"Firebrand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... burden of the overloaded bosom; but when applied to the purposes of indulgence and debauchery, it rends the nerves, destroys the strength, weakens the intellect, and undermines life. But fear not thou to use its virtues in the time of need, for the wise man warms him by the same firebrand with which the madman burneth the tent." [Some preparation of opium seems to ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... at her, laughing. "I am, of course, you firebrand! Didn't you promise to honor and obey?" He went on with more seriousness, a tender, impatient, condescending seriousness: "Now, Lydia, just stop and think! Do you, can you, consider this a good time for you to try to settle the affairs of the universe—still all upset about ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... themselves to see how just God is to punish the rogue at such a time as this; he being now one of the King's Serjeants, and rode in the cavalcade with Maynard, to whom people wish the same fortune. There was also this night in King-street, [a woman] had her eye put out by a boy's flinging a firebrand into the coach. Now, after all this, I can say that, besides the pleasure of the sight of these glorious things, I may now shut my eyes against any other objects, nor for the future trouble myself to see things of state and show, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... or advance be attempted at night, the same signals as are made with the blanket are made with a firebrand, which is constructed of a bunch of grass tied ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... is a matter for congratulation that the measures now in force are not definite—the final dispositions will be taken in two or three years.[36] And perhaps then some part of the counsel of Radi['c] may be adopted—Radi['c], whose critics are never weary of denouncing him for being a demagogue, a firebrand and various other things, but who by that time may very likely be a Cabinet Minister. He advises that there should be a compromise, that the ownership of land in Yugoslavia should not be strictly individualist nor strictly communist, but that while preserving the spirit ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... I know they hate us, because we compel them to act honestly; but they will soon find that honesty, after all, is the cheapest course,—for we shall take d—d good care to make them pay through the nose for their knavery. We know they have a gang of firebrand agitators and hungry lawyers at their back; but we shall make them feel that the law is stronger than any treasonable combination that can be got up ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... With a firebrand in one hand and a revolver in the other, the big, burly man crept forward; his mates alert to fire over him at any object he might discover. His search was haphazard, and his feet were naturally uncertain among ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... DOLE saw a pine stick of candlewood to fall down, a stone, a firebrand; and these things he saw not what way they came, till they fell ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... the debts of the Crown were in part paid off, the treasury was recruited, a navy created, and a force made ready for action in the north. Neither religiously nor politically indeed had Elizabeth any sympathy with the Scotch Lords. Knox was to her simply a firebrand of rebellion; her political instinct shrank from the Scotch Calvinism with its protest against the whole English system of government, whether in Church or State; and as a Queen she hated revolt. But the danger forced her hand. Elizabeth was ready ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... recess, Where it before was singing, thus began, As one who joys in kindness: "In that part Of the deprav'd Italian land, which lies Between Rialto, and the fountain-springs Of Brenta and of Piava, there doth rise, But to no lofty eminence, a hill, From whence erewhile a firebrand did descend, That sorely sheet the region. From one root I and it sprang; my name on earth Cunizza: And here I glitter, for that by its light This star o'ercame me. Yet I naught repine, Nor grudge myself the cause of this my lot, Which haply ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... we'll have none of that here. [Authoritatively.] Another word of this kind of insurrection, another word to the women of your treason, and you will be locked up and take your just punishment. You remember I had to look out for you in the beginning when you talked against this war. You're a firebrand, and you know how we handle the like of you. [Goes to door, turns to the mother.] I am sorry you have to have this trouble, Maria, on top of everything else. You don't deserve it. [To Hedwig.] You have been warned. Look out ...
— War Brides: A Play in One Act • Marion Craig Wentworth
... seat; nor did he make any reply, until after he had examined the firebrand which had been struck by the bullet that had nearly proved fatal to himself. After which he was content to reply, holding a single finger up to view, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... thus assailed from the east and from the west, would be utterly destroyed. There was no hope for them, he added, but in checking the farther progress of La Salle, or, at least, retarding it, thus causing his men to desert him. Having thrown his firebrand, Monso and his party left the camp in haste, dreading to be confronted with the object of their aspersions. [Footnote: Hennepin (1683), 151, (1704), 205. Le Clercq, ii. 157. Memoire du Voyage de M. de la Salle, ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... it again when we play to-night, Darnley," answered Mr. Riddle, crossly. "And as for the seat in the coach, you are welcome to it. That firebrand of a lad is on the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... possible evil amidst the contrariety of interests and passions in which he and all public men are placed. This, however, is but a poor apology for one who lent his powerful talents to wage wars that involved the happiness of millions, who became a willing firebrand among nations, and who, as a tool or a principal, was foremost in every work of contemporary mischief. The love of office, and a passion for public speaking, were, doubtless, the predominant feelings ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... number of men and women on so many sheets of paper, not only more amusing than Ralph or Miss Reid, but more like flesh and blood, and more alive now than they. Is not Amelia preparing her husband's little supper? Is not Miss Snapp chastely preventing the crime of Mr. Firebrand? Is not Parson Adams in the midst of his family, and Mr. Wild taking his last bowl of punch with the Newgate Ordinary? Is not every one of them a real substantial HAVE-been personage now—more real than Reid ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Brentwood's shoulders moving convulsively, and for the moment I was angry, for I thought that she was laughing at Ernest. And then I discovered that it was not laughter, but hysteria. She was appalled by what she had done in bringing this firebrand ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... fanatics of the North, neither sleep nor slumber. Their footsteps are even now to be seen wherever mischief can be perpetrated—and it may be that while the people of Kentucky are reposing in the confidence of fancied security, the tocsin of rebellion may resound through the land—the firebrand of the incendiary may wrap their dwellings in flames—their towns and cities may become heaps of ashes before their eyes and their minds drawn off from all thoughts of reforming the government to consider the means necessary for their self-preservation—the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... inquired of Macko in a whisper about those wonderful things which dazzled her eyes. But when the old knight assured her that there was as much difference between Sieradz and Krakow as there is between a firebrand and the sun, she would not believe her own ears, because it appeared to her an impossibility that another city could be found in the world which could be equal ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... "but a firebrand. This business at Malloring's—what's it going to lead to, Tod? We must look out, old man. Couldn't you send Derek and Sheila ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... taciturn Swede who was janitor for the block of red-brick flats. Ben used to follow him around pathetically, engaging him in the talk of the day. Ben knew no men except the surly Gus, Minnie's husband. Gus, the firebrand, thought Ben hardly worthy of his contempt. If Ben thought, sometimes, of the respect with which he had always been greeted when he clumped down the main street of Commercial, Ill.—if he thought of how the farmers for miles around had ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... of gigglers and slackers, who thought her escapades funny, and were ready to act chorus to her lead, and though she had never done anything specially outrageous, her reputation at headquarters was not good. Every teacher realized only too plainly that Netta was the firebrand of the Form, and that while she might preserve a smug exterior it was really she who was responsible for any outbreaks ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... thousand fools, and to think that he that was afraid to see the devil was not fit to live twenty years in an island all alone; and that I might well think there was nothing in this cave that was more frightful than myself. Upon this, plucking up my courage, I took up a firebrand, and in I rushed again, with the stick flaming in my hand: I had not gone three steps in before I was almost as frightened as before; for I heard a very loud sigh, like that of a man in some pain, and it was followed by a broken noise, as of words half expressed, and then a ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... being blamed for inserting a letter from a respectable gentleman without submitting it to Mr. Froggatt, who had entirely dropped the editorship, or delaying it to another issue by sending it to Ewmouth. The respectable gentleman was young Jackman, who was no doubt delighted to have such a firebrand to cast. It was a great grief and annoyance to Mr. Froggatt, who had always steered clear of personalities, and been inoffensive if sometimes dull; and both assault and defence were distressing to him—i.e. if defence were possible, for he seemed doubtful whether silence would not lead to ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... martyr and died gloriously patient. This caused the bishop shortly after to make a sermon in the cathedral church, and therein he affirmed, that the said Marsh was a heretic, burnt as such, and was a firebrand in hell.—Mr. Marsh ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... the word. Upon my honour, the glare of the fire was the first I knew about it. Then the spirit spread among our people, like the flames among our masters' canes. I like murder no better than you, Toussaint; but when once slaves are up, with knife and firebrand, those may keep revenge from kindling who ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... immorality of a land-stealing, piratical policy. Against war, against capital punishment, against flogging, demanding national education instead of big guns, public libraries instead of warships—no wonder I was denounced as an agitator, a firebrand, and that all orthodox society turned up at me its ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... of pneumonia or delirium tremens. It knows nothing of what we call natural death. To the savage all death means murder, for like other men he judges of the unknown by the known. In the Indian's experience normal death was by tomahawk or firebrand; abnormal death (such as we call natural) must come either from poison or from witchcraft. So when the honest chronicler Hubbard tells us that Philip suspected the Plymouth people of poisoning his brother, ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... where the house had burnt, and goes to Gernot her brother, and thrusts the burning brand in his mouth, and will know whether he is dead or living. But Gernot was clearly dead. And now she goes to Gislher and thrusts the firebrand in his mouth. He was not dead before, but Gislher died of that. Now King Thidrec of Bern saw what Grimhild is doing, and speaks to King Attila. 'See how that devil Grimhild, thy wife, is killing her brothers, the good warriors, and how many men have lost their lives for her sake, and how many ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... among the people of the back country. If the tense nervous energy of the American people is the transmitted characteristic of the border settlers, who often slept with loaded rifle in hand in grim expectation of being awakened by the hideous yells, the deadly tomahawk, and the lurid firebrand of the savage, the very buoyancy of the national character is in equal measure "traceable to the free democracy founded on a freehold inheritance of land." The desire for free land was the fundamental factor ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... roubles were soon collected for the Governor, but even before they were presented to him the Rabbi, in mortal terror of that firebrand of a David, had rushed to inquire whether Self-Defence was legal, and might the Talmud-Torah Hall be legitimately used for drilling. Sharp came an order that Jews found with firearms or in conclave for non-religious purposes should be summarily shot. And so, when the Shtadlonim arrived with ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... said Big Turtle. "Warriors, when men are injured, they always take revenge. I cook this for the warpath. I cook sweet corn and a buffalo paunch. You will go after Corn Crusher for me," saying this to his servants. "Call to Comb, Awl, Pestle, Firebrand, and Buffalo Bladder also," ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... portion, excepting one leg, which was found on the following morning, bitten off at the knee-joint. This was the more extraordinary, as another man was at the same time asleep under the blanket with the unfortunate victim; this courageous fellow snatched a heavy firebrand from the pile, and beat the lion on the head in the endeavour to save his friend. Instead of relinquishing its prey, the lion dragged the man only a short distance, and commenced its meal so immediately that the cracking of bones could ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... in many quarters of the city, a man who was only partially understood and therefore dangerous. Robespierre, it was whispered, feared him, and Danton had been heard to say that he was better as a friend than an enemy. Even the firebrand Hebert had dared to say little against him in his paper "Pere Duchesne." Latour was keenly alive to the angry storm which threatened, but this was not the moment to face it. A few hours might turn storm to sunshine, or perchance increase the storm to a veritable ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... bay. On nearing us, they formed a line, and stood close in; each vessel, as she discharged her guns, tacked to join the rear and reload. They kept up a constant fire for about two hours, when one of their largest vessels was blown up by a firebrand thrown from a Ladrone junk; after which they kept at a more respectful distance, but continued firing without intermission till the 21st at night, when it fell calm. The Ladrones towed out seven large vessels, with about two hundred row-boats to board them: but a breeze springing ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... good deal sacrificed, and rather represented in the light of a firebrand of a fellow whom my cloud of lawyers had restrained with difficulty from extremes. But I let it pass, and made but the one suggestion, that I should be described as ready to deliver my own evidence and adduce that of others before ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... orb thereabout seemed burning with gold. Other lights, with a song of rapture, then descended like a crown of lilies, on the top, of the letter; and then, from the body of it, rose thousands of sparks, as from a shaken firebrand, and, gradually expanding into the form of an eagle, the lights which had descended like lilies distributed themselves over the whole bird, encrusting it with ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... the disheartened Macedonians by his own personal exertions, and trusting to his swiftness of foot, ran up to the nearest fire, struck down with his sword two men who wore watching beside it, and brought a burning firebrand back to his own party. They now made up an enormous fire, which terrified some of the enemy so much that they retreated, while others who had intended to attack them, halted and forbore to do so, thus enabling them to pass the ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... on from Kaiser to the youngest soldier: "Only in defense of a righteous cause shall our sword be drawn." (Hearty applause.) The day when we must draw it has appeared, contrary to our desire, contrary to our honest efforts to avoid it. Russia has applied the firebrand to the house. We find ourselves in a forced ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... unrest; whereas the towers on the Continent with their meurtrieres and frowning machicolations, bristling on every hill, frequent as church spires, now gutted and ruinous, proclaim a protracted reign of oppression and then a sudden upheaval in resentment and a firebrand applied to them all. The old English mansion has its cellars, but never an oubliette, its porch-door always open to welcome a neighbour and to relieve the indigent. It was not insulated by a dyke, and its doors clenched with a portcullis. ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... as hee was able to carrie, and seemed best vnto him. The Gouernour was informed how there went men out of the towne, and hee commanded the horsemen to beset it, and sent in euery squadron of footemen one souldier with a firebrand to set fire on the houses, that the Indians might haue no defense: all his men being set in order, hee commanded an harcubuz to bee shot off. The signe being giuen, the foure squadrons, euery one by it selfe with great furie, gaue the onset, and with great ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... become an institution. Woodford, previously a dull and law-abiding spot, was illuminated by a lurid light of modern progress about three years ago, upon the transfer thither in the summer of 1885 of a priest from Loughrea, familiarly known as "the firebrand priest." ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... smallest discord in the orchestra. Yet again, we hear of insignificant, hardly controllable habits that become accidentally significant in a criminal case. Thus the crime of arson was observed by the firebrand's neighbor, who could have seen the action through the window, only if he had leaned far out of it. When he was asked what he wanted to see in the cold winter night, he replied, that he had the habit daily of spitting ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... slipped out softly and silently. Our little fire had sunk to embers. A dozen sticks radiated from the centre of coals. Each made a firebrand with one end cool to the grasp. Captain D. hurled one of these at the devoted ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... firebrand!" whispered Irais. I got up and went in. They were sitting on the sofa, Minora with clasped hands, gazing admiringly into Miss Jones's face, which wore a very different expression from the one of sour and unwilling propriety I have ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... understand them. But to his fellow colonists he seemed nothing but a firebrand and a dangerous heretic. So they bade him be gone out of their borders. He went southward to what is now Rhode Island, made friends with the Indians there, bought from them some land, and founded the ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... and the soldiers exhausted their skill and patience in teaching these varied tricks. One regiment had a pair of bull-terrier dogs that played a game which never failed to amuse. At a signal one of the dogs would seize a firebrand by the unburnt end and start off on a run through the camp; the other would follow at speed, trying to trip up the first, to collar him or push him over, and so force him to drop the brand. The second would then grasp it and the chase would be renewed, doubling in and out, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the wake of a firebrand, confusion rose behind him; a din of exclamations loosed on the air and the clangor of weapons caught down from the wall. Through it, the Etheling's voice sounded strongly. "To the palisade, all of you! They may not wait till morning. To the forest side; ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... many years a leader in the Assembly, and until recently a member of the United States Senate, with such a record for resistance to Governor Tompkins, and active complicity with the Federalists who had aided his election to the Assembly, that the mere mention of his name to the Bucktails was like a firebrand thrown onto the roof of a thatched cottage. German himself doubted the wisdom of his selection. He was an old-time fighter, preferring debate on the floor to the wielding of a gavel while other men disputed; but the Governor, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... am no agent of discord, no firebrand of sedition. I anticipate history by a few days; I disclose a truth whose development we may try in vain to arrest; I write the preamble of our future constitution. This proposition which seems to you blasphemous—PROPERTY IS ROBBERY—would, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... took place apparently near the farm of Solomon Prinsloo, one of the most bitter malcontent Boers, who was always a firebrand, and who, when I visited the Boer camp in 1879, was with difficulty held back by Pretorius and Kruger from directing an attack upon us in Pretoria. I very much doubt whether, without some such external instigation, the Boers would have ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... game with a stick instead of a firebrand, and Halliwell gives the rhyme describing the English ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... the winged light'ning, Walks upon the foaming wave; Send forth arrows of conviction, Here exert thy power to save; Burst the bars of Satan's prison, Snatch the firebrand from the flame, Fill the doubting with assurance, Teach the dumb ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... down upon the bedside and laid her hand on the child's forehead. "Poor little firebrand," she said gently. "How the world will hurt you!" Then she knelt down and prayed beside her, and went out again with the white light streaming upon her bosom. An hour later Betty heard her soft, slow step on the gravelled drive and knew that ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... before the public till 1696, when he publicly absolved Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins, at their execution, for being concerned in a plot to assassinate King William. His 'Essays on Moral Subjects' were published in 1697; 2nd vol., 1705; 3rd vol., 1709. But the only way to put out a firebrand like this is to let it alone, and Jeremy, being, no longer persecuted, began, at last, to think the game was grown stupid, and gave it up. He was a well-meaning man, however, and as long as he had the luxury of a ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... opinion that we have been the policemen of the world long enough. We policed the seas for pirates and slavers. Now we police the land for Dervishes and brigands and every sort of danger to civilisation. There is never a mad priest or a witch doctor, or a firebrand of any sort on this planet, who does not report his appearance by sniping the nearest British officer. One tires of it at last. If a Kurd breaks loose in Asia Minor, the world wants to know why Great Britain does not ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... beauteous battle, comes With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in Among the women, snares them by the score Flattered and flustered, wins, though dashed with death He reddens what he kisses: thus I won You mother, a good mother, a good wife, Worth winning; but this firebrand—gentleness To such as her! if Cyril spake her true, To catch a dragon in a cherry net, To trip a tigress with a gossamer Were wisdom to it.' 'Yea but Sire,' I cried, 'Wild natures need wise curbs. The soldier? ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... that was to follow. Montesquieu's Persian Letters, satirizing French society, appeared as early as 1721. Voltaire's sarcasms and witty sneers got him into trouble with the French Government as early as 1715. He was imprisoned in the Bastille, but released and at last driven from his country, a firebrand cast loose upon Europe to spread the doctrine of man's equality, to cry out everywhere for justice against oppression, and to mock with almost satanic ingenuity against the religion in whose name Europe had plunged into so many wars. By 1740 Voltaire was the most prominent ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... butter their bodies anointed; I never saw devils so well appointed. The master-devil sat in his jacket, And all the souls were playing at racket. None other rackets they had in hand, Save every soul a good firebrand, Wherewith they played so prettily That Lucifer laughed merrily, And all the residue of the fiends Did laugh thereat full well ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... have been selected for the task. Upon his removal, and a more fitting minister of the Gospel taking his place, a great change was soon observable in Africaner; and, from having been one of the most remorseless pursuers of his vengeance—a firebrand spreading discord, war, and animosity among the neighbouring tribes—he would now make every concession and any sacrifice to prevent collision and bloodshed ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... beauty? where those movements? where That colour? what of her, of her is left, Who, breathing Love's own air, Me of myself bereft! Poor Lyce! spared to raven's length of days; That youth may see, with laughter and disgust, A firebrand, once ablaze, ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... they were in the street and in the hotels. They held peculiar conversations, words and gestures for use in the room, and all this was changed outside the room, into the most commonplace and human. Sometimes, in the room, they all blazed up like a huge woodpile, and Yozhov was the brightest firebrand among them; but the light of this bonfire illuminated but faintly the ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... seemed to him that she hoped to find the fierce expiation she sought for in exposure to the thousands she had disappointed and deceived, in offering herself to be trampled to death and torn to pieces. She might have suggested to him some feminine firebrand of Paris revolutions, erect on a barricade, or even the sacrificial figure of Hypatia, whirled through the furious mob of Alexandria. She was arrested an instant by the arrival of Mrs. Burrage and her son, who had quitted the stage on observing the withdrawal of ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... same love of freedom and self-respect that moved Douglass when, with equal determination, he walked in the procession, and took his seat as a delegate, as he had a right to do, though warned that he would stir up a mob, and be a firebrand in the convention. The description of this scene by Mr. Douglass himself is a suggestive ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... prepared, introduced, and defended by the very men who were regarded as pillars of the Lutheran Church, it was evident from the outset that this document must of necessity precipitate most serious internal troubles. From the moment the Wittenbergers cast the Interim as a firebrand into the Church, a domestic warfare was unavoidable,—if indeed any true disciples of Luther still remained in the Church of which he, and not Melanchthon, was the founder. While the Augsburg Interim resulted in an external theological warfare ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... says Margaret vaguely, absently, thinking always of the little firebrand in that room beyond, but ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... proceedings of this reign at home and abroad. "Henry Chicheley, now Archbishop of Canterbury, continued at the head of that see from February 1414, to April 1443. This man deserves to be called the firebrand of the age in which he lived. To subserve the purposes of his own pride and tyranny, he engaged King Henry in his famous contest with France, by which a prodigious carnage was made of the human race, and the most ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... trumped for to hear, Nor he, Theodomas, yet half so clear At Thebes, when the city was in doubt. Bacchus the wine them skinked* all about. *poured And Venus laughed upon every wight (For January was become her knight, And woulde both assaye his courage In liberty, and eke in marriage), And with her firebrand in her hand about Danced before the bride and all the rout. And certainly I dare right well say this, Hymeneus, that god of wedding is, Saw never his life so merry a wedded man. Hold thou thy peace, thou poet Marcian, That writest us that ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... friend been continually exploring new fields for missionary labors. Her description of a body of men on any platform, complacently deciding questions in which woman had an equal interest, without an equal voice, readily roused me to a determination to throw a firebrand into the ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Abbe is a man of sense; he will laugh at the joke to-morrow, and accept his defeat gracefully. What a firebrand your cousin is! Did you notice his eyes flash? I thought he meant to make mincemeat of me! It is a pity you are always against him; he will take ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... much as what the Bible word 'justice means.' Do but learn so much of God's truth as that comes to; know what He means when He tells you to be just: and teach your sons, that their bravery is but a fool's boast, and their deeds but a firebrand's tossing, unless they are indeed Just men, and Perfect in the Fear of God;—and you will soon have no more war, unless it be indeed such as is willed by Him, of whom, though Prince of Peace, it is also written, 'In Righteousness He doth judge, and ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... wonder where she got that!' he muttered. 'Noblesse oblige! And well applied too!' Again, 'Lord, what beasts we men are!' he thought. 'Insult? I suppose I did insult her; but I had to do that or kiss her. And she earned it, the little firebrand!' Then standing and looking along the High—he had reached the College gates—'D—n Dunborough! She is too good for him! For a very little—it would be mean, it would be low, it would be cursed low—but for two pence I would speak to her mother and cheat him. She is too good to be ruined ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... was no mistaking the significance of those words and that look; and his wrath redoubled. Anger in him, when once roused, was terrible; he had small need of words to vent it. His eye withered, his gesture appalled. Conscious but of one burning firebrand in brain and heart—of a sense that youth, joy, and hope were for ever gone, that the world could never be the same again—Arabella left the house, her character lost, her talents useless, her very means of existence stopped. Who henceforth would ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... took a fence rail from the tender, placed it in the furnace, until one end was blazing, and then contrived to hand it to the leader from the rear of the tender. Andrews seized it, and applied the firebrand to several places in the car. But it was no easy task to make a conflagration; it seemed as if ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... breast. Another reason for my refusing to make one of the Wimbledon parties was, the probability that I should there meet with Sir Francis Burdett, whom I was induced to look upon almost as a political madman, a dangerous firebrand in the hands of Mr. Tooke, who appeared to me to be nothing less than a designing incendiary. Mr. Clifford took some pains to persuade me out of my ridiculous notions; yet, in the account which he gave me of Mr. Tooke's character, he in some ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... priceless boon to Montgomery, who now redoubled his efforts to take St Johns. But Preston held out bravely for the remainder of the month, while Carleton did his best to help him. A fortnight earlier Carleton had arrested that firebrand, Walker, who had previously refused to leave the country, though Carleton had given him the chance of doing so. Mrs Walker, as much a rebel as her husband, interviewed Carleton and noted in her diary that he 'said many severe Things in very ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... shadow, blacker than the mirkest night, Environed all the place with darkness sad, Wherein a firebrand gave a dreadful light, Kindled in hell by Tisiphone the mad; Vanished the shade, the sun appeared in sight, Pale were his beams, the air was nothing glad, And all the palace vanished was and gone, Nor of so great a work was ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... in the silence that ensued the red-bearded miner, evidently still rankling at heart, saw his opportunity. Slapping his huge hands on his knees, and leaning far forward until he seemed to plunge his flaming beard, like a firebrand, into the controversy, ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... And I, among the first, and the most heartily, do wish you a warlike answer from that firebrand of a Napoleon. But tell me, why do you come to Queretaro? How did ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... beard Their glee and game declined. All gazed at length in silence drear, Unbroke, save when in comrade's ear Some yeoman, wondering in his fear, Thus whispered forth his mind:- "Saint Mary! saw'st thou e'er such sight? How pale his cheek, his eye how bright, Whene'er the firebrand's fickle light Glances beneath his cowl! Full on our lord he sets his eye; For his best palfrey, would not I Endure that ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... horse had vanished, and John Louder, seizing a firebrand, searched the ground for the print of a cloven foot. He found it and, snatching up his rifle, ran home as rapidly as he could. It was late that night when he reached his house and, rapping on ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... battle, and managed to crush one head with his club, but that moment two sprang up in its place; moreover, a huge crab came out of the swamp and began to pinch his heels. Still he did not lose heart, but, calling his friend Iolaus, he bade him take a firebrand and burn the necks as fast as he cut off the heads; and thus at last they killed the creature, and Hercules dipped his arrows in its poisonous blood, so that their least wound became fatal. Eurystheus said that it had not been a fair victory, since ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... the compact signed—an unequal compact. Madam League was on horseback, armed in proof, said a contemporary; the King was on foot, and dressed in a shirt of penitence. The alliance was not an auspicious one. Not peace, but a firebrand—'facem, non pacem'—had the King held forth ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... The firebrand was passed to the waiting missionary. He sucked in the pleasant fumes of a lumberman's tobacco. Then the stick was flung back to its place in ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... myself a thousand fools, for being afraid to see the devil one moment, who had now lived almost twenty years in the most retired solitude. And therefore resuming all the courage I had, I took a flaming firebrand, and in I rushed again. I had not proceeded above three steps, when I was more affrighted than before; for then I heard a very loud sigh, like that of a human creature in the greatest agony, succeeded with a broken noise, resembling words half expressed, ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... from foul-distempered brain, Proves him the very firebrand[273] of Spain: And in his shield his black disordered beast, Scaling the skies, scornful to tread the ground, And both his words—proud words—prove perfectly Action his page to be but Treachery, Ever attendant on ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... margin had he escaped a horrible death.... Across the room the object of his suspicions continued to sit calmly figuring in a notebook, never glancing around. His attitude was a declaration of the fact that the young man behind him was an excitable firebrand, whose behaviour was scarcely worth troubling about. Let him alone, he will come to his senses, that broad, imperturbable back ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... more of maternal fondness than policy in this measure, and it cost her dear. Richard, that royal firebrand, had now returned to England: by the intrigues and representations of Earl Randal, his attention was turned to Bretagne. He expressed extreme indignation that Constance should have proclaimed her son Duke of Bretagne, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... all who could be spared, to form a junction with the —nth and Brace's troop. My orders were to take command, break up any bands which were collecting, and to keep an eye on Ny Deen, who has been a perfect firebrand through the country. I left as strong a garrison as I could at Nussoor, the place fairly provisioned and armed, and all the women and children are shut up in the Residency. But since I have been away with my little force I have had no communication with the ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... walked over; with a burning brand in hand, to look at the cat's fastenings. The lion jumped at him. Jim poked the firebrand into the animal's face, which sent the cat back the full length of his tether. After examining the fastenings carefully, Nance pronounced them so secure that the beast would not ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... to give both light and heat; but Melantho began to rail at Ulysses a second time and said, "Stranger, do you mean to plague us by hanging about the house all night and spying upon the women? Be off, you wretch, outside, and eat your supper there, or you shall be driven out with a firebrand." ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... instant of solemn, breathless hush as the speaker leaned forward, shaking an uplifted finger at the audience. Then some one on a front seat cried out, "Emerson Mead! He ought to be lynched!" The cry was a firebrand thrown into a powder box. The whole mass of men broke into a yell: "Emerson Mead! Lynch him! Lynch the murderer!" The speaker stood with uplifted hands, demanding further attention, but the crowd was beyond his control. Moved by one impulse, it had sprung ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... at the far end, dropping a light ash and sending up a thin cloud of odorous smoke. These burning sticks they dropped as they rose. They had seemed so silent, so contented, so happy, sitting there with backs to trees, a firebrand in each mouth, I felt a love for them! Luis thought the lighted sticks some rite of their religion, but after a while when we came to examine them, we found them not true stick, but some large, thickish brown leaf tightly twisted and pressed together and having a pungent, not unpleasing odor. ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... Don's thought that Tim would be all right in a day or so. If this firebrand scout convinced himself that he had been tricked, and if he kept ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... Dewsbury said, nodding. "He's one of your own kind, as dreadful as you are; very free and advanced; a perfect firebrand. In fact, my dear child, I don't know which of you makes my hair stand on end most." And with that introductory hint, she left the pair forthwith to their ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... as easily," shouted Monsieur de Bourmont. "Madness, madness! Mere midsummer foolery. Go and hide yourself, firebrand!" ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... whatever they choose to amass. Therefore, at each performance of "Ha-Ha Hortense!" half-a-dozen seats were kept from sale and occupied by six of the worst-looking vagabonds that could be hired from the streets, further touched up by the Triangle make-up man. At the moment in the show where Firebrand, the Pirate Chief, pointed at his black flag and said, "I am a Yale graduate—note my Skull and Bones!"—at this very moment the six vagabonds were instructed to rise conspicuously and leave the theatre with looks of deep melancholy ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... come as guests to Bon Repos are, so I am informed, in nearly every instance foreigners, and, as a natural consequence, they are all set down by the servants' gossip as red-hot republicans, thirsting for the blood of kings and aristocrats, and willing to put a firebrand under every throne in Europe. In fact, there cannot be a popular outbreak against bad government in any part of Europe without M. Platzoff and his friends being credited with having at least a ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... who, with the best qualities of the heart, was preparing her own ruin; who understood not that the freedom and license which she herself granted, would soon throw on the roof of the Tuileries the firebrand which reduced to dust and ashes the throne of the Bourbons!—unfortunate queen, who in her modesty would so gladly forget her exaltation and her majesty, and who thereby taught her subjects to make light of majesty ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... table, and it is beyond mortal, beyond Irish, capacity, from one end of a table of eighteen to whip up the whole body of them into a lively unanimous froth, like a dish of cream fetched out of thickness to the airiest lightness. Politics, in the form of a firebrand or apple of Discord, might knead them together and cut them in batches, only he had pledged his word to his wife to shun politics as the plague, considering Mr. Mattock's presence. And yet it was tempting: the recent Irish news had stung him; he could say sharp things from the heart, give ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... abounds in indications that amid a great deal of superficial talk about the excellence of toleration the older spirit of persecution was quite alive, ready, if circumstances favoured it, to burst forth again, not perhaps with firebrand and sword, but with the no less familiar weapons of confiscations and imprisonment. Toleration was not only very imperfectly understood, even by those who most lauded it, but it was often loudly vaunted by men whose lives and opinions were very far from recommending ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... he had before experienced. What could it proceed from?—not from the burned cottage—he had smelt that smell before—indeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burned his fingers, and to cool ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... silence, and I did not even venture to glance up to perceive what occurred, although I felt that De Artigny's eyes shifted their inquiry from Cassion's face to mine. There must be no quarrel now, not until he knew the truth, not until I had opportunity to explain, and yet he was a firebrand, and it would be like him to resent such words. How relieved I felt, as his ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Assiniboine, and one afternoon in midwinter, when his men were out hunting, he saw his fort suddenly fill with armed Assiniboines bent on massacre. They jostled him aside, broke into the armory, and helped themselves to weapons. Saint-Pierre had only one recourse. Seizing a firebrand, he tore the cover off a keg of powder and threatened to blow the Indians to perdition. The marauders dashed from the fort, and Saint-Pierre shot the bolts of gate and sally-port. When the white ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... that of sailors in a storm, a thousand businesses at once; yet, in all this tumult, he does not love combustion, but will be the first man that shall go and quench it. He is never a good christian till a hissing pot of ale has slacked him, like water cast on a firebrand, and for that time he is tame and dispossessed. His cunning is not small in architecture, for he builds strange fabricks in paste, towers and castles, which are offered to the assault of valiant teeth, and ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... man feels, a man of the Deane order especially, when he finds that he has been imposed upon, though the deception has been in this instance of his own furtherance and establishment,—this kind and degree of indignation brought Mr. Deane like a firebrand into the next vestry-meeting. An end must be made of this matter at once. It was no longer a question whether anything had best be done. Something must be done; the public demanded, and he, as a good citizen, demanded, that the church ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... the ideal match is secured. Some of us are almost glad that Juliet passed away in swift fashion when the cup of life foamed most exquisitely at her lips. How would she have fared had that changeable firebrand Romeo taken to wandering once more? It is a grievously flippant question to ask when the most glorious of all love-poems is in question; yet I ask it very seriously, and merely in a symbolic way. Romeo is a shadow, the adored Juliet is a shadow; but the two immortal shades represent ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... the same symbol; but it is the weakest of all the figures in the Arena Chapel. The "Wrath" of Spenser rides upon a lion, brandishing a firebrand, his garments stained with blood. Rage, or Furor, occurs subordinately in other places. It appears to me very strange that neither Giotto nor Spenser should have given any representation of the restrained Anger, which ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... results of which were disastrous in a high degree to Montenegro. Even the famous Mirko, the father of Prince Nicolas, after sixty battles, could do no more, and the Convention of Scutari (1862) brought the war to a close. It was settled that Mirko, as the firebrand, must leave the country, and various other clauses appear in the Convention, few of which seem to have been strictly adhered to. It needed another war to settle ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... great barre, which accustomed to bar the stable doore, and never ceased beating me till she was so weary that the bar fell out of her hands, whereupon she (complaining of the soone faintnesse of her armes) ran to her fire and brought a firebrand and thrust it under my taile, burning me continually, till such time as (having but one remedy) I arayed her face and eies with my durty dunge, whereby (what with the stinke thereof, and what with the filthinesse that fell in her ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... were imaginatively transported to the borders of the Rhine at the end of the eleventh century, when in the ears listening for the signals of the Messiah, the Hep! Hep! Hep! of the Crusaders came like the bay of blood-hounds; and in the presence of those devilish missionaries with sword and firebrand the crouching figure of the reviled Jew turned round erect, heroic, flashing with sublime constancy in the face of torture and death—what would the dingy shops and unbeautiful faces signify to the thrill of contemplative emotion? But the fervor of sympathy ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... other foreign proper names I have in no case translated, because such translations result in needless confusion. To translate "Rio del Tizon" as Firebrand River is making another name of it. Few would recognise the Colorado River under the title of Red River, as used, for example, in Pattie's narrative. While Colorado means red, it is quite another matter as a NAME. Nor do I approve of hyphenating native words, ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... earth shook. Then he looked into the west "airt," and he thought he saw thereabouts a ring of fiery hue, and within the ring a man on a grey horse. He passed quickly by him, and rode hard. He had a flaming firebrand in his hand, and he rode so close to him that he could see him plainly. He was as black as pitch, and he sung this song with a ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... temporary repose to the besieged. Yet were the assailants not wholly inactive. Having suffered severely by the galling fire poured upon them from the house, they determined on reducing it to ashes. For this purpose, when all was quietness and silence, a savage, with a firebrand in his hand crawled to the kitchen, and raising himself from the ground, waving the torch to and fro to rekindle its flame, and about to apply it to the building, received a shot which forced him to let fall the engine of destruction ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... who remained near the chimney approached the window, a firebrand in his hand. "Ah, ah!" said he, "it gets warm." Then, turning to his companion: "There is the signal," added he; and he immediately applied the burning brand to the wainscoting. Now, this cabaret of the Image-de-Notre-Dame was ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... running against me next term for governor; he's a firebrand; wants niggers to vote and all that—pardon me a moment, there's a darky I know—" and he hurried to the black bishop, who had just descended from the "Jim-Crow" car, and clasped his hand cordially. They talked in whispers. "Search diligently," ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... own influence set aside by the stranger and the rebel leader, and with Dona Jocasta as a firebrand he feared dread and awful things now that Rotil ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... of Force and Authority, whose prototypes in bygone times would undoubtedly have sent him to the scaffold or to the stake; nor is it improbable that both Carlyle and Newman, though in all other opinions they differed widely, would have agreed that a revolutionary firebrand and a pestilent infidel deserved some such fate. The poet might console himself with the reflection that they must have abhorred each other's principles quite as much as they detested ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... could welcome a season of secular rage in a man as I could a fierce wind in sultry weather, but this kind of fury that cloaks itself in the guise of outraged piety is very trying. No sooner did father read your letter than he strode in upon me like a grey-bearded firebrand. The offending letter was crushed in his hand, and his glasses were akimbo on his nose, the way they always are when he is perturbed. I spare you the details, but from the nature of his questions you might have thought he was examining you through ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... before the walls, convinced Don Fadrique that there was no collusion between the monarchs: on returning to his frontier post, therefore, he sent Boabdil a reinforcement of Christian foot-soldiers and arquebusiers, under Fernan Alvarez de Sotomayor, alcayde of Colomera. This was as a firebrand thrown in to light up anew the flames of war in the city, which remained raging between the Moorish inhabitants for the space of ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... here's no body. All this goes well yet: but if the old trot should come for her pot—aye, marry, there's the matter, but I care not; I'll face her out, and call her old rusty, dusty, musty, fusty, crusty firebrand, and worse than all that, and so face her out of her pot: but ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... marked by the robust common sense and moderation so characteristic of Mr. Booker Washington. He realizes the great debt which the Natives owe to the men who brought civilization to South Africa. He is no agitator or firebrand, no stirrer-up of bad feeling between black and white. He accepts the position which the Natives occupy to-day in the body politic as the natural result of their lack of education and civilization. He is devoted ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... that it is from Catholics that we have to fear the most. I do not mean by that that Mr. Jermyn is not excellent and sincere; for I know nothing of him except what you have told me yourself. But zeal without discretion is a very firebrand; and prudence without zeal may become something very like cowardice; and either of these two things may injure the Catholic cause irreparably in the days that are coming. St. Peter's was the one, and Judas', I take it, was the ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... irritated Prince William, who, on that account alone, wished to recommence the war; but the Emperor and the allies heard his complaints with little attention. They even besought him to leave things as they were. M. d'Orange is a real firebrand; he could not endure the severities of the King without reprisals, and no sooner was he once more in possession of his little isolated sovereignty than he annoyed the Catholics in it, caused all possible alarms to the sisters of mercy and nuns, imposed enormous taxes on the monks, and ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... and wants to go off and lick its wounds. A womanly woman that lives a lovely appealing life right in a man's own home has a perfect right to gain his love, especially if she is beautifully unconscious of her appeal. Besides, why should a man want to take an independent, explosive, impudent firebrand with all sorts of dreadful plots in her mind to his heart? He wouldn't ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... for an hour after luncheon," Maraton admitted. "Your uncle's is a very sane point of view. I know just how he regards me—a sort of dangerous enthusiast, a firebrand with the knack of commanding attention. The worst of it is that when I am with him, he almost makes me ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fellow will be received at St. James's; he'll not return back so pleas'd as he seems to be now, I warrant you—I have taken care he shall meet with a d——d cold reception there; he will have to make his appearance before Lord Frostyface, Lord Scarecrow, Lord Sneerwell, Lord Firebrand, Lord Mawmouth, Lord Waggonjaws, Lord Gripe, Lord Brass, Lord Surly and Lord Tribulation, as hard-fac'd fellows as himself; and the beauty of it is, not one of them loves him a ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... tied up on the Two-Bar and muzzled, for you're plumb mad, McNair! It's just that kind of firebrand talk that's hurting our cause. The farmers have got enough enemies now, God knows, without making a lot of new ones. Doggone your hide, Mac, what're you trying to do?—Stir up another rebellion ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... in Cilicia, and was the son of a clothier, but his ambition led him into the Church, as being at that time the fairest field for the display of talent; and he rose from one station to another till he reached the high post of Bishop of Alexandria. The fickle, irritable Alexandrians needed no such firebrand to light up the flames of discontent. George took no pains to conceal the fact that he held his bishopric by the favour of the emperor and the power of the army against the wishes of his flock. To support his authority, he opened his doors to informers of the worst ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... to the throne of Sweden in 1611 of Gustavus Adolphus, grandson of Gustavus Vasa, that country gained its ablest king, and the most famous with the exception of the firebrand of war, Charles XII., of later date. For courage, judgment, administrative ability, generous devotion to the good of his country, and military genius this great monarch was unequalled in his time and won a renown ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... a blazing firebrand among the foremost of the hungry hoard, but these did not retreat—merely leaped back, snarling, to lurk ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... Scully was very much worried over the opportunity which his last deal gave to them—the stockyards Democrats were furious at the idea of a rich capitalist for their candidate, and while they were changing they might possibly conclude that a Socialist firebrand was preferable to a Republican bum. And so right here was a chance for Jurgis to make himself a place in the world, explained "Bush" Harper; he had been a union man, and he was known in the yards as a workingman; he must have hundreds of acquaintances, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... hobby, and the leisure he had to apply to it had given him a remarkable appraising eye. Within ten minutes he had read much more than had greeted his eye. A wave of pity went over him—pity for the patient, the girl, and his friend. The poor old imbecile! Why, this child was a firebrand, a wrecker, if ever he had seen one; and the worst kind because she ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... That tremble, or water when it sobs with heat Kindled from under; and my tears fill my breast And speck the fair dyed pillows round the king With barren showers and salter than the sea, Such dreams divide me dreaming; for long since I dreamed that out of this my womb had sprung Fire and a firebrand; this was ere my son, Meleager, a goodly flower in fields of fight, Felt the light touch him coming forth, and waited Childlike; but yet he was not; and in time I bare him, and my heart was great; for yet So royally was never strong man born, ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... "No, my young firebrand; against fighting. You needn't look so chop fallen. There'll be a fight before long; but we're going to run no risks. We'll wait till the monsoon is over and we can collect enough ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... but after keeping the boys in a ferment, and nearly burning up the whole family, I thought it safer to remove the firebrand, for a time ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... such perfect, speechless bliss that for the first time in his life Bob felt a desire to smoke. He drew from his pocket the pipe Douglas had given him and filled it from a plug of the tobacco. When he reached for a firebrand to light it Dick noticed what he was doing and ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... castle hall, with various ancient and yellowing title-deeds, and a list of the "muniments" of the castle, made by William Prynne, who was sent there as a prisoner by Cromwell in 1650, after having suffered branding and the loss of his ears at Royalist hands for his "seditious teachings," and who, firebrand and fanatic as he was, beguiled his imprisonment with ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... approached Broadway from a side-street, hastening to headquarters, the Hibernian firebrand and his supposed ally stood on the curbstone, A moment later Merwyn struck his companion such a powerful blow on the temple that he fell in the street, almost in front of the officers of the law. The young fellow then sprung upon the stunned and helpless man, and took away ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... experience of the past? Can you prevent an agitation of this subject, or any other, by any constitutional provisions? No! Look at the details of your scheme. You propose through the Constitution to require payment for fugitive slaves: to make the North pay for them. You are thus throwing a lighted firebrand not only into Congress, but into every State Legislature, into every county, city, ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... twenty thousand prisoners—poor devils who came and asked us for food—and I don't know how many officers. And if you see Wilson there, remember me to him. If Napoleon has need to hate one man more than another for this business, it is that firebrand, Wilson. Yes, you will assuredly find your cousin at Vilna among the prisoners. But you must not linger by the road, for they are being sent back to Moscow to rebuild that which they have caused to ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... especially those with rising young families. The doctor and she thought a good deal of this catch they were making in the person of Ernest Le Breton. Poor souls, they little knew what sort of social qualities they were letting themselves in for. A firebrand or a bombshell would really have been a less remarkable guest to drop down straight into the prim and proper orthodox ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... in our judgments that we as often as not seize the firebrand by the burning end; that is, we condemn ourselves while in the very act of rebuking others. The reproach of the Gospel, Physician, heal thyself,[1] we may take to ourselves. So also that other, Why seest thou ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... holiday these two days, and of a young man whom thou didst happen on. Tell me now, not as a maiden to her father or warder, but as a great lady might tell a great lord, what betid betwixt you two: for thou art not one on whom a young and doughty man may look unmoved. By Allhallows! but thou art a firebrand, my Lady!" ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... to coast. In California Emma Goldman became friendly with the members of the Isaak family, and learned to appreciate their efforts for the Cause. Under tremendous obstacles the Isaaks first published the FIREBRAND and, upon its suppression by the Postal Department, the FREE SOCIETY. It was also during this tour that Emma Goldman met that grand old rebel of sexual ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... Grantly should regard Bold as a firebrand, falling, as he has done, almost in the centre of the quiet ancient close of Barchester Cathedral. Dr Grantly would have him avoided as the plague; but the old Doctor and Mr Harding were fast friends. Young Johnny Bold used to play as a boy on Mr Harding's lawn; ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... firebrand and charged at them, beating right and left, and they backed away in front of him, protesting from under forearms raised to protect their faces. He refused to hear a word from them, and drove, them ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... evident that he would prove the hero. Fortunately, however, we were spared listening to his self-laudation. Dorg Seay and Tim Stanley, bunkies, engaged in a friendly scuffle, each trying to make the other get a firebrand for his pipe. In the tussle which followed, we were all compelled to give way or get trampled underfoot. When both had exhausted themselves in vain, we resumed our places around the fire. Parent, who was disgusted over the ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... Rochefort was really, when all things are considered, one of the drollest spectacles I have ever seen. That venerable political firebrand had been adjudged guilty of contempt of court and had been sentenced to seven days' imprisonment as a first-class misdemeanant. He was mulct in some inconsiderable fine as well, and he was allowed to suit his own convenience and fancy as to the time and manner ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... firebrand flings; It strikes the sides, takes hold, and clings; The freshening breezes spread the blaze, And soon on plank and beam it preys. The inmates flutter in dismay And vainly wish to fly; There as they huddle and retire Back to the part which 'scapes the fire, Sudden the o'erweighted mass ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... divines did not like to be pelted with such epithets as these: "Thou fiery fighter and green-headed trumpeter! thou hedgehog and grinning dog! thou mole! thou tinker! thou lizard! thou bell of no metal but the tone of a kettle! thou wheelbarrow! thou whirlpool! thou whirligig! thou firebrand! thou moon-calf! thou ragged tatterdemalion! thou gormandizing priest! thou bane of reason and beast of the earth! thou best to be spared of all mankind!"—all of which are genuine epithets from the Quaker books of that period, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... is't not pittie, Gods, ah Gods of heau'n! To see from loue such hatefull frutes to spring? And is't not pittie that this firebrand so Laies waste the trophes of Philippi fieldes? Where are those swete allurements, those swete lookes, Which Gods themselues right hart-sicke would haue made? What doth that beautie, rarest guift of heau'n, Wonder of earth? ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... twenty-four hours; the political night came, as regularly as the night of nature, and with it came the march of tens of thousands of political lunatics, as brave as lions, though as incapable of discipline. My prediction was formidably fulfilled: the firebrand and the pike ravaged the land; blood flowed in torrents; and when the country returned to its senses, and the light of common sense once more dawned, ministers and people alike had only the melancholy office of burying the common offences ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... brushwood had been piled. In the dim light of dawn his face could be seen wearing a look of concentrated purpose. He had lately passed an open hut from whence the inhabitants had fled, and he carried in his hand a smouldering firebrand. Now crouching against the place from which the hottest fire belched forth, he blew upon this brand till a tongue of flame darted forth, and in a moment more the brushwood around the house had begun to crackle with a sound like that made by a hissing snake before ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... my friend as my servant. It was therefore no more than natural that I should communicate to him my fears touching what might come of the machinations of St. Auban, Vilmorin, and even, perchance, of that little firebrand, Malpertuis. ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... free to shoot, and hurling the firebrand at the wildcat, he caught up his rifle and blazed away in short order. The wildcat had turned to retreat, but the guide was too quick for it, and down went the beast with a shot through its head. It gave a shudder or two, and ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... sacrifice continued to be offered. The Romans succeeded in gaining the outer court in August only. To drive them out, the Jews in the night of August 10-11 made a sortie, but were compelled to retire, the enemy forcing their way behind them into the inner court. A legionary flung a firebrand into an annexe of the temple, and soon the whole structure was in flames. A terrible slaughter of the defenders ensued, but John with a determined band succeeded in cutting his way out, and by means of the bridge over the Tyropceon valley made his ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... to Lincoln with little loss; and the next week he defeated Sir John Henderson at Winceby, near Horncastle, with sixteen regiments of horse and dragoons, himself having not half that number; killed the Lord Widdrington, Sir Ingram Hopton, and several gentlemen of quality. Thus this firebrand of war began to blaze, and he soon grew a terror to the north; for victory attended him like a page of honour, and he was scarce ever known to be ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe |
