appointment, James Monroe would have kept silence; but he has been accused of lighting the torch of discord in both Republics. The refutation of this absurd and infamous reproach is the chief object of his correspondence. If he did not immediately complain of these slanders in his letters of the 6th and 8th [July], it is because he wished to use at first a certain degree ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... and get the balance in the neighborhood. Deuce take the pounds, shillings, and pence! I wish they could all three get rid of themselves, like the Bedouin brothers at the show. Don't you remember the Bedouin brothers, Mr. Brock? 'Ali will take a lighted torch, and jump down the throat of his brother Muli; Muli will take a lighted torch, and jump down the throat of his brother Hassan; and Hassan, taking a third lighted torch, will conclude the performances by jumping down ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... intemperance leads, of the bestial appetites it fosters, of all the unnameable impurities that revel in its abodes; think of the hearth-stones desolated, of the mothers and daughters whose earthly hopes and joys have been destroyed by that charnel-house, the tavern. The incendiary who applies the midnight torch to peaceful dwellings, the robber who commits murder to secure his prey, is not an enemy to society half so dangerous, as he who inflames all evil passions and scatters wretchedness through a community, by dispensing alcoholic poison. Oh! are there not sorrows ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and then, for some divine and deeply mysterious reason, withdrawn from such pure channels of communication, and manifested themselves in the world,—but through base and sordid natures. Poor, vague Brother William, who saw visions and dreamed dreams, was, in this community, the torch that held a smouldering spark of the divine fire, and when, in a cataleptic state, his faint intelligence fluttered back into some dim depths of personality, and he moaned and muttered, using awful names with babbling freedom, Brother Nathan and the rest listened with ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... forthwith; Billets that blaze substantial and slow; Pine-stump split deftly, dry as pith; 30 Larch-heart that chars to a chalk-white glow: They up they hoist me John in a chafe, Sling him fast like a hog to scorch, Spit in his face, then leap back safe, Sing "Laudes" and bid clap-to the torch. ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... "the wooded Island," and the export of timber and staves, as well as of the furs of wild animals, continued, until the beginning of the seventeenth century, to be a thriving branch of trade. But in a succession of civil and religious wars, the axe and the torch have done their work of destruction, so that the age of most of the wood now standing does not date above two ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... said Bert, as he looked at the round, wet mark on the porch where the freezer had set. He flashed his torch on ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... it all up. If they don't know much about foxes, and have never experimented in burning live hair, they may think it is a pretty good story. But I would not tell them that the man who got up that torch-light procession was a good man. I would not tell them that he was one of God's most intimate friends; because even if they think he had a right to burn his enemy's crops, I don't believe that any right-minded child would think it was ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... did not succeed as well as she expected, however, for though just in the act of setting fire to a funeral pyre, the Professor dropped his torch, metaphorically speaking, and made a dive after the little blue ball. Of course they bumped their heads smartly together, saw stars, and both came up flushed and laughing, without the ball, to resume their seats, wishing ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... jackals and the wolves represent the anarchists who are down on everybody in the show, who won't do a thing to help along and won't allow any other animal to do anything, and who seem to want to burn and slay, to carry a torch by night and poison by day, and want everything in the show to be chaos. Those animals are never so happy as when the wind and lightning strike the tent, and blow it down and kill people and create a panic, and then these anarchists sing and laugh and enjoy their peculiar kind ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... farce!" he was saying, smiting himself on the breast with his fist. "I disport myself in striped trunks for the sport of the sated mob! I have put out my torch, have hid my talent in the earth, like the slothful servant! But fo-ormerly!" he began to bray tragically, "Fo-ormerly-y-y! Ask in Novocherkassk, ask in Tvier, in Ustejne, in Zvenigorodok, in Krijopole.[10] What a Zhadov and Belugin I was! How I played Max! What a figure ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... minutes later the village was a mass of flames. Lawrence applied the torch to his own house, Drummond to his, and Bacon to the church. They "burnt five houses of mine," reported Berkeley, "and twenty of other gentlemen." It was a desperate deed of determined men, a deed which foreshadowed the burning ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... dark flight of steps, damp and slippery. The ooze and slime rendered his footing tedious and insecure. Soon he recognised the mighty voice of Gideon bellowing forth a triumphant psalm. Another stave was just commencing as the door opened, and the torch glared lurid and dismally on the iron features and grisly aspect of the captive. A pair of rude stocks, through which Gideon's long extremities protruded, stood in the middle of the dungeon. He scowled terrifically at the intruders; but suddenly ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... boys made their way to the dirt and rocks beyond. By this time each had a kind of a torch, so the place ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... came to the Love group it was quite dark, and she begged a light from them that she might find her way up the mountain. So they lit their fire and handed her a torch, upon which she straightened up and threw off her poor cloak and revealed herself as a young and beautiful maiden, the good fairy who inhabited those parts. Holding her torch aloft, she began to dance in and out among the three fires as lightly as a wandering night breeze. Suddenly she stooped to ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... grinding wheels toward the cellars of Sant' Aloisa. With the wagon there were a few men enfeebled with fever, a few women shivering with ague. I walked behind the wagon, pushing it to aid the weary oxen. There was no moon: here and there a torch flickered in a copper sconce filled with oil. The courtyard and the cellar were of enormous size: in the old times Sant' Aloisa had sheltered fifteen hundred men. In the darkness, where a torch flared when he passed, I saw now and then Taddeo Marchioni coming and going, giving orders in his high, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... delights To lose itself, when the old world grows dull, And we are sick of its hack sounds and sights, Intrigues, adventures of the common school, Its petty passions, marriages, and flights, Where Hymen's torch but brands one strumpet more, Whose husband only knows ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... their chieftains alone. The two persons aforesaid proceeded from one fire to another, until they came to the great central fire, which was at the entrance of the son of O'Neill's tent; and a huge torch, thicker than a man's body, was continually flaming at a short distance from the fire, and sixty grim and redoubtable warriors with sharp, keen axes, terrible and ready for action, and sixty stern and terrific ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... memories—memories of a dead mother, of a lost brother, of a blind father's happier time—memories of far-off light, love, and beauty, that lay embedded in dark mines of books, and could hardly give out their brightness again until they were kindled for her by the torch of some known joy. Nevertheless, she returned Tito's bow, made to her on entering, with the same pale proud face as ever; but, as he approached, the snow melted, and when he ventured to look towards her again, while Nello was speaking, a pink flush overspread her face, to vanish ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... a torch that spluttered in an iron clamp on the wall Rodriguez questioned him with these words, and Morano with his wondering, wistful eyes. The old man halted and turned half round, and lifted his head and answered. "In the University of Saragossa," he said ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... swiftly forward, thrust a pine torch into the coals, and with it all whitely flaring ran out into the night; the others followed his example; and the terror-stricken women, hastily barring up the door, peered after them through the little ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... at midnight; but the unseasonableness of the tour did not repress the impatience of the islanders. The carriers dispatched from the Ti were to be seen hurrying in all directions through the deep groves; each individual preceded by a boy bearing a flaming torch of dried cocoanut boughs, which from time to time was replenished from the materials scattered along the path. The wild glare of these enormous flambeaux, lighting up with a startling brilliancy the innermost recesses of the vale, and seen moving rapidly along beneath the canopy ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... rejected, the mighty consolation which they bring refused; their joy does not hang on acceptance or rejection at the hands of their fellows. The only real losers are those who will not see nor hear. It is not the light-bringer who suffers when the torch is torn from his hands; it is those whose paths he ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... It is the Undershaft inheritance. I shall hand on my torch to my daughter. She shall make my ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... world and its ways. She was young still, and it was yet in her to be ardent; but she had none of the giddy restlessness of youth. Avery Denys was a woman who had left her girlhood wholly behind her. Her enthusiasms and her impulses were kindled at a steadier flame than the flickering torch of youth. There was no romance left in her life, but yet was she without bitterness. She had known suffering and faced it unblanching. The only mark it had left upon her was that air of womanly knowledge that clothed her like a garment even in her lightest moods. Of a quick understanding ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... this chain, and as many of the sapphire-stones as would make their fortunes." He pulled the chain, and heard a bell, the sound of which was exquisite. In a few moments the door was opened; yet he perceived nothing but twelve hands in the air, each holding a torch. The prince was so astonished that he durst not move a step—when he felt himself gently pushed on by some other hands from behind him. He walked on, in great perplexity, till he entered a vestibule inlaid with porphyry and lapis-stone, where the most melodious voice ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... great stoutness, nor had they been tied at an elevation best calculated to resist a possible strain. Amos Bartlett took the line from Mary and set to work with many assistants; while the farmer himself, waving a torch and stumping hither and thither, now directed Bartlett, now encouraged two men who worked with all their might at the cutting of a trench from the lake in order that this dangerous body of water might be drained back to the main stream. The flame-light ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... at the car, a hopeless torch now suffusing the lonely road with light. There was a certain suggestion of racial subtlety in the careful immobility of his face, but his dark, ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... himself, and signed to Pierre that he wished to retire to his own chamber; whereupon the servant lighted a pine knot at the fire, and preceded his master up the stairs, Miraut and Beelzebub accompanying them. The smoky, flaring light of the torch made the faded figures on the wall seem to waver and move as they passed through the hall and up the broad staircase, and gave a strange, weird expression to the family portraits that looked down upon this little procession as it moved by below them. When they reached the tapestried chamber Pierre ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... not take my eyes from her, and garden, trees, and fields disappeared before me, as she stood there tall and slender, so wondrously illuminated by the torch-light, now speaking with such grace to the young officer, and now nodding down kindly to the musicians. The people below were beside themselves with delight, and at last I too could restrain myself no longer, and joined in the cheers with all ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... fortress won, on the tents and towers below, The moon-lit sea, the torch-lit streets—and a gloom came o'er his brow: The voice of thousands floated up, with the horn and cymbals' tone; But his heart, 'midst that proud music, felt more utterly alone. And he cried, "Thou ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... in 'Bert, proudly exhibiting and flashing a cheap electric torch. "They gave me this at St Martin's—and in less than an hour the moon'll ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... sufficed for service rendered to the state: now every meritorious act seemed to demand a permanent distinction. Already Gaius Duilius, the victor of Mylae (494), had gained an exceptional permission that, when he walked in the evening through the streets of the capital, he should be preceded by a torch-bearer and a piper. Statues and monuments, very often erected at the expense of the person whom they purported to honour, became so common, that it was ironically pronounced a distinction to have none. But such merely personal honours did not long suffice. A custom came ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... drearily. The bare trees showed but dimly through the gathering dusk. It was a bleak, cold outlook. Presently down the street came a man with a lighted torch and set the gas-flames to flickering in every ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... before this bundle, which was covered with trailing weeds and moss and slime, and the constable stooped over him with a flaming torch in ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... particularly was the array of wagons moved from street to street, was an open square such as most Western towns had at that date for farmers to unhitch their teams in, and in that open square a closely covered wagon connected with a tent. It was nearly dark. But at the tent entrance a tin torch stuck in the ground showed letters and pictures on the tent, proclaiming that the only pig-headed man in America was therein exhibiting himself and his accomplishments, attended by Fairy ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... memories of sins so black that only the silent Vatican archives held record of them; memories of unholy loves, of deaths whose manner may not be written, of births whereat the angels shuddered. Torch-scarred walls and worm-tunnelled furniture whispered their secrets to him, rusty daggers confessed their bloody histories, and a vial still bearing ghastly frost of Borgian contarella spoke of a virgin martyr and of a princely cardinal whose deeds were forgotten by all save Mother Church. Paul's ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... Commodore Chantey and General Dearborn had done to York, the capital of a territory containing ninety-five thousand inhabitants, man, woman, and child! half an hour afterwards, or pay a ransom. The ransom was refused and the torch was applied to arsenals, store-houses, senate house, house of representatives, dockyard, treasury, war office, president's palace, rope walk, and the great bridge across the Potomac. In the arsenal ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... the last transformation of the material, visible man called James Otis, the courageous herald who ran swinging a torch in the early dawn ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... Red King preferred to leave bishoprics and churches empty so that he might annex the profits. Lanfranc, a wise and just man, had been the Minister of the Conqueror; the Red King made Ranulf (nicknamed the Torch or Firebrand)—a clever, unprincipled clerk—Bishop of Durham and Justiciar. It was Ranulf who did the King's business in keeping churches and bishoprics vacant, in violation of law and custom; it was Ranulf who plundered the King's vassals and the people at large by every kind of extortion, thwarted ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... as torches, lighted one of them, and proceeded forthwith to investigate, with the result that about an hour later he startled us all by unexpectedly emerging from behind a thick clump of bushes on the beach of South-west Bay and frantically waving a lighted torch in his hand, under the influence of such violent excitement that when we dropped work, and ran to him to learn what was the matter, we found him to all intents and ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... A burning torch lay on the ground near the first man whom the mule had thrown, by the light of which Don Quixote perceived him, and coming up to him he presented the point of the lance to his face, calling on him to yield himself prisoner, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... behaviour is designed ingeniously to convey a notion of its strict ceremony and its wide dominion,—to show that even in the heart of Arraghael we were not beasts in that year when the red flash of the sword came on us and the persecution of the torch. The MacNicoll's Night in the Hie Street of MacCailein Mot's town was an adventure uncommon enough to be spoken of for years after, and otherwise (except for the little feuds between the Glens-men and the burghers without ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... Burgundy was born. Our observant court lady describes in detail the ceremonial observed in the chamber of the Countess of Charolais and at the baptism. Brussels rang with joyful bells and blazed with torches, four hundred supplied by the city ahd two hundred by the young father. Each torch ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... paragraph indeed for so long a subject; but, short as it is, it is not less pithy, and it contains reasons why it should not be longer, and why that new torch of science which he is bringing in upon the human affairs generally, cannot be permitted to enter that department of them in his time. 'The first is, that it is a part of knowledge secret and retired in both those respects in which things are deemed secret; for some things are secret because ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... good suggestion, and the old miner picked out an extra dry bush that was long and slender. The top ignited readily, and he quickly swung it into a blaze. Then they went on once more, holding the torch at ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... continent of the West such gums are extracted by the force and proximity of the sun; at first liquid and flowing into the next sea, then thrown by the winds and waves upon the opposite shore. If you try the nature of amber by the application of fire, it kindles like a torch; and feeds a thick and unctuous flame very high scented, and presently becomes glutinous like pitch ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... God for having produced this temporal light, which is the smile of heaven and joy of the world, spreading it like a cloth of gold over the face of the air and earth, and lighting it as a torch by which we might ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... wearing out! And, but my heart for ever now were set immovably Never to let me long again the wedding bond to tie, Since love betrayed me first of all with him my darling dead, And were I not all weary-sick of torch and bridal bed, This sin alone of all belike my falling heart might trap; For, Anna, I confess it thee, since poor Sychaeus' hap, 20 My husband dead, my hearth acold through murderous brother's ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... lantern with a very feeble light, made still more feeble by interposing red paper, suffices for my own purpose; but the too attentive chowkee-dar, observing that my room is in darkness, and fancying that my light has gone out accidentally, comes flaring in with a torch, threatening the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... sacrifices were offered of numerous victims,—as the hecatomb, which means a hundred oxen. It is a curious fact that they had a vessel of holy water at the entrance of the temples, consecrated by putting into it a burning torch from the altar, with which or with a branch of laurel the worshippers were sprinkled on entering. The worshippers were also expected to wash their bodies, or at least their hands and feet, before going into the temple; a custom common also among the Jews and other nations. ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... feelings. We shed tears on the urns of the dead; deplore the loss of hecatombs of victims slaughtered on gloomy altars of religious bigotry; cry on seeing the ruins of cities over which fanaticism has displayed the funeral torch; and sincerely pity the blind zeal of our Scotch and English neighbors, whose constant character is to pity none, for erecting the banners of persecution at a time when the Inquisition is abolished in Spain and Milan, and the Protestant gentry are caressed ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... the signs aright. These calm words were his last. The next moment he drooped his head, and gently, placidly, drifted away from earth, like an infant sinking to rest, The torch had flashed ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... architect, who, in the time of Alexander the Great, rebuilt the Temple of Ephesus destroyed by the torch of Erostratus; was employed by Alexander in the building ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... to approach, and murmured something in his ear in a low hoarse voice, whereupon Bus nodded with an air of approval. Mr. John then handed him his pocket-book, and signified that he was to keep its contents, and after that the carriage rumbled off with its escort of mounted torch-bearers. ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... and methods on the mind of his wealthy merchant friend. James McGill was a believer in the value of education; he knew what it had done for his own home-land, and what Scotland, educationally, was doing for the world. He determined that the torch which for him had been lighted in Glasgow University should burn likewise for those who would succeed him in the land of his adoption. He had indicated that determination during the consideration of the subject in the Legislature. ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... of my student days; Leyden, Edinburgh, London, Paris, were each in turn the Mecca of medical students, just as at the present day Vienna and Berlin are the centres where our young men crowd for instruction. These also must sooner or later yield their precedence and pass the torch they hold to other hands. Where shall it next flame at the head of the long procession? Shall it find its old place on the shores of the Gulf of Salerno, or shall it mingle its rays with the northern aurora up among the fiords of Norway,—or shall ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Miller, Luman Sherwood, P. H. Perry, S. A. Goodwin, James C. Wood, and J. L. Doty, Esqs., proceeded to Canandaigua to meet Mr. Adams. At half past nine o'clock in the evening, Mr. Adams, accompanied by the committee, arrived in Auburn. He was received by a torch-light procession, composed of the Auburn Guards, the Firemen, and an immense concourse of citizens, and conducted to the mansion of Gov. Seward, where he ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... to the social world had failed. The resolutions which had induced the experiment were finally renounced. Five years nearer to death, and the last hope that had flitted across the narrowing passage to the grave, fallen like a faithless torch from his own hand, and trodden out by ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that Leader strode a shadowy Form; Her limbs like mist, her torch like meteor showed, With which she beckoned him through fight and storm, And all he crushed that crossed his desperate road, Nor thought, nor feared, nor looked on what he trode. Realms could not glut his pride, blood could not slake, So oft ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... a week from the day of flight to the ships quiet was restored, and a meeting of planters was adopting rules and rates for the employment of the freed slaves. Some estates resumed work at once; on others the ravages of the torch had first to be repaired. Some negroes would not work, and it was months before all the windmills on the hills were once more whirling. The Spaniards lingered long, but were finally relieved by a Danish regiment. Captain Erminger was ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... had kindled a fatwood torch. Others followed his example, and the red, smoky light flared over enraged faces and glaring eyes of maddened men; over the sweating horses, the baying dogs, and the black corpse with its bruised face. The guinea-hens, after their insane fashion, kept up a deafening potracking, flapping from limb ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... the trampling of myriads! What's that? (Someone knocks loudly at the door.) They cone this way—they draw the bolts—(rushing towards the background). Men! Men! Liberty! Deliverance! (BOURGOGNINO enters hastily with a drawn sword, followed by several torch-bearers.) ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... 'Say on,' said the baron; 'were Apollyon in presence personally, it were nothing to shake a brave man's mind.' 'The devil,' answered the master of the horse, 'is in Apollyon's stall!' 'Fool!' exclaimed the nobleman, snatching a torch from the wall; 'what is it that could have turned thy brain in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various
... a very different action was proceeding at the northern end of the besiegers' intrenchments. Ali left his castle of the lake, preceded by twelve torch-bearers carrying braziers filled with lighted pitch-wood, and advanced towards the shore of Saint-Nicolas, expecting to unite with the Suliots. He stopped in the middle of the ruins to wait for sunrise, and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... forced back upon myself, upon a feeble life, necessarily self-centered, to nurse and coddle myself as though I was a poor failing dotard, with one avenue alone—and how precarious!—through which I may perhaps speak my little message to the world—the education of a child to carry on my torch. ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... right-hand passage. This follows the outer shell, skirts what I have called the Hall of Winds, dips down through a long tunnel, and emerges on the outer slope at a point near the spot where the river disappears. The passage is safe, but can only be taken provided a candle or torch is used. If these directions should come under the notice of some unhappy traveller, let him accept my earnest wishes for success in his efforts to escape from a place which to me was first a haven of rest and then a hateful ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... settlers, bolt and bar were indispensable to the security of a dwelling. The summons was answered by a bond-servant, a coarse-clad and dull-featured piece of humanity, who, after ascertaining that his master was the applicant, undid the door, and held a flaring pine-knot torch to light him in. Further back in the passageway, the red blaze discovered a matronly woman, but no little crowd of children came bounding forth to greet their father's return. As the Puritan entered, he thrust aside his cloak, and displayed ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... into every nook and cranny, not excepting the ledges above the cellar wall whereon the floor beams rested. Once he came on a tin box long and flat and new looking. It seemed strange to meet it here. There was no dust upon it. He poked it down with his torch and it sprawled open at his feet. Papers, long folded papers printed with writing in between, like bonds or deeds or something. He stooped and waved the flash above them and caught the name Shafton in one. It was an insurance ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... fury in war among the Romans, related by the poets to Mars as sister, wife, or daughter; inspirer of the war-spirit, and represented as armed with a bloody scourge in one hand and a torch in the other. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... quiet and happy resting place. Armour was donned, buckles fastened, and arms inspected, and in half an hour, after a cordial adieu from their kind hosts, the detachment marched off, their guide with a lighted torch leading the way. The men were in light marching order, having left everything superfluous behind them in the wagon; and they marched briskly along over hill and through forest without a halt, till at three o'clock in the morning ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... through Death's tremendous porch, Cheer'd with his smile, and lighted with his torch;— 190 Hell's triple Dog his playful jaws expands, Fawns round the GOD, and licks his baby hands; In wondering groups the shadowy nations throng, And sigh or simper, as he steps along; Sad swains, and nymphs forlorn, on Lethe's brink, Hug their past sorrows, and ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... Greece or the east on their way to make war upon or otherwise harm the town. "This tower," if we may credit the writer, "is still of use as a signal to vessels coming to Alexandria, for it can be seen night or day, a great flaming torch being kept lighted at night, visible 100 miles off!" What are our light-houses when even with the electric light they are only visible thirty miles away? From Damietta, the traveller visited several neighbouring towns, then returning there he embarked on board a vessel and twenty days afterwards ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... grim, world-forgotten men who passed the midnight hours in digging their own graves, he had been judged by them as dying or dead, and had been carried into a sort of mortuary chapel, cold and bare, and lit only by the silver moonbeams and the flicker of a torch one of the monks carried. Waking in this ghastly place, too weak to struggle, he fell a-moaning like a tortured child, and was, on showing this sign of life, straight-way removed to one of the cells. Here, after hours of horrible suffering, of ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... Forbear to hiss;—the poet cannot hear. By all, like him, must praise and blame be found, At last, a fleeting gleam, or empty sound; Yet then shall calm reflection bless the night, When liberal pity dignified delight; When pleasure fir'd her torch at virtue's flame, And mirth was ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... and ran toward the fort; and in the torch-light at the gate encountered Boyd, who ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... thus quietly sleeping, the prince Gracious was engaged in a hunt through the forest by torch-light. The fawn, pursued fiercely by the dogs, came trembling with terror to crouch down near the brook by which Rosalie was sleeping. The dogs and gamekeepers sprang forward after the fawn. Suddenly the dogs ceased barking and grouped themselves silently ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... to the thin metal wall of their cell, working determinedly, while Professor Prescott held his cigarette lighter for a torch. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... around, revealing the dark bodies of the fishers, with four paddles sending each canoe through the water, while in the bows stood a fifth, sweeping the water deftly with a scoop net attached to a pole twelve feet in length, his movements guided by a huge torch or flare of dried coco-nut leaves, held aloft by a naked boy standing on the canoe platform amidships. It was indeed a pretty sight, for at times the long line of fires would make a graceful sweeping curve, and then almost unite in a circle, then again open out with a fan-like movement, and advance ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... being at an end, a lighted torch was mysteriously produced from somewhere and handed to Anuti, who, approaching the pyre, thrust the burning brand into the heart of it and retired again to his former place. For a second or two the darkness continued; then here and there about the pyre ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... freed half the peninsula for a span of years; from the days when gallant King Mirtsched went down to glorious defeat amongst the Osmanli yataghans to the final day when the Russian Slav liberated the Roumanian Latin from the Turkish yoke, the Roumanian has held high the torch ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... Torch Holder A Horse in a Hat Lerins Aqueduct of Frejus Lantern of Augustus Map of Massalia Musical Instruments from the Tomb of Julia Calpurnia's Monument An Arelaise. (From a Photograph.) Part of the Amphitheatre of Arles ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... magnificent intuition. The peasant's son who has witnessed the death of the young scholar or artist will perhaps take up the interrupted work, be perhaps a link in the chain of evolution which has been for a moment suspended. This is the real sacrifice: to renounce the hope of being the torch-bearer. To a child in a game it is a fine thing to carry the flag; but for a man, it is enough to know that the flag will yet be carried. And that is what every moment of great august Nature brings home to me. Every moment reassures ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... man, 's 'at you? I's mighty sick," muttered the person within. Old Balla held his torch inside the house, amid a confused cackle ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... foeman in the fight, A brother when the fight was o'er, The hand that led the host with might The blessed torch ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... is put forward as the introduction to the great era. The bourgeois conscience of the West has no inkling of what it means. To this conscience, the war was a huge violation of decency, contrived by bandits; its victory is the final triumph of a capitalist, rationalistic civilization; the torch lit in the East means murder and incendiarism, and the upward migration of the people from the ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... the works. Mrs. Rebecca Motte, the lady that owned the mansion, furnished the bow and arrows used to carry the fire to the roof of the building. Nathan Savage, a private in the ranks of General Marion's men, winged the arrow with the lighted torch. The British did not lose a man, and General Marion lost two of his bravest,—Lieutenant Cruger and Sergeant Macdonald. His resting place is unknown. No monument has been erected to his memory; but his name will endure so long as men shall pay respect ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... nodding palms, the perfumed breeze from the desert. Whilst he watched her through half-closed eyes, the visions of that day of battles left him. He sat wrapped in a dream world, far from stern realities of men and arms. So for a while, as he lounged on the divans, following the play of the torch-light on the face of Roxana as her long fingers plied the strings. What was it to him if Leonidas fought a losing battle? Was not his happiness secure—be it in Hellas, or Egypt, or Bactria? He tried to ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... existed. Far in the distance a light was seen to shine, either the glitter of a woodman's fire, or the midnight torch kindled by some invalid. This light, fixed like a point in space, was but another evidence of the isolation of ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... ebony, adorned with figures of Sincerity and Assiduity, wrought in ivory, and mutually embracing; behind which stands Judgment, showing her a little further, Painting, accompanied by Apollo and Diana; he holding up his torch, in order to enlighten Sculpture, and she hers reversed, with purpose to extinguish it; the Genii, in the mean time, are every where busy in providing necessary materials. The eldest offers her a drawing, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... the night view could be quite so delightful! I do believe that if the horrid government had not taken down that little Statue of Liberty and substituted the Shaft Triumph in its place, that I could easily see her fingers clasping the torch she was reputed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... River in Epirus, that puts out any lighted Torch, and kindles any Torch that was not lighted. Of the River Selarus, that in a few hours turns a rod or a wand into stone (and our Camden mentions the like wonder in England:) that there is a River in Arabia, of which all the Sheep that drink thereof ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... mountain was a volcano. Fifty feet below its peak, amid a shower of stones and slag, a wide crater vomited torrents of lava that were dispersed in fiery cascades into the heart of the liquid mass. So situated, this volcano was an immense torch that lit up the lower plains all the way to ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... and therefore did not take the trouble to look up. The stupid people! It took them such a tedious while to tell the nothing that they knew, that it was dark night before Mother Ceres found out that she must seek her daughter elsewhere. So she lighted a torch, and set forth, resolving never to come back until ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... then, Spirit, Death's disrobing hand, So welcome when the tyrant is awake, So welcome when the bigot's hell-torch burns; 'Tis but the voyage of a darksome hour, The transient gulf-dream of a startling sleep. 175 Death is no foe to Virtue: earth has seen Love's brightest roses on the scaffold bloom, Mingling with Freedom's fadeless laurels there, And presaging the truth of visioned bliss. Are there not ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... not available, a brazing torch is an essential tool. Numerous small torches are being made, which are cheap and easily operated. A small soldering iron, with pointed end, should be provided; also metal shears and a small square; an awl and several sizes of gimlets; ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... of light . . . tree of gracious spreading shade. . . ." he muttered. "To think that a man should find words like those! Such a power is a gift from God! For brevity he packs many thoughts into one phrase, and how smooth and complete it all is! 'Light-radiating torch to all that be . . .' comes in the canticle to Jesus the Most Sweet. 'Light-radiating!' There is no such word in conversation or in books, but you see he invented it, he found it in his mind! Apart from the smoothness ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... roving youths, mad to find themselves away from the cool and grey Oxford towers, and from the vacant banks of the Cam, in passionate Leicester Square, fired by the scarlet ballet, and the thunder of the orchestra, and the sight of smart women. Sudden emancipation is the most flaming torch to human passions that exists in the world. It flared through all that mob, urging it to conflagration, to the flames that burst up in hearts that are fresh and ardent, and that so curiously ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... saint, Beside the highway, 'neath the vault of heaven, Peacefully sleeping near the city wall And near his foes malignant all night long, 'Till God sent forth the candle of the day Brightly to shine. Vanished the shadows dark Beneath the welkin; then the torch of heaven, The clear light of the sky, came forth and shone Above the town. The warrior brave awoke And gazed upon the fields; before the gates 840 Steep hills high towered; about the hoary cliff Stood buildings wrought of many-colored tiles, Great towers, and wind-swept walls. ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown
... lighted end of a torch may be turned towards the ground, but the flames still point ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... different from our Canada Indians, in their houses, dress, manners, inclinations, and customs. They have large public squares, games, assemblies. They seem mirthful and full of vivacity. Their chiefs have absolute authority. No one would dare to pass between the chief and the cane torch which burns in his cabin, and is carried before him when he goes out. All make a circuit around it with ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... thrown on this, as on every other morphological question, as soon as Darwin in 1859 had once more put into our hands the torch of the doctrine of descent. The inquiry as to the origin of the skull now assumed a real and tangible form. Since all vertebrate animals, from fishes up to man, agree so completely as to their essential internal structure that they can be rationally conceived of no otherwise than as branches of ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... electric torch. "How do you suppose we are going to see anything in that dark place without something like this? We certainly mustn't open ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... what graceful celerity he darted through the course! I was at Aspasia's house that evening. It is so near the goal, that we could plainly see his countenance flushed with excitement and exercise, as he stood waving his unextinguished torch in triumph." ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... the two apostles stepped a few paces in total darkness; then the elder man produced a small electric torch, which he wig-wagged above his head. There was a series of answering flashes at a distance; and next moment a door, let into the side of the ravine, opened right ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... her; it came as naturally as speaking in a well-bred manner, or walking with that air of grace and distinction which was characteristic of her. Such women do not need to preach, and seldom do so. Their lives suggest a torch held high above the common mirk of life. Peter had never imagined for a moment that he was in the least degree good enough for her; but, all the same, he meant to fight for all that he was worth for every single good thing that he could ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... out. I told him of my experience with the Boston steamer, and we mutually agreed to sink the ships by gun-fire in future so far as possible. I remember old Horli saying, "What use is a gun aboard a submarine?" We were about to show. I read the English paper to Stephan by the light of my electric torch, and we both agreed that few ships would now come up the Channel. That sentence about diverting commerce to safer routes could only mean that the ships would go round the North of Ireland and unload at Glasgow. Oh, for two more ships to stop that entrance! Heavens, ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lasted only a moment. The rioters crowded toward the rear and escaped as best they could. Vigilantes with torches made short work of the rest of it. Dancing stove in a cask of alcohol, and as the attacking party ran out of the front door a torch was flung ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... the darkness over the fire. Thinking to add to his peace of mind Jack flashed his light several times as a signal, which he knew the other would understand, for Toby had been with him when the hand-torch was purchased, and ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... Now, our philosophers struggle, earnestly and honestly, to make plain the same inscrutable mysteries. Yes; blot out the records of Moses, and we would grope in starless night; for, notwithstanding the many priceless blessings it has discovered for man, the torch of science will never pierce and illumine the recesses over which Almighty God has hung his veil. Here we see, indeed, as 'through a glass, darkly.' Yet I believe the day is already dawning when scientific data will not only cease to be antagonistic to Scriptural accounts, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... clasp" of two covenants. In him Judaism reached its highest embodiment, and the Old Testament found its noblest exponent. It is significant, therefore, that through his lips the law and the prophets should announce their transitional purpose, and that he who caught up the torch of Hebrew prophecy with a grasp and spirit unrivalled by any before him, should have it in his power and in his heart to say: "The object of all prophecy, the purpose of the Mosaic law, the end of all sacrifices, the desire ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... of Venetian Art.—Thus, Venetian painting before it wholly died, flickered up again strong enough to light the torch that is burning so steadily now. Indeed, not the least attraction of the Venetian masters is their note of modernity, by which I mean the feeling they give us that they were on the high road to the art of to-day. We have seen ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... accident, which will be related farther on, the exterior was dismantled, in order that its pillars might furnish materials for a church. The vault in the wall was explored by a monk who had been present at the destruction of other Pagan temples, and who volunteered to discover its contents. With a torch in one hand, and an iron bar in the other, he descended into the cavity, sounding the walls and the steps before him as he proceeded. For the first and the last time the sword protruded harmless from the monster's throat when the monk ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... understanding what their fate was to be, resolved to anticipate it. They had already burnt their ships, to prevent any desertion. Now they shut themselves up, with their wives and children, in their houses, and applying the torch to their dwellings lighted up a general conflagration. More than forty thousand persons perished in the flames. Ochus sold the ruins at a high price to speculators, who calculated on reimbursing themselves by the treasures which they might dig out from among the ashes. As for Tennes, it is satisfactory ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... delicate one we did it little honour. When we had finished, the ambassador left, entreating me to remain, which I did, without thinking at all of the pleasures of a party of two, for Love lighteth not his torch at the hearts of two lovers who are full of grief and sorrow. M—— M—— had grown thin, and her condition excited my pity and shut out all other feelings. I held her a long time in my arms, covering her with tender and affectionate kisses, but I shewed ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... party this evening I prepared a supper for them but they did not arrive. not having quite Elk skins enough I employed three buffaloe hides to cover one section. not being able to shave these skins I had them singed pretty closely with a blazeing torch; I think they will answer tolerable well. The White bear have become so troublesome to us that I do not think it prudent to send one man alone on an errand of any kind, particularly where he has to pass through the brush. we have seen two of them on the large Island opposite to us today ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... making a rude ring which inclosed their leafy beds and the buffalo skins and meat. Before they finished the task they saw slim dusky figures among the trees and red eyes glaring at them. The Panther picked up a stick blazing like a torch, and made a sudden rush for one of the figures. There was a howl of terror and a sound of something rushing madly through ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of the Sun, again, are very brilliant and highly luminous regions, which generally surround the spots, and have been termed faculae (facula, a little torch). These faculae, which frequently occupy a very extensive surface, seem to be the seat of formidable commotions that incessantly revolutionize the face of our monarch, often, as we said, preceding the spots. They can be detected right ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... sooner had the Reformation sounded through Europe like the blast of an archangel's trumpet, than from king to peasant there arose an enthusiasm for knowledge; the discovery of a manuscript became the subject of an embassy; Erasmus read by moonlight, because he could not afford a torch, and begged a penny, not for the love of charity, but for the love of learning. The three great points of attention were religion, morals, and taste; men of genius, as well as men of learning, who in this age need to ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge |
