"Rocket" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to strengthen the idea, now and then above the trees would burst what seemed a rocket of coloured stars. The stars would drift away in a flock on the wind and be lost. They were flights of birds. All-coloured birds peopled the trees below blue, scarlet, dove-coloured, bright of eye, but ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... fine picture, write a good play, and when it comes to oratory they've got me lashed to a pole. But, somehow, they never make money. They're always in debt. They never get anything for what they do. In other words, young man, they are like a sky rocket without a stick—plenty of brilliancy, but no direction. They blow up and fizzle all ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... dissatisfied with their chief, for instead of meeting the just expectations of the state, he gave proofs daily that the fiery warlike courage in his frozen and worn-out heart was merely like the artificial fire which bursts with a furious rush out of the rocket-apparatus, but immediately disappears in black lifeless flakes, and has accomplished nothing. Moreover, since his union with his young and beautiful wife (it had long before leaked out that he was married to her directly after attaining ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Rocket Battery, and now acting aid to Colonel Heckmann, and Wm. Lemons, a private in the Ninth New Jersey, advanced under the enemy's heavy firing, when Lieutenant Graham got near enough to, and ...
— Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro (North Carolina) expedition, December, 1862 • W. W. Howe
... parish." Here Father Kelly paused, his persuasive argument rolling back on himself; he didn't know what to do with the watch. It was too perilous to run the risk of new discords over it. The priest cast a distress rocket in a look at the Vicar-General; but the Vicar-General ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... natives and a rocket battery arriving from Rorke's Drift about 10 A.M., took over the command of the camp from Colonel Pulleine. According to the evidence of Lieutenant Cochrane given at the court of inquiry, Colonel ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... minutes, as the boys sat with their heads bent down. More than one choking sob might have been heard, had the wind lulled, as they thought of the dear ones at home. Suddenly there was a flash of light ahead, and the boom of a gun directly afterwards came upon their ears. Then a rocket soared up ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... landlord's family have returned from a pilgrimage to a far-distant temple of the Goddess of Grace. (Although Madame Prune is a Shintoist, she reveres this deity, who, scandal says, watched over her youth.) A moment after, Mademoiselle Oyouki bursts into our room like a rocket, bringing, on a charming little tray, sweetmeats which have been blessed and bought at the gates of the temple yonder, on purpose for us, and which we must positively eat at once, before the virtue is gone out of them. Hardly rousing ourselves, we absorb these little edibles ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... I said before, this habit of digression will be the death of me. Like a rocket, I start off splendidly, but explode and fall to pieces in every direction before I get half way on my journey. If the scintillations are varied and gayly colored, to be sure, the powder is not utterly lost; but the trouble of it is, if one keeps going off like rockets ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... overseas brethren, comes from the Warner Brothers' series of "Roadrunner" cartoons. In these cartoons, the famished Wile E. Coyote was forever attempting to catch up with, trap, and eat the Roadrunner. His attempts usually involved one or more high-technology Rube Goldberg devices — rocket jetpacks, catapults, magnetic traps, high-powered slingshots, etc. These were usually delivered in large cardboard boxes, labeled prominently with the Acme name. These devices invariably malfunctioned in violent and ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... a rushing noise, and a rocket went up from the island, far into the blackness of the night, burst, and the bright blue stars fell slowly, lighting up the palms ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... twin-screw steamer, by the beat. I can't make her out, but she must be standing very close inshore. Ah!" as the red of a rocket streaked the haze, "she's standing in to signal before she ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... money-making scheme. You must set Smith at work, in company with another driver or freighter, and let them bring such articles as will find a ready market. A stock must be laid in, sufficient to last nearly all winter, for during the wet season the roads are next to impassable, and provisions go up like a rocket, only they forget to fall until good weather begins, and ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... until the last pinwheel had whizzed itself out in streams and stars of colored fire, until the last sky-rocket had gone hissing upward toward the clouds, and until the last glow of red fire had died away ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... to flatten himself against the stones, he dropped the end of the pole to the ground and shot upward like a rocket. Kalora saw him give an upward twist and wriggle, fling himself free from the pole and disappear on the other side of the wall, the camera following like the tail of a comet. As he did so, number two, coming ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... great savant, as a rule, feels that instead of being separated by his store of knowledge, as by a wide space that he has crossed, from smaller minds, he is brought closer to the ignorant by the presence of the vast unknown. Instead of feeling that he has soared like a rocket away from the ground, he thinks of himself rather as a flower might think whose head was an inch or two higher than a great company of similar flowers; he has perhaps a wider view; he sees the bounding hedgerow, the distant line of hills, whereas ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Dete leaped up from her seat like a rocket and cried, "If that is all you have to say about it, why then I will give you a bit of my mind. The child is now eight years old and knows nothing, and you will not let her learn. You will not send her to church or school, as I was told down in Dorfli, and she is my ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... the Moon. But he duly admired Harriet's spacious room in the sanatorium, the recreation rooms, the auditorium; space-suited, he walked with her in the cold Earthlight; he attended her on the excursion trip to Ley Field, the interstellar rocket base on the far side of ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... the guide who accompanied us had a painfully famished air. Fortunately the Koran expressly permits invalids, children, and travellers to disregard the fast, so that although we eat and drink when we like, we are none the less looked upon as good Mussulmans. About dark a gun is fired and a rocket sent up from the mosque, announcing the termination of the day's fast. The meals are already prepared, the pipes filled, the coffee smokes in the finjans, and the echoes have not died away nor the last sparks of the rocket become extinct, before ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... was very large, and was divided into several sections, each of which was equipped with runways and/or other landing facilities to suit one class of craft—propellor jobs, jets, or helicopters. There were even a few structures that looked like rocket pits. ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... marched up the hill in single file, under the winter stars. . . . Through openings in the woods we could see that we were marching along a high ridge, and on either hand vaporous depths and distances expanded, the darkness broken sometimes by a far light or the momentary glow of a magnesium rocket sent up from the German lines. There is something fascinating if one is stationed on sentry-duty immediately after arrival, in watching the dawn slowly illumine one of these new landscapes, from a position taken up under cover of darkness. The other section has been relieved ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... of making the journey to the moon, Stewart believes, is a vehicle propelled on the principle of the rocket. He visions a ship built in the form of a large metal sphere—110 feet in diameter, weighing 70,000 metric tons and carrying a crew of sixty and a dozen scientists. A dozen or more cannon would protrude slightly from the surface, shooting material the rate ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... at once. The old guy is laughing like crazy, an' that half-smart Rubero drills him right through the head. I take one shot at the thing, low so's not to hit Movaine, an' then we're all running, I'm halfway to the hall when Cooms tears past me like a rocket. The Duke an' the others are already piling out through the portal. I get to the hall, and there's this terrific smack of sound in the room. I look back ... an' ... ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... And as the shark, turning on his back, exposed the white of his belly, they both fired. The brute disappeared, and so did the bait, sinking like a rocket until lost to sight. ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... social student can think of curing the thoughtlessness of our generation by strained paradoxes; of giving people a sane grasp of social problems by literary sleight-of-hand; of settling important questions by a reckless shower of rocket-metaphors and inaccurate 'facts,' and the substitution of imagination for ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... up like the sky-rocket, and seems to have had the traditional descent. From 1900 to 1906 everybody was talking about him; since 1906 one scarcely hears mention of his name. He was ridiculously overpraised, but he ought not to be forgotten. As an artist, he will not bear a moment's comparison with Andreev; but some of his ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... gives the composition explicitly. He directs us to pulverize in a marble mortar one pound of sulphur, two of charcoal, and six of saltpetre. If some of this powder be tightly rammed in a long narrow tube closed at one end, and then set on fire, the tube will fly through the air: this is clearly the rocket. He says that thunder may be imitated by folding some of the powder in a cover and tying it up tightly: this is the cracker. It thus appears that fireworks preceded fire-arms. To the same author we are indebted for prescriptions for making the skin incombustible, so that we ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... rocket. Uneven surface, slippery hills of snow meant nothing to him. He was racing for freedom from threatening ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... more I think of it, the less am I displeased. When one reflects that more than half of the enormous crowd came, probably, from tiny villages in France—where a rocket is as rare as an angelic visitation; and, on the carnal side, as beautiful in their eyes—it seems a very narrow-minded thing to object. It is true that you and I connect fireworks with Mafeking night or Queen ...
— Lourdes • Robert Hugh Benson
... the window of the laboratory where the thousand parts of the strange rocket lay strewn in careful order. Small groups worked slowly over the dismantled parts. The captain wanted to ask but something stopped him. Behind him Doctor Johannsen sat at his desk, his gnarled old hand tight about a whiskey bottle, the bottle the doctor always had ...
— Test Rocket! • Jack Douglas
... said Hannah begun to wait, 'n' Hannah waited until if Hannah had waited any longer she 'd have gone off like a rocket, she was that mad again. Gran'ma Mullins said Hannah always got so red she got purple if she only was rememberin' it after. 'N' in the end she could n't stand it no longer 'n' she set off for the pond herself. She always said ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... canister, and directly we got near we charged them, but in vain, as owing to the sudden appearance of some of their cavalry we had to halt and form square: and indeed we must have been routed altogether by their combined infantry and cavalry, had not our Rocket Brigade stepped forward and played fearful havoc among their cavalry, driving them back. I had never before seen this rocket charge and have never either since; by all appearance it was most successful in this case, for it soon turned them to the ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... spoke, I looked to another quarter of the sky, and a rocket, as if a signal in answer to those which had already appeared, rose high from the earth, and ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... bookkeeper like myself; then a young attorney; then a medical student; then a bald-headed old gentleman, who seemed to blow a flageolet for a living; and lately, he has taken the shape of a well-to-do President of 'The Arkansas and Arizona Sky Rocket Transportation Company,' but through all these shifting shapes, I recognize ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... Venus," it said, and then repeated the phrase in six languages. "The ship you see is a Venusian Class 7 interplanetary rocket, built for one-passenger. It is clear of all radiation, and is perfectly safe to approach. There is a hatch which may be opened by an automatic lever in the side. Please open this hatch ...
— The Delegate from Venus • Henry Slesar
... Rats"—the fatal match is struck, The cannon pointed upwards—then kerchuck! Fiz! Snap! Ker—boom! Slug 14's grotesque form Sails out to ride a race upon the storm, Up through the roof, and up into the sky— As if he sought for "cases" up on high, Till like a rocket, or like one who's trusted, He ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... were held at places called clubs, where it was agreed to attack simultaneously the Americans inside and outside the capital. General Pio del Pilar slept in the city every night, ready to give the rocket-signal for revolt. Natives between 18 and 40 years of age were being recruited for military service, according to a Malolos Government decree dated September 21, 1898. In every smithy and factory bowie-knives were being forged with all speed, and 10,000 men were already armed with them. General ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... light crept out of the dark to seawards, and a faint throbbing grew into the measured beat of a steamer's screw. Then a low, shadowy hull, outlined by a glimmer of phosphorescence, came on towards the harbor mouth, and a rocket swept up in a fiery curve and burst, dropping colored lights. A harsh rattle of running chain broke out, the screw splashed noisily for a few moments and stopped, and a launch ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... more than half-way between the boat and the ship. It seemed as if those on board had caught sight of us, for another rocket went up. They had evidently kept one back, as a last hope, in case any one should ...
— Saved at Sea - A Lighthouse Story • Mrs. O.F. Walton
... saying anent that—zeal catches fire at a slight spark as fast as a brunstane match," observed the secretary. "I hae kend a minister wad be fair gude-day and fair gude-e'en wi' ilka man in the parochine, and hing just as quiet as a rocket on a stick, till ye mentioned the word abjuration-oath, or patronage, or siclike, and then, whiz, he was off, and up in the air an hundred miles beyond common manners, common sense, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... "A rocket mortar of light weight," explained Kennedy, then dropped into French as he explained to Armand the manipulation of ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... readiness for the game to begin, the New York, which was the flagship, sent up a rocket, warning the other vessels to be on the lookout for the ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 18, March 11, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... from a tall, supercilious-looking Rocket, who was tied to the end of a long stick. He always coughed before he made any observation, so ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... current of compressed air could be sent out from either pipe. Thus when floating above the earth the ship was forced forward by the blast of air rushing from the pipe at the stern. It was the same principle as that on which a sky rocket is shot heavenward, save that gases produced by the burning of powder in the pasteboard ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... grew to a wide murmur, the little bells seemed to chime with notes heard only by the innermost spirit, and the gliding dogs were like strange creatures from some shadowy underworld. At times a pheasant would rise and whirl like a rocket from hillock to hollow, and about midnight a rapturous concert began. On one line of trees a colony of nightingales had established themselves near the heart of the waste. First came the low inquiry from the leader; ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... the gurgle of the stream, the stamp of the horses, the occasional barking of the dog which followed the cook's wagon, the hooting of an owl; and when these failed he saw Jeff, standing on a battlement, mid the rocket's red glare, and heard him sing, "Oh, say, can you see?", It was the first time he had ever slept ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... you sacristan, show us a light there! Down it dips, gone like a rocket. What, you want, do you, to come unawares, Sweeping the church up for first morning-prayers, And find a poor devil has ended his cares At the foot of your rotten-runged rat-riddled stairs? Do I carry ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... musket to the present. An instant later he fired, just as the words, "A Russian sentry," broke from the first lieutenant's lips. Almost simultaneously three or four other shots were fired at points along the beach. A rocket whizzed high in the air from each side of the bay, a bugle sounded the alarm, voices of command were heard, and, as if by enchantment, a chaos of sounds followed the deep silence which had before reigned, and from every house ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... Liverpool, every evening at 7.0; Oxford, daily, at 7.0 a.m.; Portsmouth and Southampton, every afternoon, at 4.0; Plymouth and Exeter, every morning, at 8; Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, daily, at 6.0 a.m.; Portsmouth and Southampton, by the 'Rocket,' at 7.0 a.m.; Gloster, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and Holyhead leaves Bristol ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... different periods, such as either at the moment it leaves the gun, before, or when it strikes the envelope of the dirigible. The shell is fitted with a "tracer," that is to say, upon becoming ignited it leaves a trail of smoke, corresponding with the trail of a rocket, so that its passage through the air may be followed with facility. This shell, however, was designed to fulfil a dual. Not only will it fire the gaseous contents out of the dirigible, but it has an explosive effect upon striking an incombustible portion of the aircraft, such as the machinery, ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... Ground Forces, Navy, Air Forces; Airborne troops, Strategic Rocket Forces, and Military Space Forces are classified as independent combat arms, not subordinate to any of the ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... in that way. One was in Chicago years ago—an uncle of mine, just as good an uncle as I have ever had, and I had lots of them—yes, uncles to burn, uncles to spare. This poor uncle, full of patriotism, opened his mouth to hurrah, and a rocket went down his throat. Before that man could ask for a drink of water to quench that thing, it blew up and scattered him all, over the forty-five States, and—really, now, this is true—I know about it myself—twenty-four hours after that it was raining buttons, recognizable as ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... tracts which they traversed. They remained on each successive encampment long enough (if I may so express myself) to sow themselves there. They left behind them at least a remnant of their own population while they went forward, like a rocket thrown up in the sky, which, while it shoots forward, keeps possession of its track by its train of fire. And hence it was that Attila, when he found himself at length in Hungary, and elevated to the headship of his people, became at once the acknowledged king of the ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... Pompadour, without in the least offending his tempestuous friend. That remarkable young lady, then still known as la petite Etoile, had succeeded in catching the King's eye, and was soaring into the political heavens like a rocket, carrying, among other incongruous objects, the genius of Voltaire in her glittering train. Voltaire must have boasted to his young friend that his fortune was made. Vauvenargues surprisingly expresses in his reply ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... machinery set in motion by Harrington and Quarrier had begun to grind in May; and, at the first audible rumble, the aspect of things financial in the country changed. A few industrials began to rocket, nobody knew why; but the market's first tremor left it baggy and spineless, and the reaction, already overdue, became a sodden and soggy slump. Nobody ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... together on the beach where they first ate seafood out of curiosity, then continued because they liked it. And due to their protein diet the Terran had grown well over six feet in height and the Ssassaror seemed to have touched off a rocket of expansion in his body with his protein-eating. Those Ssassarors who shared his guilt—became meat-eaters—became ostracized and eventually moved off to live by themselves. They were called Ssassaror-Giants and were pointed to as an object ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... Lion, Royston, and destined for Belle Sauvage, London; the Cambridge "Beehive," up and down alternate days, the Bull, Royston, and the Catherine Wheel, Bishopsgate Street, and White Bear, Piccadilly; the Cambridge "Telegraph," daily, the Red Lion, Royston, and the White Horse, Fetter Lane; the "Rocket," daily, the Bull, Royston, and White Horse, Fetter Lane; the "Wisbeach," daily, the Bull Hotel, Royston, and Belle Sauvage and Golden Cross, London; the "Stamford," up and down alternate days, the Crown, Royston, and the Bell and Crown, Holborn; the "Wellington," from York, the Queen Victoria, ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... horizon, a light proceeding from the south, of the breadth of three inches, which went off to the north, always spreading itself as it moved, and made itself heard by a whizzing light like that of the largest sky-rocket. I judged by the eye that this light could not be above our atmosphere, and the whizzing noise which I heard confirmed me in that notion. {38} When it came in like manner to be about 45 degrees to the north above the horizon, it stopped short, and ceased enlargeing itself: ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... accompanied by a saucer. These having arrived, he proceeded to lift the basket on to his lap, pour the milk into the saucer, and remove the lid from the basket. Instantly, with a yell which made the young man's table the centre of interest to all the diners, a large grey cat shot up like a rocket, and darted across the room. ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... and Mike weren't nervous. He also hoped that nobody had gotten at the fuel for the pushpots, and that the slide-rule crew that had calculated everything hadn't made any mistakes. He was also bothered about the steering-rocket fuel, and he was uncomfortable about the business of releasing the spaceship from the launching cage. There was, too, cause for worry in the take-off rockets—if the tube linings had shrunk there would be some ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... Than the owners of St. James? You are not so great a grievance, As the hirelings of St. Stephen's. You are of a lower class Than my friend Sir Robert Brass. None of these have mercy found: I have laugh'd, and lash'd them round. Have you seen a rocket fly? You would swear it pierced the sky: It but reach'd the middle air, Bursting into pieces there; Thousand sparkles falling down Light on many a coxcomb's crown. See what mirth the sport creates! Singes hair, but breaks no pates. Thus, should I ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... by the forelock," in a very real sense, the Sage of Fleet Street rose with him like a Brock rocket, high, and swift, and light-compelling, into ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... head. "Not exactly. I'm on my way to the Rocket Research Proving Grounds. Just a routine story on the experiment they're going to pull off this evening. I've got to interview Mathieson, Gaddon, and a few other scientists on ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... trial arrived. Three engines entered the lists for the prize,—namely, the Rocket, by George Stephenson; the Sanspareil, by Timothy Hackworth; and the Novelty, by Ericsson. Both sides of the railway, for more than a mile in length, were lined with thousands of spectators. There was no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... me letters seem to get themselves wound up into a sky rocket and then let themselves explode in the last paragraph, and it always upsets my nerves. I was just about to begin to cry again over the last words of the judge, when the only bright spot in the day so far suddenly happened. Pet Buford ran in with the pinkest cheeks and the brightest eyes ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Did you hear that sound, like the whistling of a rocket? See! Something has fallen upon the tree-top, breaking several branches! As I live it is the kite! Dead he is, and the blood is spurting from a wound ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... apparition, and blindingly violet by contrast, danced out the first lightning of the gathering storm, and the thunder burst like a rocket overhead. The horse took the bit between ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... and had gone out in the small boat to lance it, when the huge fish dived under the craft and shot up from the bottom like a rocket, his sword going through the timbers as though they were paper and striking the boatman with such force that he was killed almost instantly. Boats used often to be sunk by the rushes of a swordfish, but nowadays the greater part of the work is done directly ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... their positions, and we were engaged with the batteries on either side; so close were we, that the enemy were distinctly seen loading their guns above us. After a few broadsides, we brought our starboard broadside to bear on the Fish-market, and our larboard side then looked to seaward. The rocket-boats were now throwing rockets over our ships into the mole, the effects of which, were occasionally seen on the shipping on our larboard bow. The Dutch flag was to be seen flying at the fore of the Dutch Admiral, who, with his squadron, were engaging ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... completion. We like to be surprised into admiration, and not logically convinced that we ought to admire. We are willing to be delighted with success, though we are somewhat indifferent to the homely qualities which insure it. Our thought is so filled with the rocket's burst of momentary splendor so far above us, that we forget the poor stick, useful and unseen, that made its climbing possible. One of these homely qualities is continuity of character, and it escapes present applause because it tells chiefly, in the long run, in results. With his ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... and this is true not only of nations, kings, politicians, or wars, but of events and things witnessed or called into existence in every-day life. In The Engineer for September 17, 1880, we did our best to place a true statement of the facts concerning the Rocket before our readers. In many respects this was the most remarkable steam engine ever built, and about it there ought to be no difficulty, one would imagine, in arriving at the truth. It was for a considerable period the cynosure of all eyes. Engineers all over the world were interested ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... rocket," says E. E.; "a publishing gentleman is going to compliment the ladies with a display ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... lying below, only waiting for the signal to move up to destroy the rest of the bridge and carry succour to the city; but the incompetent and cowardly Jacobzoon rowed hastily away after the explosion, and the rocket that should have summoned the Zeelanders was never sent up. Parma moved about among his troops, restoring order and confidence, and as the night went on and no assault took place he set his men to work to collect drifting timbers ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... was the year 1829, which became famous in the annals of railways, not only for the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester line, but for the invention and construction of the first high speed locomotive of the standard modern type. Robert Stephenson's engine, "The Rocket," was made under competition for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and it gained the prize of five hundred pounds for lightness, power and ...
— A Pioneer Railway of the West • Maude Ward Lafferty
... worse than none, especially this of sputtering with musketry;—and hoped always there would be no Attack, or none to speak of. Till, in fine, between 2 and 3 in the morning, his patrols gallop in, 'Austrians on march!' and Zastrow, throwing out a rocket or two, descries in momentary illumination that the Fact ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Hartford took the lead, with the Albatross lashed to her port side, next the Richmond with the Genesee, the Monongahela with the Kineo, and last the side-wheeler Mississippi alone. The Essex and Sachem remained at anchor below, with the mortar boats, to cover the advance. An hour later a rocket shot up from the bluff and instantly the Confederate batteries opened fire. They were soon joined by long lines of sharpshooters. To avoid the shoal that makes out widely from the western bank, as well as to escape ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... or I fire," the Falaba steamed off and sent up rocket signals to summon help, and was only brought to a standstill after a chase of a ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... forward to see wreaths of water speeding below like ghosts. The stars jolted back and forth in wide arcs. There were explosions at the bows, and the ship trembled and hesitated. Occasionally the skipper split the darkness with a rocket, and we gazed round the night for an answer. The night had no answer to give. We were probably nearing the North Pole. About midnight, the silent helmsman put away his pipe, as a preliminary to answering a foolish question of mine, and said, ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... said Dave. "If you run into anything and need help, send up rocket signals and we'll steam back to you at ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... and tell East to come and back me," said Tom to a small School-house boy, who was off like a rocket to Harrowell's, just stopping for a moment to poke his head into the School-house hall, where the lower boys were already at tea, and sing out, "Fight! Tom Brown ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... leaped and danced. Kindly anxious hands were feeding it, and it was impossible not to think that the men who would stay out on such a bitter night, were not doing all they knew for the help and succour of these helpless men. There were rocket apparatus stationed along the coast, and if the ship would only hold together long enough, why should they not all be saved? If she only would. Ben Harper was feverish in his desire for life now. He must live; he must ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... is what they call flirtation," I thought. And the hope which had risen blazing, like a rocket, went ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... flag now in the National Museum in Washington is the Flag of fifteen stars and stripes, which floated over Fort McHenry—near Baltimore—in the War of 1812, and which Francis Scott Key (imprisoned on a British ship) saw "by the dawn's early light" after watching through the night "the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air" as proof that the fort had not fallen to the enemy. The next day he ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... sides, but changed to ohs! and ahs! as a beautiful rocket flew through the air, and burst into a ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of July Dr. Powell, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and Mr. Anderson, Commissioner for Fisheries, paid us their long -promised visit in H.M.S. Rocket. Though only a portion of our population were at home, our visitors expressed themselves as greatly astonished and delighted at all they saw. Dr. Powell has since written me an official letter, and read me his official report to the minister at Ottawa, both ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... the com-tech said, going off on a new track, "that these painted boys were not too quick about blasting along to their strongbox? I'd say that they thought some bright rocket jockey might have rigged a surprise for ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... ready for such an exposure, for, with a yell of defiance, he dropped behind his horse, and the animal shot like a rocket from the firelight into the shadows which lay thick on ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... this he touched a rocket, of which he had several in the boat, with the lighted end of the cigar he had been smoking, and it went hissing up into the air, ascending so high as to be plainly visible from the deck of le Feu-Follet before it exploded. Griffin ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... opened, Stephenson was laughed at because he said he thought he could go thirty miles an hour, and was urged before the House of Commons not to say so, as he might be thought to be mad. This I have from person who knew the circumstances. Nevertheless, at the trial, I believe the "Rocket" did go at the rate of thirty miles an hour, to the not small astonishment of the world, and especially to the unbelievers in steam as a land agent. The stipulation made was that trains were to be conveyed at the rate of twelve miles ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... Ned had been listening intently for the shriek of a rocket, casting his eyes up the mountain side in the hope of seeing the green light of a signal reflected there. But no reports of rockets in the sky had come to his ears, and there were no signal lights ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... were up to the rear of it before the garrison were aware of the capture of the larger fort. By a sudden dash it was taken as the former had been, the British not losing a single man, though several of its defenders, attempting to stand their ground, were cut down. A rocket let off the moment they were in was the signal to ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... then, let me tell you!), and when they all died, and why. I met him one morning in a cemetery. I was hunting for a certain stone and I asked him a question. Heavens! It was like setting a match to one of those Fourth- of-July flower-pot sky-rocket affairs. That question was the match that set him going, and thereafter he was a gushing geyser of names and dates. I never heard ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... flourish, sprang in air to seek her; but her outraged mate was ahead of him, and with a scream she fled, leaving a tuft of feathers in her mate's beak. In turn the Cardinal struck him like a flashing rocket, and then red war waged in Rainbow Bottom. The females scattered for cover with all their might. The Cardinal worked in a kiss on one poor little bird, too frightened to escape him; then the males closed in, and serious ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... given to the various centres to fall back from the trenches and houses held, when the agreed-upon signal flew up from the top of the kopje in a long line of light, followed by the bursting of a rocket, whose stars lit up the cloud of smoke rising ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... or anything had been seeking his apartments. He was assured that nobody and nothing had passed these officials since his last inquiries; whereupon he and the slightly bewildered Angus were shot up in the lift like a rocket, till they reached ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... grown grey hairs, Hope had mourning on, Trenched with tears, carved with cares, Hope was twelve hours gone; And frightful a nightfall folded rueful a day Nor rescue, only rocket and lightship, shone, And lives at last were washing away: To the shrouds they took,—they shook in the hurling ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... while a small throng of early idlers are staring up at him from Gospeler's Gulch, Mr. BUMSTEAD, with his coat on in the wrong way, and a wet towel on his head, comes tearing in amongst them like a congreve rocket. ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... seen. Move further to the North-East. Point Emeriau. Cape Leveque. Point Swan. Tide-races. Search for water. Encountered by Natives. Return to the Ship. The attempt renewed. Conduct of the Natives. Effect of a Congreve Rocket after dark. A successful haul. More Natives. Miago's Heroism. The plague of Flies. Dampier's description of it. Native Habitations. Underweigh. Wind and weather. Tidal Phenomenon. Natural History. Singular Kangaroo. Bustard. Cinnamon Kangaroo. Quails. Goanas and Lizards. Ant Hills. Fishing over ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... Rocket signals had informed those on anxious watch in Grand Harbor of the capture of the submarine. Congratulations ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... in headlong. I followed less hastily. It was as black as a setter's mouth within, the gun fire having snuffed the old man's candle out. But we had flint and steel and tinder-box, and when the punk was alight, Jennifer found the candle under foot and gave it me. It took fire with a fizzing like a rocket fuse, and was well blackened with gunpowder. When the flint had failed to bring the firing spark, the old man had set his piece off with the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... said, "Of course. Proceed to your right and through Corridor K to Exit Four. Your rocket will be there. Identify yourself to Lieutenant Economou who will be at ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... had lost, but the French made it so hot for them that they abandoned it, and the contested trenches now lie in No Man's Land. All that night the whole Wood was illuminated, trench light after trench light rising over the dark branches. There would be a rocket like the trail of bronze-red powder sparks hanging for an instant in the sky, then a loud Plop! and the French light would spread out its parachute and sail slowly down the sky toward the river. The German lights (fusees eclairantes), cartridges of magnesium fired ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... have given me the hundred pounds I will fly like a rocket, captain,' said the young gentleman. 'I keep the appointment ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... point—so swift, punctual, beautiful, harmonious, more soundless than an exhalation, more overwhelming than a deluge—as the display of military force in Dublin on Sunday the 8th of October. Without alarm, without warning—as if at the throwing up of a rocket in the dead of night, or at the summons of a signal gun—the great capital, almost as populous as Naples or Vienna, and far more dangerous in its excitement, found itself under military possession by a little army—so perfect in its appointments as to make resistance hopeless, and by that very ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... were lost in the distance. But behind him a man's voice rose with a roar like a rocket and was met with a savage, ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... our fathers of old— Excellent herbs to ease their pain— Alexanders and Marigold, Eyebright, Orris, and Elecampane, Basil, Rocket, Valerian, Rue, (Almost singing themselves they run) Vervain, Dittany, Call-me-to-you— Cowslip, Melilot, Rose of the Sun. Anything green that grew out of the mould Was an excellent herb ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... that the train did not show any signs of slackening speed. It was, if anything, going faster. I snatched frantically at the cord and pulled about half-a-furlong into the carriage. We flashed past Ealing like a rocket, and I desperately drew in coils and coils of the communicator until I and Westaby Jones resembled the Laocoon. It was no good. Smoothly and irresistibly we glided into the terminus and drew up at the platform three minutes ahead ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... his patient off and was threading his way through a crowded thoroughfare, with eyes alert for everything, when a little bright-red racer passed him at a furious rate, driven by a woman with a reckless hand. She shot by the ambulance like a rocket, and at the next corner came face to face with a great motor-truck that was thundering around the corner at a tempestuous speed. From the first glance there was no chance for the racer. It crumpled like a thing of paper ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... puzzled the old couple, however, was a rocket frame, and when all the smoke had cleared away—for there is no fire without smoke—not a trace of all ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... isn't much different from running a plain, ordinary motel back on Highway 101 in California. Competition gets stiffer every year and you got to make your improvements. Take the Io for instance, that's our place. We can handle any type rocket up to and including the new Marvin 990s. Every cabin in the wheel's got TV and hot-and-cold running water plus guaranteed Terran g. One look at our refuel prices would give even a Martian a sense of humor. And meals? Listen, when a man's been spacing it for a few ...
— The Love of Frank Nineteen • David Carpenter Knight
... heap of snaggy rocks lying under Tynemouth), and in that case the south-side men have nothing to do with her. But sometimes the vessel shows all her lights and rushes upon the South Pier. Then the men wait for the last lurch and that wallowing crash that they know so well. The rocket is laid, and flies out over the rigging; the brigadesmen haul on their rope, and the basket comes rocking ashore along the line. It is not child's play to stand in the open and work the rocket apparatus; sometimes a whole row of men are struck by a single sea, and have to hang on wherever ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... a magazine and read in it a story mentioning a passenger-carrying rocket driven by atomic power furnished by a substance prepared from uranium, you probably would not be greatly surprised. After all, such an invention is today but a step or two ahead of cold fact. But you might be surprised to learn that ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... and grand "fish-horn" Eighteen hundred and eighty was born; This fine little fellow was ushered in With rocket's roar and fish-horn's din. ...
— Our Little Brown House, A Poem of West Point • Maria L. Stewart
... those generators in the rocket. They're new." He fumbled in his coat pocket for his pipe and tobacco. "I never thought I'd run another nuclear-bomb test, as long ...
— The Answer • Henry Beam Piper
... Space Survey. It might well be the most important business of the human race—on which its survival or destruction would depend. Other remodeled ships had gone out before the Niccola, and others would follow until the problem was solved. Meanwhile the Niccola's twenty-four rocket tubes and stepped-up drive and computer-type radar system equipped her for Plumie-hunting as well as any human ship could be. Still, if she'd been lured deep into the home system of the Plumies, the prospects were ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... gleamed in honor of Masaniello. The streets that led away towards the city's heart were decorated with arches of little lamps, with columns and chains of lights, and the pedestrians passing through them looked strangely black in this great frame of fire. From the Piazza before the Carmine the first rocket rose, and, exploding, showered its golden rain upon the picture of ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... we reached the Old Bell Inn, Holborn, where the coach stopped, and where my trunk and myself were to be handed over to the tender mercies of the coachman of the Rocket, a fast coach (I speak of the slow old days when railroads were unknown) which then ran to Helmstone, the watering-place where my future tutor, the Rev. Dr. Mildman, resided. My first impressions of London are scarcely worth recording, for ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... as soary (and flighty) as a rocket to-day, with the unutterable joy of getting that Old Man of the Sea off my back, where he has been roosting more than a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... went further. He gave a perfect Brock's benefit of diagrams—exactly like rocket trajectories they were; and the gist of it—so far as it had any gist—was that the blood of puppies and kittens and the sap of sunflowers and the juice of mushrooms in what he called the "growing phase" differed in the proportion of certain elements from their ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... writing,—the capital "S" made with a quick, upward, slanting line, and finished with a swell and curl upon itself like a portly figure "5" with the top-pennant left off; the round sweep after final letters,—the "t's" crossed backward from their roots, and the stroke stopped short like a little rocket just in poise of bursting. She knew it all by heart, though she had never received but one scrap of it before,—the card that had been tied to the ivy-plant, with Rodney ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... shalln't do that, my lord! for this same Jeppe is one of the heaviest sleepers in the whole district. Last year they tried setting off a rocket under his head, but when the rocket went off he never even ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... this perilous coast life-saving apparatus of the newest and best type is stored in the life-boat houses placed at intervals close to the seashore. On stormy nights the watching sentinels summon by telephone the fishermen of the tiny hamlets near. At sound of a rocket the distressful cry, "A wreck, a wreck!" runs over the telephone, and immediately brave hearts and hands are putting off to the rescue, while trembling women anxiously wait their husbands' return with warm restoratives ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... the spot, regardless of the flying bullets, with the intent on of tearing away the smouldering missile, but before they could reach the hut the dull red glow gave place to a vivid bluish flame. The mobile weapon was an incendiary rocket. ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... we went, like Johnny Gilpin. Hunting may be sport, says I, but I'm blest if its pleasure. This infernal horse was always fond of shying, and now he's going to shy me off; and, ecod! no sooner said than done. Over his head I go, like a rocket." ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... more general, the Hindus opened a desolating fire from a number of field-pieces and rocket-batteries. The left and right of the Muhammadan line were pressed back after destructive hand-to-hand fighting, many falling on both sides. At this juncture Rama Raya, thinking to encourage his men, descended from his litter and seated himself on a "rich throne set with jewels, ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... door open, Ross looked back, his eyes widening at what he saw. For it was plain now that he had just climbed out of a machine with the unmistakable outline of a snub-nosed rocket. The small flyer—or a jet, or whatever it was—had been fitted into a pocket in the side of the big structure as a ship into a berth, and it must have been set there to shoot from that enclosing chamber as a bullet is shot from ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... "just as if we were two doves flying through the air. Juhu! away into the heavens!" And "Juhu!" cried the lad gleefully, "Juhu!" And the sound shot up heavenward like a fiery rocket. "Juhu!" cried Amrei, rejoicing with him. And on they danced with ever-increasing joy. Finally ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... shadow of a rock, and escaped from her pursuer, the Iroquois. She had long been blockaded in the harbor of St. Pierre by the Northern man-of- war,—anxiously awaiting a chance to pounce upon her the instant she should leave French waters;—and various Yankee vessels in port were to send up rocket-signals should the Alabama attempt to escape under cover of darkness. But one night the privateer took a creole pilot on board, and steamed out southward, with all her lights masked, and her chimneys so arranged ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... thunder, of the British guns. Nothing grander in warfare could be conceived than the effect of the batteries when they opened, as the cannonade passed along from the Sutlej to Little Sobraon in one continued roar of guns and mortars; while ever and anon the rocket, like a spirit of fire, winged its rapid flight high above the batteries in its progress towards the Sikh intrenchment. The Sikh guns were not idle, and replied with shot and shell; but neither were well-directed, nor did much damage. At first, ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... off a little way with a piece of paper in his hand, and seemed to be examining the cases as he went along. Zanko had now reached his friends, Ring and Mylius, and the meeting was a very cordial one on both sides. This was too much for Hok; he was on to them like a rocket, followed by his friend Togo. Hai and Rap never let such an opportunity escape them, and they eagerly flung themselves into the thick of the fight. "Stop that, you blackguards!" It was Hanssen who threw this admonition ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... went on she began to shine like a star, shootin' on through the azure heavens for all the world like a sky-rocket. ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... rise is likely to prove a permanent one; but a rapid or sudden one merely temporary; or, as the Irishman said, "Up like a rocket, and down like ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... guns of the ramparts soon replied, and the roar was deafening; while the plunging of shot along the ramparts and roofs made our situation perilous in no slight degree. But, in the midst of this hurricane of fire, I saw a single rocket shoot up from the camp, and the whole range of the batteries ceased at the instant. The completeness of the cessation was scarcely less appalling than the roar. While every telescope was turned intently to the spot, where the columns and batteries ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... bartered his rum for a coach and a crib, at the First Lord's stern decree, And he learns the use of the rocket and squib (which are useful as lights at sea): And they train him in part of the nautical art, as much as a landsman can, For they teach him to paddle the gay canoe, and to row the ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... you unfeeling, insensible puppy, I despise you! When I was of your age, such a description would have made me fly like a rocket! The aunt indeed! Odds life! when I ran away with your mother, I would not have touched anything old or ugly to ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... McFeeters, all grim and severe, Who the long night before, with a feeling of fear, Had slumbered but fitfully, hearing the swish Of the sky-rocket over his roof, with a wish That the urchin who fired it were fast to the end Of the stick to forever and ever ascend; Or to hopelessly ask why the boy with the horn And its horrible havoc had ever been born! Or to wish, in his wakefulness, staring ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... had spurred interplanetary trade and settlement. Until it had been possible to store Sun-power for the driving of spaceships and for shipment to the outer planets, ships had been driven by rocket fuel, and the struggling colonies on the outer worlds had fought a bitter battle without the aid ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... this speed were a terrific strain on both men and machines—the acceleration seemed crushing them with the weight of four men, as Arcot followed the pirate in a wide loop to the right that ended in a straight climb, the rocket ship standing on its tail, the rocket blast roaring out behind a stream of ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... the dull round filled him with distaste. He had been so confident that his playing would, in some way or other, mark a turning-point in his musical career; and lo! it had gone off with as little fizz and effect as a damp rocket. Lighting a cigarette, he indulged in ironical reflections. But, none the less, he heard the minutes ticking past, and as he was not only a creature of habit, but had also a troublesome northern conscience, he rose before the cigarette had formed ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... it was called, didn't advertise what sort of thing it was developing—but everybody knew that Lyman Dane was an expert on reactive propulsion of rocket motors. He could tell you—and frequently would without being asked—exactly what mass ratio, nozzle diameter and propulsive velocity would be needed for the first trip to the Moon. He knew how many hours a round trip would take, both for landing there or merely circling ...
— This is Klon Calling • Walt Sheldon
... See, see! Heaven be praised; that noble fellow Brand is safe, and we may yet be saved!" As he spoke, a thin stream of light shot upwards from the dark ocean, and broke into a thousand beautiful coruscations above our heads. "A rocket! the schooner had some on board for signals," cried Burkett. "She is under weigh to look ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... hailed the light of the conflagration with joy. The "Siren" had gone into the offing when the "Intrepid" entered the harbor, and there awaited with intense anxiety the outcome of the adventure. After an hour's suspense, a rocket was seen to mount into the sky, and burst over Tripoli. It was the signal of success agreed upon. Boats were quickly lowered, and sent to the harbor's mouth to meet and cover the retreat of the returning party. Hardly had they left the side of the ship, when the red light in the sky told that ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Lay out on your oars, and long stroke!'' said the captain; and stretching to the whole length of our arms, bending back again so that our backs touched the thwarts, we sent her through the water like a rocket. A few minutes of such pulling opened the islands, one after another, in range of the point, and gave us a view of the Canal, where was a ship, under top-gallant-sails, standing in, with a light breeze, for the anchorage. Putting the boat's head in the direction of the ship, the captain told ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... turned his face to the sea, the boys looked off in that direction, and they were quick enough to see a rocket exploding in the air, scattering down a shower of tinted stars. This bright constellation faded away into the night, when suddenly up, up into the darkness, shot two vivid lines of fire, parting as they swept higher and higher, exploding in stars till the ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... the leap And cuts the wind and cleaves the deep. Down through the emerald vaults self-hurled That roof the sea-god's awful world. Another moment sees him rise And beat the salt spray from his eyes. He breasts the waves, he spurns their blows; Then, like a rocket, up he goes, Up, up to where the gusty wind With all its wrath is left behind; Still up he soars and high and high A speck of light that dots the sky. Then watch him as he slowly droops Where the great sea-birds wheel their troops. Three broad-winged gulls, himself their lord, He hitches ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... glanced down at the screen again. An orangish glow was suffusing the alien ship. A jet slipped in for a rocket shot. The glow pulsed, expanded, touched the jet, and the plane vanished into a rain of wreckage that sped towards ...
— Decision • Frank M. Robinson
... leader of a financial movement has got word to his following, wide-spread over the country, it has taken alarm, the rout has begun, and the field is strewn with corpses. A great financial excitement, like a rocket, should soar triumphantly into the air, leaving behind it a comet-like trail of glory, climaxing in a shower of gold; diverted from its course, it runs a mad, brief, tragic career along the earth, spreading ruin ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... 'What's the good in your talking to me?' old man Timbury was saying. 'Why afore you was born I've seen' . . . and we all started in to shout 'ships o' the line, frigates, and cavattes,' because we belong to mock him like that, when somebody called 'Hark, listen, wasn't that a rocket?' That fetched us all outside into the road where we stood listening. The wind was blowing harder than ever, and there was a parcel of sea rising. You could hear it against Shag Rock over the wind. Eddowes, he were a bit upset ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... certain respects, we must therefore speak not so much of matter or mind as of spiritualisation and materialisation, the latter resulting automatically from a simple interruption of the former. "Consciousness or superconsciousness is the rocket, the extinguished remains of which fall into ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... gayly any more; when the last rocket had climbed the sky, Jake Milrace rose and said in a ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... nine and dark as a miser's pocket, When up came Hercules Scott's brigade swift as a rocket, And charged,—and the flashes sprang in the dark like a lion's eyes; The night was full of fire—groans, and cheers, and cries; Then through the sound and the fury another sound broke in— The roar of a great old duck-gun shattered the rest of ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... saw,—or rather, what had been one such; for the bolt had torn the tree like an explosion from within, and the ground was strewed all around the broken stump with flakes of rough bark and strips and chips of shivered wood, into which the old tree had been rent by the bursting rocket from the thunder-cloud. ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... out all right," she said, in a brutal manner. "You'll come out like a sky rocket. You'd be as impossable to ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was space-burned and silver-blond of hair. He was broad and fair of feature and his body was tall and lean and perfect in his black, skin-tight uniform with the silver rocket-burst on the left breast. He stood at attention, lifted a gauntleted hand in salute and said, "Your excellency, Chancellor Bliss—Space-Captain Hon Yaelstrom of Syrtis City, Mars, bearing official rank of Inter-planetary legate ...
— It's All Yours • Sam Merwin |
