"Set on fire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 23rd. The Southampton brought a strange brig into the fleet and destroyed her...a.m. A fine little ship, called the Albion, of Bermuda, set on fire by the Glory. The Aquilon brought a strange ship into the fleet. A galliot, with Dutch colours inverted, passed through the fleet, having been set on fire by the Niger...A French man-of-war, captured and brought into the fleet by the ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... be concealed from the sight of the French. One of these, composed of archers, was to take post in the wood on the left hand of the French, the other was to move on through the wood, to come down in their rear, and to set on fire some barns and houses there, and so create a panic. He waited until noon, by which time he thought that both detachments would have reached the posts assigned to them, and then gave the orders for the advance. ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... profligate, impudent, and unfeeling men, and in which the men are too bad for any place but Pandaemonium or Norfolk Island. We are surrounded by foreheads of bronze, hearts like the nether millstone, and tongues set on fire of hell. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... officials were at the depot, to get away from the doomed city. Public documents, the archives of the Confederacy, were hastily gathered up, tumbled into boxes and barrels, and taken to the trains, or carried into the streets and set on fire. Coaches, carriages, wagons, carts, wheelbarrows, everything in the shape of a vehicle was brought into use. There was a jumble of boxes, chests, trunks, valises, carpet-bags,—a crowd of excited ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... convinced the Adelantado that nothing was to be gained by friendly overtures. When severity was required, he could be a stern soldier. He immediately ordered the village in which he had been quartered, and several others in the neighborhood, to be set on fire. He then sent further messengers to Mayobanex, warning him that, unless he delivered up the fugitive cacique, his whole dominions should be laid waste in like manner; and he would see nothing in every direction but the smoke ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... rich as you are would have taken their daughter to Washington for a season, and in the summer to Long Branch or Newport—somewhere, anywhere, away from the detestable waving cotton-fields. When you die I shall have it all set on fire." ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... the persons of the king and his ministers; entrenched himself in the royal residence and adjoining theatre; and gave orders, as there was no time to place in safety the war-fleet stationed in the principal harbour immediately in front of the theatre, that it should be set on fire and that Pharos, the island with the light-tower commanding the harbour, should be occupied by means of boats. Thus at least a restricted position for defence was secured, and the way was kept open to procure supplies and reinforcements. At the same time orders ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... no sooner advanced into the plains of Mesopotamia, than they discovered that every precaution had been used which could retard their progress, or defeat their design. The inhabitants, with their cattle, were secured in places of strength, the green forage throughout the country was set on fire, the fords of the rivers were fortified by sharp stakes; military engines were planted on the opposite banks, and a seasonable swell of the waters of the Euphrates deterred the Barbarians from attempting the ordinary passage of the bridge of Thapsacus. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... renderings of the doubtful words as 'armour' and 'armed man,' but the picture of the warrior striding into battle with his heavy boots is more graphic than the more generalised description in the Revised Version's text. In any case, the whole accoutrements of the oppressor are heaped into a pile and set on fire; and, as they blaze up, the freed slaves exult in their liberty. The blood-drenched cloaks have been stripped from the corpses and tossed on the heap, and, saturated as they are, they burn. So complete is the victory that even the weapons of the conquered are destroyed. Our conquering King has been ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... the Hand of Glory as in a candlestick, it rendered motionless all persons to whom it was presented; they could not stir a finger any more than if they were dead. Sometimes the dead man's hand is itself the candle, or rather bunch of candles, all its withered fingers being set on fire; but should any member of the household be awake, one of the fingers will not kindle. Such nefarious lights can only be extinguished with milk. Often it is prescribed that the thief's candle should be made of the finger of a new-born or, still better, unborn ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... last Frau Sophie stirred in the affair, Her eyes had pierced to his heart's desire, With fine diplomacy she coaxed Miss Clare To own her maiden heart was set on fire. On all the words and sighs there follow deeds: He comes, he woos her, and ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... advised, as the best, to return to the Square near our own House and there wait the event, which we did immediately; but by the Time we got there the City was in Flames in several distant Parts, being set on fire by some Villains, who confessed it before Execution. This completed the Destruction of the greatest Part of the City; for in the Terror all Persons were, no Attempt was made to stop it; and the Wind was very high, so that it was communicated from one Street to ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... was—a wide, dense pall of smoke, which there was little wind to carry off; through the haze the huge reeling shapes of the fighting vessels, looming indistinctly, vomiting flame like so many angry dragons, and several of them burning in addition, having been set on fire by shells; and above all the appalling concussion of the great guns, like the bursting of ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... the clover that was still warm from the heat of the day; and our arms were locked and our hair intertwined. My cheek cooled hers, which her tears had set on fire; and the sombre peace of the sky sank into us. We were both filled with the peculiar happiness that comes after a painful confession, a happiness whose source is a sense of security, a joy that seems yearning to cover us with its wings for one ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... the Norman barons, was defended by Robert de Candos, was finally ceded to Louis le Gros by Geoffry Plantagenet, was retaken by the English in consequence of the treachery of the Knights-Templars, was contested by Philippe-Augustus and Richard the Lionhearted, was set on fire by Edward III of England, who could not take the castle, was again taken by the English in 1419, restored later to Charles VIII by Richard de Marbury, was taken by the Duke of Calabria occupied by the League, inhabited by Henry ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... was, "None whatever." Never seeking true or high things, caring only for appearances, and, therefore, for inventions, he had left his imagination all undeveloped, and when it represented his own inner condition to him, had repressed it until it was nearly destroyed, and what remained of it was set on fire of hell. [Footnote: One of the best weekly papers in London, evidently as much in ignorance of the man as of the facts of the case, spoke of Dr. MacLeod as having been engaged in "white-washing the murderer ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... were given until eleven o'clock to do as they pleased. At once some old barrels were piled high at one end of the campus, smeared with tar, stuffed with wood, and set on fire, and the blaze, mounting to the sky, lit up the neighborhood to the lake on one side and ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... his rear-guard, who have protected the bridges all day, come over themselves at last. No sooner have they done so than the final bridge is set on fire. Those who are upon it burn or drown; those who are on the further side have lost their last chance, and perish either in attempting to wade the stream or at the hands ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... fired, and then, to make more sure of attracting the lifeboat men, a tar-barrel, fastened to the end of a spar, was thrust out ahead and set on fire. By the grand lurid flare of this giant torch the surrounding desolation was made more apparent, and at the fearful sight hearts which had hitherto held up began ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... towne of Nagay Tartars, called the Yourt, which is within 3. quarters of a mile of the castle of Astracan, by casualty was set on fire about 10. of the clock at night, and continued burning til midnight, whereby one halfe of it was burnt, and much cattell destroyed. The Nagayes that inhabite that towne, are the Emperour of Russia his vassals: It is supposed there are of them inhabiting that place of men, women, and children, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... peace in an insecure and insincere state of society. But that old blackened wooden sign is at least and after all the sign of something; the sign of the time when one solitary Hohenzollern did not only set fire to fields and cities, but did truly set on fire the minds of men, even though ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... Quintilian the proconsul arrived at Smyrna, he caused Pionius to be hung on the rack, and his body to be torn with iron hooks, and afterwards condemned him to be burned alive; he was accordingly nailed to a trunk or post, and a pile heaped round him and set on fire. Metrodorus, a Marcionite priest, underwent the same punishment with him. His acts were written by eye-witnesses, quoted by Eusebius, l. 4, c. 15, and are extant genuine in Ruinart, p. 12. See Tillemont t. 3, p. 397; Bollandus, Feb. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the country towards the back of the harbour was perceived to have been set on fire by them; as the wind was fresh the flames spread about in all directions; and in the evening our people being allowed to range about for amusement, increased the conflagration by setting fire to the surrounding ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... Tcikè-cac-nátlehi, Young Woman Who Becomes a Bear; Çabasçin, the Otter; ¢i¢ílko[n], he or she set on fire in many places. 2, 4. Dsil, mountains; dsilyi', in the mountains; ço', water, waters; ço'yi', in the waters; ¢olkolko[n], he set on fire as he went along; beko[n]nìçe, its fires in a line, its string ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... like a blow from a pile-driver,—and I would not like to have it repeated." The hole which the lightning made in the side of the house, could scarcely be distinguished from that of a large rifle bullet. A few days afterwards I saw a small house set on fire by the lightning, and it was consumed in a very few minutes, so one may infer how narrowly the Whittier family escaped a ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... one might set on fire Ida's woods With a small torch, so what one tells one person Is soon the ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... of this Saturday, March 13, the house of a Mr. Stamper, a solicitor of Dunedin, had been broken into, and some articles of value, among them a pair of opera glasses, stolen. The house had been set on fire, and burned to the ground. On the morning of the following day, Sunday, the 14th, Dunedin was horrified by the discovery of a far more terrible crime, tigerish certainly in its apparent ferocity. In a house in Cumberland Street, a young married couple and their ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... night. Just wait, wait! I will strike a light for you, before which all your night-like veils shall be torn in shreds; I will light up the night of your secret with a torch which will be large enough to set on fire the fagot piles about the stake to which you and your ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... fallen trees were left some months on the ground to dry in the summer sun, while the farmer turned to other work on his farm, or, if he were starting in life, hired out for the summer. In the autumn the tops were set on fire, and the lighter limbs usually burned out, leaving the great charred tree-trunks. Then came what was known as a piling-bee, a perfect riot of hard work, cinders, and dirt. Usually the half-burned ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... writer. He denounced the corruptions he had noted in the existing ordinances of the church with no uncertain note. He exposed the abuses of pardons, pilgrimages, and indulgences in language so scathing that it set on fire the hearts of his readers. It seemed to show beyond dispute that in the prevailing corruption, which had gradually sapped so much of the true life and light from the Church Catholic, money was the ruling power. ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... amounting to one, or, according to some accounts, six thousand, took refuge in a neighboring grotto, with their wives and children, comprehending many of the principal families of the place. A French officer, detecting their retreat, caused a heap of faggots to be piled up at the mouth of the cavern and set on fire. Out of the whole number of fugitives only one escaped with life; and the blackened and convulsed appearance of the bodies showed too plainly the cruel agonies of suffocation. (Memoires de Bayard, chap. 40.—Bembo, Istoria Viniziana, tom. ii. lib. 10.) Bayard executed two ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... that the heat of the sun is necessary to the earth, in order to the production of trees and fruits, but that the heat of fire burns and kills them. When he said, too, that the sun was only a stone set on fire, he did not consider that a stone glitters not in the fire, and cannot last long in it without consuming, whereas the sun lasts always, and is ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... old as himself—and with the aid of the two women loaded the sled with dry wood and started with it to the cliff, while the mother and daughter followed behind as best they might, struggling to keep alive without being set on fire by the coals in the iron pot which they carried between them. It was a weary half mile, wind, spray and rain all contending against the feeble folk who had come out to help back to land and home the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... force towards the Northern Central Railroad from Harrisburg, Pa., to Baltimore. This Cavalry expedition overran Maryland, 25 miles of the Northern Central Railroad was destroyed, and on Monday the 11th (July), a force appeared on the Baltimore, Wilmington & Phila. Road and captured and set on fire the trains at Magnolia station, seventeen miles south of Havre ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... friends standing by, you would have been hauled out immediately, none the worse except for a few singes and a burn or two. This was not a burning fiery furnace, Mr. Faulkner, but merely a bit of a bonfire from a few sticks that had been set on fire in order to throw a little ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... which ballooning had been taken up, so far as France was concerned. In Italy, however, Count Zambeccari took up hot-air ballooning, using a spirit lamp to give him buoyancy, and on the first occasion when the balloon car was set on fire Zambeccari let down his passenger by means of the anchor rope, and managed to extinguish the fire while in the air. This reduced the buoyancy of the balloon to such an extent that it fell into the Adriatic and was totally ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... wreaked upon the very beasts. They cut out the tongues of the horses and cattle, and left them to wander in the midst of those fields, lately so luxuriant, but now in desolation, to undergo the torments of a lingering death. Capt. Bedlock was stripped naked, and stuck full of pine splinters and set on fire. Captains Ransom and Durgee were thrown alive into the fire. One of the tories, whose mother had married a second husband, butchered her with his own hand, and then massacred his father-in-law, his own ...
— Reminiscences of the Military Life and Sufferings of Col. Timothy Bigelow, Commander of the Fifteenth Regiment of the Massachusetts Line in the Continental Army, during the War of the Revolution • Charles Hersey
... but the inhabitants refusing to buy them, we loaded some ourselves with hides, tallow, and cocoa, and the rest, which were not worth bringing home, were towed out to the mouth of the harbour and set on fire. The Spaniards had previously blown up a very fine frigate to prevent it falling into our hands. Part of our army was then embarked for the East Indies and the Cape of Good Hope, whilst we others went on an expedition ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... process of fitting out. The harbour works were swept by the huge projectiles. The long curved breakwater suffered heavily. Huge gaps appeared in the solid masonry. Everything lying afloat in the enclosed water was either set on fire or sunk. In an hour the havoc wrought at Zeebrugge had wiped out the work ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... was nothing to be done. It was another case of circumstantial evidence, and in the absence of backing of any kind we did the only thing we could; packed up and went. It was not a time for trifling. The slaughter of a number of militiamen in a Pennsylvania round-house that was set on fire by the strikers was fresh in the public mind. But it was the only time I have been suspected of sympathy with violence in the settlement of labor disputes. The trouble with that plan is that it does not settle anything, but rakes up fresh injuries to rankle indefinitely and widen the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... that there would be just time to finish and save it; when the gas was turned out the instant I had done, the whole thing was at its very last and utmost extremity. Whom it would have tumbled on, or what might have been set on fire, it is ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... could tell the world something else or more than had been sanctioned by the eminent Mordax—and what was worse, had sometimes really done so. Does this nullify the genuineness of motive which made him tender to his suffering friend? Not at all. It only proves that his arrogant egoism, set on fire, sends up smoke and flame where just before there had been the dews of fellowship and pity. He is angry and equips himself accordingly—with a penknife to give the offender a comprachico countenance, a mirror to show him the effect, and a pair of nailed boots to give him his dismissal. All ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... city, and the whole population swarmed to the walls. The besiegers were encountered not only with sword and musket, but with every implement which the burghers' hands could find. Heavy stones, boiling oil, live coals, were hurled upon the heads of the soldiers; hoops, smeared with pitch and set on fire, were dexterously thrown upon their necks. Even Spanish courage and Spanish ferocity were obliged to shrink before the steady determination of a whole population animated by a single spirit. Romero lost an eye in the conflict, many officers were killed and ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... ignorant persons, biased by the saving of a few cents per gallon, purchase the most dangerous oils in the market. It is not possible to make gasoline, naphtha, or benzine safe by any addition that can be made to it. Nor is any oil safe that can be set on fire at the ordinary temperature of the air. Nothing but the most stringent laws, making it a State prison offense to mix naphtha and illuminating oil, or to sell any product of petroleum as an illuminating oil or fluid to be used in lamps, or to be burned, except in air gas machines, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... her that his brother John had come down the preceding night with the news of Beasley's descent upon the ranch. Not a shot had been fired, and the only damage done was that of the burning of a hay-filled barn. This had been set on fire to attract Helen's men to one spot, where Beasley had ridden down upon them with three times their number. He had boldly ordered them off the land, unless they wanted to acknowledge him boss and remain there ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... of its being a ship's light, or of its being near at hand. It was, indeed, upon a very high mountain, and continued burning for several days afterwards. It was not a volcano, but, rather, as I suppose, stubble or heath set on fire for some ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... for combination offences, were assaulted by a furious mob of two thousand persons on the streets of Airdrie, in the centre of the mining district of the county, the house in which they had taken refuge set on fire, and the prisoners by main force rescued from the hands of the law.[5] These facts were known to the whole county, and the terror which, in consequence, pervaded the agricultural inhabitants of the mining districts was so ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... laborious progress, above all in paying heed to the order constantly passing back to 'keep low,' but they were still able to note with a sort of professional interest the damage done to the countryside. A 'small-holding' cottage between the trenches had been shelled and set on fire, and was gutted to the four bare, blackened walls. The ground about it still showed in the little squares and oblongs that had divided the different cultivations, but the difference now was merely of various weeds and rank growths, and the ground was ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... of a burning-glass, and know how easily dry grass or tinder, or a piece of paper, may be set on fire by a good glass when the sun is bright; but they would find it very difficult to place a glass over a little cannon so that it would infallibly be discharged at any set hour. And even if they could do it, they would not be sure of their cannon-clock being exactly right, ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... destruction of the Caroline (an American vessel engaged in carrying arms to the Canadian rebels), in 1837, and in the death of Mr Durfee, an American. The vessel had been boarded by Canadian loyalists when lying in American waters, set on fire and sent over Niagara Falls, and in the affray Durfee was killed. M'Leod was apprehended on American territory, and hence arose the friction between the two countries. M'Leod was acquitted 12th ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... the citadel were burning, set on fire by order of Borgia. The church alone was spared, and the dead men were as thick as stones on the walls, and in the streets, and in the nave of the church, and on the streets, and in the houses. This river ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... side raised the paean and the others a wail of lamentation. The soldiers as if they too had shared defeat at once retired to Messana. Caesar took up such of the vanquished as were cast on shore and went into the sea itself to set on fire all the vessels that ran aground in shoal water; thus there was no safety for such as continued to sail, for they would be disabled by Agrippa, nor for such as tried to land anywhere, for they were destroyed by Caesar, except for a few that made good their escape to Messana. In this hard position ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... raisins and almonds being put into a bowl of brandy, and the candles extinguished, the spirit is set on fire, and the company scramble for ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... fighting quickened every pulse in the fort. By next dawn the cannon began to speak. D'Aulnay had succeeded in planting batteries on a height eastward, and his guns had immediate effect. The barracks were set on fire and put out several times during the day. All the inmates gathered in the stone hall, and at its fireplace the cook prepared and distributed rations. Great balls plowed up the esplanade, and the oven was shattered into a storm of stone and mortar, its adjoining mill being ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... is the year in which the temple of Athena, in Phocaea, was struck by lightning and set on fire. (1) With the cessation of winter, in early spring, the Athenians set sail with the whole of their force to Proconnesus, and thence advanced upon Chalcedon and Byzantium, encamping near the former town. The men of Chalcedon, aware of their approach, ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... comfortable nestling-place, whence she had long watched and closed the entrance to the James River. Her commander, Tatnall, would have taken her up that stream, but the pilots declared it not possible to float her over the shoals. She was therefore abandoned and set on fire; and early in the morning of May 11 she blew up, leaving the southern water-way to Richmond open to the Union fleet.[13] It was a point of immense possible advantage. Later McClellan intimated that, if he had been left free to act upon his own judgment, he would probably have availed himself ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... was a mad thing he was doing, rushing across space through the dark at the beck of a woman's smile, a woman who was another man's wife, but a woman who had set on fire a whole circle of men of which he was a part. He was riding against all caution to win a bet, riding against time to get there before two other men who were riding as hard from other directions to win the woman who belonged to an absent husband, win ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... captured Puerto Plata, but the city was retaken by Spanish troops from Cuba. Reinforcements were sent to the besieged garrison of Santiago, and in the fight which the Dominicans made to prevent the joining of the Spanish forces, the city of Santiago was set on fire and reduced to ashes. The Spaniards determined to evacuate the place, and marched down to the coast, being constantly harassed by Dominican guerillas, so that they lost over a thousand men before reaching Puerto ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... return home unmolested if victorious, Kriemhild urges her husband to refuse unless Hagen is delivered up to their tender mercies. Deeming it dishonorable to forsake a companion, the Burgundians reject these terms, whereupon Kriemhild, whose fury has reached a frantic point, orders the hall set on fire. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... the Indians passed along it. Notwithstanding the dryness of the atmosphere, the mud on the river-edge had not yet become "skinned," as the trappers expressed it. The Indians had forded the stream about the time the prairie was set on fire. ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... What Belarab really wanted now was to see all the white people clear out of the lagoon as soon as possible. Presently he ordered the gate to be thrown open and his armed men poured out to take possession of the Settlement. Later Tengga's houses were set on fire and Belarab, mounting a fiery pony, issued forth to make a triumphal progress surrounded by a great crowd ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... "ribauds;" and no attempt was made by the leaders to stay the carnage. In the cathedral church of S. Madeleine some seven thousand who had taken refuge there were butchered without regard to the sanctity of the spot. The city was then set on fire and the cathedral perished in ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... mode of attack was most rapid; many of the houses caught fire; a powder-wagon blew up. The besieged, being thus diverted from their means of defence, thought only of stopping the progress of the fire. Night came on; under cover of the darkness the freebooters attempted also to set on fire the palisades, which were made of a kind of wood that was easily kindled. In this attempt likewise they were crowned with success. The soil, which the palisades supported, fell down for want of support, and filled up the ditch. The Spaniards ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... any relentings on such score you are set on fire anew. The stories of her accomplishments, and of her grace of conversation, absolutely drive you mad. You watch your occasion for meeting her upon the street. You wonder if she has any conception of your capacity for mental labor, and if she has any adequate ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... away the Soldier to an Iron Wheel, that was red hot, and of a prodigious bigness. The Spokes and Stakes of this Wheel were tarnished all round with Iron Crooks set on Fire, and on them hung Men fixed. One half of the Wheel stood above, and the other under ground: the horrid sulphurous Flame which issued from the Earth and surrounded this Wheel, did exceedingly torment the Men that hung on it. The same (say the Devils ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... for, and then taken across to the clove plantations in Pemba, or kept as domestic slaves in Zanzibar, were brought from the interior by the Arabs, the great slave-dealers of East Africa. Sometimes a native village had been attacked and set on fire, some of the inhabitants shot down among their blazing huts, and the rest carried off. Sometimes the Arabs would settle for some time in a neighbourhood for elephant-hunting, and, when they had secured ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... sepulchre was built in rectangular form, of crude bricks, and filled with numerous chambers, in the innermost and largest of which the corpse of the king was laid. Then wood was heaped about the walls and the whole set on fire, so that the royal body and the objects that were buried with it were half consumed by the heat. The mode of burial was peculiar to Babylonia. Here, in an alluvial plain, where stone was not procurable, and where the cemeteries of the ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... in breaking hemp. He soon had the knack of that: his muscles were toughened already. He learned what it was sometimes to eat his dinner in the fields, warming it, maybe, on the coals of a stump set on fire near his brake; to bale his hemp at nightfall and follow the slide or wagon to the barn; there to wait with the negroes till it was weighed on the steelyards; and at last, with muscles stiff and sore, throat husky with dust, to stride away rapidly over the ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... out to hunt, and the first patch of brush they came to, the Sun set on fire with his hunting leggings. A lot of white-tail deer ran out, and they ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... in various places: some were intended to reach to the foundations of the walls, which were to be propped up with wood, ready to be set on fire; others were to pass under the walls, and remain ready to be broken open so as to give entrance to the besiegers. At these mines the army worked day and night, and during these secret preparations the ordnance kept ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... of the city everything was in ruins. Not a business house was left standing. Theatres crumbled into smouldering heaps. Factories and commission houses sank to red ruin before the devouring flames. The scene was like that of ancient Babylon in its fall, or old Rome when set on fire by Nero's command, as tradition tells. In modern times there has been nothing to equal it except the conflagration at Chicago, when the flames swept to ruin that queen city of ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... Ha Maiesty: how high thy glory towres, When the rich blood of kings is set on fire: Oh now doth death line his dead chaps with steele, The swords of souldiers are his teeth, his phangs, And now he feasts, mousing the flesh of men In vndetermin'd differences of kings. Why stand these royall fronts amazed ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... of the house and begged for alms. He found my daughter on the terrace in a lucky moment for himself. He had all sorts of wonderful stories of Tangier and the great mole which was then a building. Resilda was set on fire that day, and though the King and the Parliament might shut their eyes to the sore straits of that town and the gallantry of its defenders, no one was allowed to forget them in the Quarry House. To tell the truth I sometimes envied the obliviousness of Parliament," ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... inasmuch as their practice is first to make a hole in the wood with the tooth of the acouti, and then to insert in this an instrument resembling a wimble, by the rapid revolution of which the wood is set on fire. ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... reputation, welfare, and good of others. So much reason is there for what St. James says of the tongue, It is a fire, a world of iniquity, it defileth the whole body, setteth on fire the course of nature, and is itself set on fire of hell. {8} This is the faculty or disposition which we are required to keep a guard upon: these are the vices and follies it runs into when ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... trifle (for what can be lesse then sweeping of a lttle dust awry?) can minister matter to set on fire a wrathfull indignation, and inflame it vnto desired reuenge, the Diuell being willing to apprehend and take hold vpon such an occasion, that so he might do some pleasing office to his bond-slaue, whom she adored in submisse manner, vpon her knees, with strange gestures, ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts
... stores and churches were closed against teacher and pupils; public conveyances were denied them; physicians would not attend them; Miss Crandall's own friends dared not visit her; the house was assailed with rotten eggs and stones and finally set on fire. Yet the cause was righteous and the opposition proved vain and fruitless. Public ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... wakes them up, brings out their latent powers, keeps up incessant action, impels to tasks requiring strength, and then carries them to completion. Many are born to be giants, yet, from lack of enthusiasm, few grow above common men. They need to be set on fire by some eager impulse, inspired by some grand resolve, and they would then quickly rise head and ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... Ekbatana he marvelled much at an opening in the earth, out of which poured fire, as if from a well. Close by, the naphtha which was poured out formed a large lake. This substance is like bitumen, and is so easy to set on fire, that without touching it with any flame, it will catch light from the rays which are sent forth from a fire, burning the air which is between both. The natives, in order to show Alexander the qualities of ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... These boats were set on fire and floated against the Roman vessels, which also were soon on fire. The flames quickly spread, and in a very short time a great part of the Roman fleet was destroyed. Basilicus fled with as many ships as he could save, ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... high sums, as preservatives against disease. When the people came to bathe in the Ganges in the month of May, they erected piles of cows' dung, on which were placed baskets of rice, roots, and every description of vegetables. These were surrounded with wood besmeared with butter, and set on fire. From the appearance of the smoke and flame, those present pretended to discover whether the harvest was to be abundant or otherwise. At seed-time the priests took branches from trees, and walked in ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... to make men realise the state of things in that distant land. But he had seen horrors beyond description. He knew the ruthless cruelty of the slave-raiders, and in his ears rang, still, the cries of agony when a village was set on fire and attacked by the Arabs. Not once, nor twice, but many times he had left some tiny kraal nestling sweetly among its fields of maize, an odd, savage counterpart to the country hamlet described in prim, melodious numbers by the gentle Goldsmith: the little naked ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... become widely scattered; and that, if the enemy should see them thus scattered, they would return and attack them when unable to reunite. That he might avoid this danger he ordered the village to be set on fire, and the soldiers to collect upon the promontory, which order was obeyed. In this manner, as related, it befell the master-of-camp, and the victory was obtained over those of Manilla. The artillery which they possessed, and which I have ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... cast that glory in a dull eclipse, Oh! sweet Odora! I am mad with love Of thy sweet eyes. Would they might rain their rays Upon me, as yon orb, rains rays on earth. Oh, sweetest eyes of love! they set on fire My tinder heart. Odora! come to me! Upon this mountain's green and glittering brow, Where now I stand and gaze down earth and main, O'er which that God's all gladdening glory soars. Come, sweet Odora! thine eyes outshine that God. Thy speech's music so transcends these ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... been commanded to spare Denmark when she no longer resists. The line of defence which covered her shores has struck to the British flag; but if the firing is continued on the part of Denmark, he must set on fire all the prizes that he has taken, without having the power of saving the men who have so nobly defended them. The brave Danes are the brothers, and should never be the enemies, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... work at the task of looting it. Everything of value that could be carried was taken out, and the larger statues and vases were broken to pieces. Then the woodwork was cut away and piled up for firewood, and finally the whole pile set on fire. In all this work the leader was a sergeant of infantry who seemed to have a natural talent for it. Sam had noticed him before at the burning of the other temples, but now he showed himself more conspicuously ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... hasty letter to the Lord Admiral, giving his opinion as to the best way to arrange the order of battle, and requesting him to supply a couple of great fly-boats to attack each of the Spanish galleons, so that the latter might be captured before they were set on fire. ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... as treasurable for what it conveys to us of the sort of young man Foch found among his officers and soldiers (there were many such!) as for what it tells us of the impression Foch created even in those days before men's souls were set on fire with fervor for France. ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... and books, which had belonged to the municipality, every document which could be found in the Town-hall, were brought into the square, and piled around the roots of the tree; and then the whole was set on fire—and tree, papers, and cap ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... from the fortifications, and the sight of boats loaded with troops leaving the opposite shore, were impressive warnings that the invaders could not safely tarry. General Grant directed the camp to be set on fire, and the command to be assembled and to return. General Polk became convinced that Columbus was not in danger of present attack, and determined to reinforce Pillow promptly and effectively. The Eleventh Louisiana and Fifteenth Tennessee arrived first, and attack was made upon both flanks ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... smash the window of some store, light both balls, and put them in. I want the explosion of one ball to scare anyone who may be sleeping there half out of their senses, and make them rush out of the house; which will leave plenty of time for the other ball to set on fire anything that it may light upon. Twenty fires, starting at once at different spots, will create a fearful scare. Many of the guards outside the prison—all of whom are drawn from the slums—will have come from ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... look," whispered the excited child, turning with that sort of wild earnestness peculiar to persons of vivid imaginations, when once set on fire with some beautiful thing that God has created. "Look out, Isabel, I do believe that the sky you see ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... "I consider, Sir," said he, "the message you bring a degrading one for a British officer to send and by no means reputable for a British officer to carry. I would suffer my body to be filled with splinters and set on fire, and such outrages are not uncommon in your army, before I would deliver this garrison to your mercy. After you get out of it, never expect to enter it again unless ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... the nourishment of her milk. After these preparations, Dido, with garments tucked up, and with one foot bare, approached the altars, breaking over them a consecrated cake, and embracing them successively in her arms. The pyre was then to be set on fire; and, as the different objects placed upon it were gradually consumed, the charm became complete, and the ends proposed to the ceremony were expected to follow. Dido assures her sister, that she well knew the unlawfulness of her ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... when the ship could at any time be steered over its squares, or even over the courtyards of dwelling-houses, and brought to earth for the landing of its crew?... Iron weights could be hurled to wreck ships at sea, or they could be set on fire by fireballs and bombs; nor ships alone, but houses, fortresses, and cities could be thus destroyed, with the certainty that the airship could come to no harm as the missiles could be hurled from a ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... prince was peculiar. His engaging manners had won over many of the chiefs; his presence had set on fire that old Stuart madness which a touch can often kindle in wild Highland hearts; his determination to be a Scotchman among Scotchmen, a determination which set him the desperate task of trying to master the Gaelic speech, insured his hold upon the affections of ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... electricity passes in an arc has enough resistance to keep the amperage (current) low; so the arc may not blow out the fuse at all. But if it were not for fuses, there would be about as much danger of houses being set on fire by short circuits as by arcs. Perhaps there would be more danger, because short circuits are ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... other's eyes. The color fled from her face, the blood poured into his—wave upon wave, until he was like a man who has been set on fire by the furious heat of long years of equatorial sun. He muttered, wheeled about and strode away—in resolute and relentless flight. She dropped down where he had been sitting and hid her ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... his powder bag by his side, when in some manner it was set on fire, and the powder, exploding, tore the flesh from his body and thighs for the space of nine or ten inches square, even ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... the daily sacrifice of the Temple, and all the services and songs and benedictions in its courts, continued as usual, and there was a greater crowd than ever within its walls. As the Boy went thither with his parents they came to a place where a little house was beginning to burn, set on fire by an overturned lamp. The poor people stood by, wringing their ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... his largesses to the people, nor his offerings to the gods, did away the infamous imputation under which Nero lay, of having ordered the city to be set on fire. To put an end, therefore, to this report, he laid the guilt, and inflicted the most cruel punishments, upon a set of people, who were holden in abhorrence for their crimes, and called by the vulgar, Christians. The founder of that name was Christ, who suffered death in ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... that longing heaviness doth come, Whence oft great sickness grows of heart and home; Sick are they all for lack of their desire; And thus in May their hearts are set on fire, So that they burn forth in ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... to behave with greater patience," said the hermit, interrupting him. "Know that under the ruins of that house which Providence hath set on fire the master hath found an immense treasure. Know that this young, man, whose life Providence hath shortened, would have assassinated his aunt in the space of a year, and thee in ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... him. On the 9th of June Philip and Richard halted fifteen miles off Le Mans, on the 11th of June they encamped under its walls. The next day they broke through the handful of troops who desperately held the bridge. A wealthy suburb which could no longer be defended was set on fire, so that it should not give shelter to the enemy, the wind swept the flames into the city, and Henry saw himself shut in between the burning town and the advancing Frenchmen. Then for the first time in his life ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... some of their companies took possession of the bridges, while the others hunted the stores. About sixty barrels of flour were broken open, a large quantity of cannon-balls thrown into the wells, the liberty-pole cut down, and the court-house set on fire. But the greater part of the stores were saved. In the meantime, the minute-men had come in from Acton, Carlisle, Weston, Littleton, and all around, and our force swelled to about four hundred men. I tell you, when the men saw the houses in Concord burning, ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... fear of being eaten alive. No one dared to move; only after five minutes it occurred to one of the carriers to light a match. I then remembered the fear which feline animals exhibit at the presence of fire, and ordered my men to gather two or three handfuls of brush, which I set on fire. We then saw, about ten steps from us, one of our carriers stretched out on the ground, with his limbs frightfully lacerated by the claws of a huge panther. The beast still lay upon him defiantly, holding a piece of flesh in its mouth. At its side, ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... move from the spot where it was lying. All the neighbouring kings had offered rich rewards to anyone who should be able to destroy the monster, either by force or enchantment, and many had tried their luck, but all had miserably failed. Once a great forest in which the Dragon lay had been set on fire; the forest was burnt down, but the fire did not do the monster the least harm. However, there was a tradition amongst the wise men of the country that the Dragon might be overcome by one who possessed King Solomon's signet-ring, upon which a secret ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... as you can well do, and tell them that now presently they come out and charge their enemies as rudely as they can, and having said so, come down, taking a lighted torch with you, wherewith you shall set on fire all the tents and pavilions in the camp; then cry as loud as you are able with your great voice, and then come away from thence. Yea but, said Carpalin, were it not good to cloy all their ordnance? No, no, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... every point of the landscape; who can see the bodies of "pacificos" brought into the cities, and who can sit on a porch of an American planter's house and hear him tell in a whisper how his sugar cane was set on fire by the same Spanish soldiers who surround the house, and who are supposed to guard his property, but who, in reality, are there to keep a ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... of these things, I caused Friday to gather those horrid remains, and lay them together upon a heap, which I ordered to be set on fire, and burnt them to ashes: My man, however, still retained the nature of a cannibal, having a hankering stomach after some of the flesh; but such an extreme abhorrence did I express at the least appearance of it, that he durst not but conceal it; for I made him very sensible, that if ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... acclamations, and the day closed with festivity. In the night the armed men who were enclosed in the body of the horse, being let out by the traitor Sinon, opened the gates of the city to their friends, who had returned under cover of the night. The city was set on fire; the people, overcome with feasting and sleep, put to the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... day there was hardly an instant of time that there was a cessation of the whizzing of balls, which were sometimes coming half a dozen at once. There was not a portion of the work which was not taken in reverse from mortars. * * * During Friday, the officers' barracks were three times set on fire by the shells and three times put out under the most galling and ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... of Axel Sir Philip called us near, and may I never live to forget his words. They were enow to set on fire the courage of all true soldiers. He bade us remember it was God's battle we were fighting, for Queen and country and for our Faith. He bade us remember, too, we were waging war against the tyranny of Spain, and exhorted us to care nought for danger or death in ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... Artemis at Ephesus (cf page 140) was set on fire and reduced to ruins by an incendiary in 356 B.C., on the very night, it is said, in which Alexander the Great was born. The Ephesians rebuilt the temple on a much more magnificent scale, making of it the most extensive and sumptuous columnar ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... the first, he said, 'If you are a god, run away, or you shall be burned in the fire which is ready for you.' The idol made no attempt to escape. In the same manner he addressed the next, and the next, till he came to the last. As none of them ran, he directed that their temples should be set on fire. The order was at once obeyed, and some eighteen or more with their idols were consumed. George and all his people capable of explaining the truths of Christianity, were employed in preaching and speaking night and day during their stay, so eager were the people to be instructed. ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... Dr. Newman, the tongue "which is set on fire of hell," does not separate us from God, but an error of opinion does. Pride, "which comes before a fall," and sensuality, which makes of a man a beast, do not come between the soul and God so much as an honest ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... the cars, the railroad officials state, the two Pullman cars attached to the day express were set on fire and entirely consumed. A car of lime was standing near the train. When the water reached the lime it set fire to the car and the flames reaching the ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... "When the town was set on fire, both armies united, and retreated together to the northward in a body of not less than 40,000 warriors. As soon as the Mantatees retreated, the Bechuanas commenced the work of slaughter. Women and children were butchered ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... vision, from which all flesh is nourished. And he considers the manifested side of the Fire to be the trunk, branches, leaves, and the bark surrounding it on the outside. All these parts of the great Tree, he says, are set on fire from the all-devouring flame of the Fire and destroyed. But the fruit of the Tree, if its imaging has been perfected and it takes the shape of itself, is placed in the storehouse, and not cast into the Fire. For the fruit, he says, is produced to be placed in the storehouse, but the husk ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... "greatly affrighted," and fell into violent fits. When they came to, they declared that the "black man," Mrs. Hawkes, and the negro, stood by the puppets of rags, and pinched them. Whereupon they fell into fits again. "A bit of one of the rags being set on fire," they all shrieked that they were burned, and "cried out dreadfully." Some pieces being dipped in water, they went into the convulsions and struggles of drowning persons; and one of them rushed out of the room, and raced ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... speaking, rarely to be met with: and this may be accounted for by the recorded fact, that in the repeated incursions of the Danes in this island, during the ninth and tenth centuries, almost all the Anglo-Saxon monasteries and churches were set on fire and destroyed. ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... of a chance to get a gold mine, and when the wind began to fall we fired up and started down the lake. As deep night came on I made my bed on the roof again and went to sleep with the flying sparks lining the sky overhead. I was in some danger of being set on fire, but I preferred sleeping there to sleeping on the floor inside the boat, where the reek ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland |
