"Firefly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Philosophers The Demon Pope The Cupbearer The Wisdom of the Indians The Dumb Oracle Duke Virgil The Claw Alexander the Ratcatcher The Rewards of Industry Madam Lucifer The Talismans The Elixir of Life The Poet of Panopolis The Purple Head The Firefly Pan's Wand A Page from the Book of Folly The Bell of Saint Euschemon Bishop Addo and Bishop Gaddo The Philosopher and the Butterflies Truth and Her Companions The Three Palaces New Readings in Biography ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... the Gulf of Carpentaria to search for the missing explorers, had they reached that part of the coast; and to expedite and assist land parties in advancing, southwards, to their aid. Captain Norman suffered some delay by the unfortunate wreck of the Firefly, a trader, laden with horses, coals, and straw; and having on board Mr. Landsborough and party, who were to start from the Albert river, or thereabouts. This wreck occurred on the 4th September, 1861, on one of the group of islands to the north, called Sir Charles Hardy's Islands. On the 7th, they ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... of the danger to take further interest in those on board The Firefly. The result of Morley's decision was that those on the pursuing yacht saw clouds of smoke pouring out of the funnel, and knew that the furnaces were being crammed to suffocation. There was a shout of joy from The Firefly's crew, for ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... may expect a whole swarm upon him before he can extricate himself, and is first made aware of their presence by feeling sharp stinging pains in various places, especially the neck, caused by their bites. A small firefly (a species of Lampyris) is plentiful, showing out at night like a twinkling phosphorescent spark, slowly flitting about from tree to tree or resting on the leaves wet with dew. Nor must I omit a very splendid day-flying moth (Cocytia durvillei) which is common on the skirts ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... other for a moment, and then walked on in silence. Little sparks of blue light pulsed and throbbed and floated before their faces, and the moon itself, like a greater firefly, came and went in the interstices of the thin-leaved trees. The Pope, who shuffled in ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... to endure it. My doom is common; many are in dungeons, But none like mine, so near their father's palace; But then my heart is sometimes high, and hope 100 Will stream along those moted rays of light Peopled with dusty atoms, which afford Our only day; for, save the gaoler's torch, And a strange firefly, which was quickly caught Last night in yon enormous spider's net, I ne'er saw aught here like a ray. Alas! I know if mind may bear us up, or no, For I have such, and shown it before men; It sinks in solitude: my ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... odd, moving light is seen in low, damp places. Often it is noticed in graveyards in the country, and is believed to be induced by a condition of the atmosphere, causing something like phosphorescence. You know what a firefly or lightning bug is like, don't you, Horatio? Yes, and a glow-worm also? Well, they say that there are black-looking pools of stagnant water lying around the old quarry; and yes, I think the lights seen might come from ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... be seen why they did not invite us," said one old Firefly. "They did not need us ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... You have no idea what a coward I am at heart; but somehow you girls have taken a notion I should do things and I can't bear to disappoint you. I must admit this is fascinating. I like it better even than golf, and will also give up my canter on Firefly this ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... basins; and everything was green, gaunt, weedy, straggling, under grown or over grown, mildewy, damp, redolent of all sorts of slabby, clammy, creeping, and uncomfortable life. There was nothing bright in the whole scene but a firefly—one solitary firefly—showing against the dark bushes like the last little speck of the departed Glory of the house; and even it went flitting up and down at sudden angles, and leaving a place with a jerk, and describing an irregular circle, and ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... Briefly, "The Firefly of France" is in the manner of the romance—in the manner of Dumas, of Walter Scott. It is a story of love, mystery, danger, and daring. It opens in the gorgeous St. Ives Hotel in New York and ends behind the Allied lines in France. The story gets on its way on the first page, ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... people who had gathered at the foot of the lawn were very silent; Dr. Howe, whose cigar glowed and faded like a larger firefly than those which were beginning to spangle the darkness, was the only one ready to talk. "Well," he said, knocking off his cigar ashes on the arm of his chair, "everything ready for to-morrow, girls? Trunks packed ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... after-glow has faded from the elms, And in the denser darkness of the boughs From time to time the firefly's tiny lamp Sparkles. How often in still summer dusks He paused to note that transient phantom spark Flash on the air—a light ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... flows. Flows, flows, flows onward. Si (Mr.) On-na-i and Na-to-tan dig obi (taro) with their hands. Dig, dig, dig with the hands. The firefly in the woods opens his eyes. Opens, opens, opens his eyes. The bank caves into the river. Caves, caves, caves in. Here, your arm pretty bamboo (?) Bamboo, bamboo, pretty bamboo. Do not disturb the rest of the ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... deserted highway that followed the horseshoe curve of the Belleport shore. They had evolved a code whereby, with much labor it must be admitted, they were able to spell out messages that flickered their way through the night with the beauty of a firefly's revel; but when Jack had taken up work with the coast guard, this old-time substitute for speech had been abandoned, giving place to the briefer method of three nightly flashes. Neither toil nor illness, rain, snow or tempest had in all the years ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... is Firefly. I have got her for you from Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, for you are now old enough to have a good mount of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... first night under the stars—wondrous night of wakefulness and hopeful music, throughout which I lay entranced at the foot of a wooded hill and was never for a moment uncompanioned by nightingale, cicala and firefly—I began to suffer from footsoreness, a bodily affliction against which romance, that certain salve for the maladies of the soul, is no remedy, or very little. Crossing the hills, over burning roads, through thorny brakes or by slopes of harsh grass, my heels and the balls of ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... night-hawk whirls in circles overhead; When the cow-bells melt and mingle In a softened, silver jingle, And the old hen calls the chickens in to bed; When the marshy meadows glimmer With a misty, purple shimmer, And the twilight flush is changing into shade; When the firefly lamps are burning And the dusk to dark is turning,— Then the bullfrogs chant their ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... be fledged and with them hie Where costly day drops down in crimson light? (Fortunate countries of the firefly Swarm with blue diamonds all ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... Roquebrune and my garden are world enough for me. Is breakfast ready, Mademoiselle Luciola? Thanks; we will begin as soon as you have brought things to lay another place. Is that not a good name for the wee body—Firefly? Oh, but you should see our fireflies here in May, when the Riviera is supposed to be wiped off the map, not existent till winter. And the glow-worms. I have three in my garden. No garden is complete without at least one glow-worm. I had to beg my first from ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... mystification, the two watchers stared at the last weird gleams that marked the foundered schooner. The waves reached the dinghy, raised it and dropped it with a slow gurgling, then died away in firefly glimmers. The sea presented once more a dim gray surface. To Madden's mind there came, with a sharp sense of pathos, the picture of the little sunny-haired girl he had seen ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... the house by his servant, and set off on his way. He saw a faint light through the chinks of the blinds of the house, like the glimmer of the firefly. It gave him, as he passed, a silent sort of longing. The mansion in Rokjio, to which he was proceeding this evening, was a handsome building, standing amidst fine woods of rare growth and beauty, and all was ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... continued to watch, always in the one quarter, where the slight noise indicated the presence of the creeping beast, Max saw something that riveted his attention immediately. At first he thought it was a glowworm, or possibly a firefly that had not yet arisen from the lush grass in which it lay concealed ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... have to learn. Everybody rides out here. I've orders to get you the best pony possible and I wanted to know just what kind to get. Most of 'em have some mean trick. But there's one, Firefly they call him, that is as gentle as a lamb. Whether Shorty Simmons will sell him or not, I don't know, but ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... enjoy her,' said sweet Aunt Truth, with that bright, cordial smile of hers that was like a blessing. 'She has a very loving heart, and is easily led. How pretty the girls look, and how different they are! Polly is like a thistledown or a firefly, Margery like one of our home Mayflowers, and I can't help thinking my ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... returned unheard, smoking vigorously, and looking in the darkness as if a firefly were gliding to their side. "We shan't see the moon to-night. It must have set a couple ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... away and struck into a path leading to the stone terrace. She could see the lanterns flashing like firefly sparks; she could hear the clear voice of Sir Everard Kingsland commanding. All at once the lights were still, there was a deep exclamation in the baronet's voice, a wild chorus of feminine screams, then ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... captured a firefly and shut him in between the glass and the face of our pocket compass. With such a guide we shaped our course for the Rapidan. After traveling nearly all night we lay down exhausted upon a bluff within sound of the river, and slept until sunrise. Hastening to our feet again, we hurried ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... themselves. Ah! you may think you know a man for years, and you don't: you don't know more than an inch or two of him. Why, of course, Tom Redworth would be uxorious—the very man! And tell us what has become of the Firefly now? One never ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... inverted wineglass one can see to read fine printed matter in the nighttime. It is the common people mostly who use these insects as evening ornaments on their persons, though sometimes the most refined ladies wear them. The firefly has a hook-like integument on its body by which it is easily fastened to the hair or dress without any harm to itself. It seems as though nature had anticipated this peculiar use of the "lightning-bug," and so provided the necessary means for the purpose. ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... indisposition,—to assure us that his ill health more than once threatened the mighty task he had in hand. These, to be sure, are most important revelations. But Khalid here misses his cue. Inspiration does not seem to come to him in firefly-fashion. ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... majesty's squadron has been augmented on the West India station. The brig 'Firefly,' corvettes 'Croaker' and 'Joker,' touched at Nassau, New Providence, on the 2d instant, bound to leeward. We also learn that the United States have fitted out a squadron of small vessels, called the Musquito Fleet, to search for the noted pirate ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... favored each other,—but little Miss Marshy was the one for my money. She used to make me think of a hummin'-bird; quick as a flash, here, and there, gone in a minute, and back again before you could wink. She had a little black mare she used to ride, Firefly, she called her. Eigh, sirs, to see them two kitin' round the country was a sight, now I tell ye. I recall one day I was out in the medder behind Darracott House—you know that gully that runs the len'th of the ten-acre lot? Well, there used to be a bridge over that gully, ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... wandering from ghostly passage to passage, one hears no step but that of the watchman with staff and lantern. Presently there appears, far off, a light like a low-flying firefly, as it comes nearer, it is seen to proceed from the Mellah lamp of open-work brass that a servant carries ahead of two merchants on their way home from Elbali. The merchants are grave men, they move softly and slowly on their fat ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... has two large eyes at the back of its head, instead of in front in their more natural place; and these eyes, when the insect is touched, shoot forth two strong streams of greenish light, something like that produced by an electric dynamo, while, at the same time, the entire body of the "firefly," or beetle, becomes as ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Thetis, Dolphin, Wizard, Escape, and Dragon-all vessels with rising floors and round bilges, and the coefficient of performance was found to be 1430. The fourth set of experiments was made in 1834, upon the vessels Magnet, Dart, Eclipse, Flamer, Firefly, Ferret, and Monarch, when the coefficient of performance was found to be 1580. The fifth set of experiments was made upon the Red Rover, City of Canterbury, Herne, Queen, and Prince of Wales, and ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... deceives them. We catch a glimpse of the old fellow's white throat as he trots about in a zigzag course, poking his tan muzzle into every clump of tall grass and giving tongue occasionally as he sniffs the cold trail. Presently a long, quavering cry comes from old Firefly; again and again Blucher opens more and more eagerly; another and another dog takes it up, and the trot quickens into a lope. The trail grows warmer as they follow the line of fence, and just as we settle ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... aurora australis. lightning; chain lightning, fork lightning, sheet lightning, summer lightning; ball lightning, kugelblitz [German]; [chemical substances giving off light without burning] phosphorus, yellow phosphorus; scintillator, phosphor; firefly luminescence. ignis fatuus[Lat]; Jack o'lantern, Friar's lantern; will-o'-the-wisp, firedrake[obs3], Fata Morgana[Lat]; Saint Elmo's fire. [luminous insects] glowworm, firefly, June bug, lightning bug. [luminous ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Faring back, then, I come to the dock-head at sunset, and it is my hour. Darkness is rushing down upon the shipping as I watch. In the distance hill piled on hill, blue dome upon blue dome, spangled with myriad firefly lights, backed by the smoky red of winter sunset; and here the shipping, ghostly now in the darkness, exquisitely beautiful in the silence. From out at sea comes a faint "ah-oo-oo-oo"—one more toiler coming in to rest. And it ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... of all countries many refer to insects, birds, animals, persons, actions, trades, food or children. In Chinese rhymes we have the cricket, cicada, spider, snail, firefly, ladybug and butterfly and others. Among fowls we have the bat, crow, magpie, cock, hen, duck and goose. Of animals, the dog, cow, horse, mule, donkey, camel, and mouse, are the favorites. There are also rhymes on the snake and ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... minute later the signal came: a firefly's flash five times together and three times repeated from the ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... large. Out on the pond the Snapping Turtles were moving swiftly from one log to another, bearing upon their backs groups of Fireflies. The Fireflies were there in numbers this night, because one of the selections on the program was a "Firefly Dance," composed by Mr. Frisky Frog, and to be danced by Miss K. T. Did. The other members of the Quartette were to sing the song while Miss Katy danced. It spoiled the effect somewhat to lose her clear high soprano, ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... her hand and she sat so motionless that the place seemed deserted, save for an errant firefly that vainly palpitated in the gloom. The glow that had flamed beneath Nicholas's kiss still lingered in her face, and she was conscious of a faint, almost hysterical impulse to weep. The fever in her veins had given place to a still tremor which ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... lay over the salt meadows; the fairy trilling of the little owl had ceased. Marsh-fowl were sleepily astir; the last firefly floated low into the shrouded bushes and its lamp glimmered a moment and ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... they could not see through this darkness. McKay was visible enough to his own party, but not to the enemy. The blond man in the hammock watched the somber figure of his comrade, followed the flight of a big firefly whose light floated near, thought of the two bushmen out in the dark, and looked again at ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... coffee plantations, and indeed throughout the rural portions of the country, there is a curious little insect called a cocuyo, answering in its general characteristics and nature to our firefly, though it is quadruple its size, and far the most brilliant insect of its kind known to naturalists. They float in phosphorescent clouds over the vegetation, emitting a lurid halo, like fairy torch-bearers to elfin crews. One at first sight is apt to compare them to a shower of stars. They come ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... cocoa-nuts against the trees, but they all heard the axes of Maroon wood-choppers; and when a sentinel declared, one night, that he had seen a negro go down the river in a canoe, with his pipe lighted, the whole force was called to arms—against a firefly. In fact, the insect race brought by far the most substantial dangers. The rebels eluded the military, but the chigres, locusts, scorpions, and bush-spiders were ever ready to come half-way to meet them; likewise serpents and alligators proffered them the freedom of the forests, and exhibited ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson |
