"Spark" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... civilized world. A superior and commanding human intellect, a truly great man, when Heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift, is not a temporary flame, burning bright for a while, and then expiring, giving place to returning darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant light, with power to enkindle the common mass of human mind; so that when it glimmers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no night follows, but it leaves the ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... fragment whatever that floats in my memory concerning the great subject of this work to be lost. Though a small particular may appear trifling to some, it will be relished by others; while every little spark adds something to the general blaze: and to please the true, candid, warm admirers of Johnson, and in any degree increase the splendour of his reputation, I bid defiance to the shafts of ridicule, or even of malignity. Showers of them have been discharged ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... great warmth, for he had brought a little spark of hope to a heart that before had lain ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... silent again. Then a bustling little man with a snuffling nose and very cold ears pushed in the door. He walked over quickly to the fire, rubbing his hands as if he intended to produce a spark from them. ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... by evaporation and cooled down, about five-sixths of the chlorate of potash crystallizes out. It is purified by redissolving and crystallization, and is sold either in the state of crystals or finely ground. During these operations care must be taken lest a spark should produce the inflammation of the chlorate on contact with any organic substance. Large quantities of potassium chlorate exposed to strong heat in contact with the wood of casks or the timber of a roof ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... gas contained in the reservoir is forced, with a moderate degree of quickness, by the pressure of one or two inches of water. The fourth tube contains a metallic wire GL, having a knob at its extremity L, intended for giving an electrical spark from L to d', on purpose to set fire to the hydrogen gas: This wire is moveable in the tube, that we may be able to separate the knob L from the extremity d' of the tube D d'. The three tubes d D d', gg, and H h, ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... horses were all out at work upon the farm, except Old Prancer, a superannuated old horse, who was never used except for Mrs. Wharton or the girls to drive; for, whatever claims "Prancer" may once have had to his name, it had been a misnomer for some years past, and no one suspected him of having a spark of spirit. ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... relatives, the assigned cause of deafness may not be the only cause involved, or indeed the true cause at all. It may be the cause simply in the same sense that the pulling of a trigger is the cause of the expulsion of a bullet from a rifle, or a spark the cause of the explosion of a gunpowder magazine; ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... at her side. I gazed again into those eyes which that morning had been all that was intelligent, all that was godlike, all that was human. Their soul, their life was gone. Beulah Sands was a dead woman; not dead in body, but in soul; the magic spark had fled. She was but an empty shell—a woman of living flesh and blood; but the citadel of life was empty, the mind was gone. What had been a woman was but a child. I passed my hand across my ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... be disputed that the old often appear dull-witted, but I cannot believe in a real darkening of the reason, which is a bright spark of the Divine, and even in madness the negation of reason is only external and apparent. A deaf man playing on an instrument out of tune may strike the right notes, and be inwardly persuaded that his execution ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... danger did the Adventurer go that Perry, watching over the side, caught a glimpse of a dark mass under the green water. Then the chase straightened out once more and Steve drew the throttle wide, experimented with the spark for a moment and sent the white cruiser surging along in pursuit. There could be no doubt as to the outcome of the race. It was only a question of time. The thieves had staked all on the attempt to elude the Adventurer ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... empty sentimentality and hysterical rapture. All of them, and some of them were highly gifted, were thrilled with the love of Jesus, they had visions of the "sweet wounds of the Saviour," and so on; but their emotion did not kindle the smallest spark of creative power. The Queen of Heaven, on the other hand, was a free creation of spiritually ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... are but a few of the vital actions constantly taking place—are the instant result of one gasp of life-giving air. No subject can be fraught with greater interest than watching the first spark of life, as it courses with electric speed "through all the gates and alleys" of the soft, insensate body of the infant. The effect of air on the new-born child is as remarkable in its results as it is ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... For this beneficent vital-spark every body, but a lawyer, is in search; and it is what every body, but a lawyer, is delighted to find. No wonder therefore that a lawyer should meet discomfiture, and confusion, when he pretends to discuss the abstract nature ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... But she remained silent. Did she, then, hold him in so slight regard? Impossible! Still, the thought began to worry him; he felt aggrieved, hurt, almost slighted. He repeated his question: Did all his love for her not call forth the tiniest responsive spark in her heart? ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... The spark in question was called Ruggieri da Jeroli, a man of noble birth, but of lewd life and blameworthy carriage, insomuch that he had left himself neither friend nor kinsman who wished him well or cared to see him and was defamed throughout all Salerno for thefts and other knaveries ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... steady voice, though he showed a spark of feeling presently. The fire, however, was for his dead father, not ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... Gideon was called by the Angel; and methinks Father hath in like Manner been summoned from the Floor of his Threshing, to discourse of Heaven and Earth, and bring forth from his Mind's Storehouse Things new and old. I wonder if the World will ever give heed to his Teaching. Suppose a Spark of Fire should drop some Night on the Manuscript, while Ettwood is dozing over it;—why, there's an end on't. I suppose Father could never do it over again. I wonder how many fine Things have been lost ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... killed him then, I hated him so. At least, I thought I could; but just then Tom sent a spark out of the corner of his eye to me that ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... says it is not always that we may light a camp-fire," said Pierre Porteret to Jacques, as he struck a spark into his tinder with the flint and steel which ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... reply Pan vouchsafed, as he walked away. He did not like to be reminded of Dick. It sent an electric spark to the deep-seated smoldering mine ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... architect's education. These are the great qualities, without which he will take up his rulers and pencils in vain; without them, his ambitious facades and intricate plans will all come to nothing, except dust and rubbish. He may draw and colour like Barry himself; but unless he has some spark of the genius that animated old Inigo and Sir Christopher, some little inkling of William of Wickham's spirit within him, some sound knowledge of the fitness and the requirements of things, he had better throw down his instruments, and give it up as a bad ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... I beg you, if it be your will, To grant the Prince his pardon after all: Fulfil it ere an odious deed be done. You know that every army loves its hero. Let not this spark which kindles in it now Spread out and wax a wild consuming fire. Nor Kottwitz nor the crowd he has convened Are yet aware my faithful word has warned you. Ere he appears, send back the Prince's sword, Send it, as, after all, he has deserved. One piece of chivalry the more you give To history, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... distinctions; and the poorer classes, still smarting under the exactions of the late reign, were by the impositions of the new tax wound up to a pitch of madness. Thus the materials had been prepared; it required but a spark to set the whole ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... and Hal could see that the gasoline flow had been turned on nearly to the full capacity. It was the poor ignition work that was making the motors respond so badly. A little less, and a little less, of the electric spark that burned the gasoline, and air mixture—that was the secret of the gradually decreasing speed, while all the time it looked as though the "Farnum" was doing her level ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... semblance of truth and justice and honor had departed from the one; and unspeakable corruption had crept into the other. From the day of the Albigensian cruelties, the heart of the Church had turned to stone, and the spark of life divine within seemed extinguished. Once the guardian of the helpless, it had deserted the people and made common cause with their oppressors. One pope at Rome, and another at Avignon, was a heavy burden to carry. But when three infallible beings were hurling anathemas ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever. ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... were blended in grayish streaks, on either side, as his gaze was fastened on the vanishing car ahead. He shoved up his spark, gave her all the gas, froze to the wheel like a man of steel—and swooped like a ground-skimming comet ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... Brass, who, in his deep debasement, really seemed to have changed sexes with his sister, and to have made over to her any spark of manliness he might have possessed. 'You think so, Sarah, you think so perhaps; but you would have acted quite different, my good fellow. You will not have forgotten that it was a maxim with Foxey—our revered father, gentlemen—"Always suspect everybody." That's the ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... straight track of fire behind it. After a time, a slow thick shower of burning fragments, from some upper portion of the prison which was blazing nigh, began to fall before his door. Remembering that it opened outwards, he knew that every spark which fell upon the heap, and in the act lost its bright life and died an ugly speck of dust and rubbish, helped to entomb him in a living grave. Still, though the jail resounded with shrieks and cries for help,—though the fire bounded up as if each separate name had had a tiger's life, and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... indisputable facts of life to her. She knew it just as surely as she knew that she was alive. She knew it, and the knowledge hurt her, for she could fancy nothing less hopeful than Thistle-wood's wooing, and she was without a spark of mere vanity. ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... has struck me a double blow—she has injured you whom I love, and she has beggared me of your affection. Oh! Arthur," she continued, changing her voice and throwing a caressing arm about his neck, "have you no heart left to give me? is there no lingering spark that I can cherish and blow to flame? I will never treat you so, dear. Learn to love me, and I will marry you and make you happy, make you forget this faithless woman with the angel face. I will——" here her ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... fell, as for grief—- Oh, sad delusion;—ah, poor Moth! I caused them not; 'twas but a thief Had got within to wrong us both, Now I am left quite in the dark, The light's gone out that caused my pain; Let my last gaze be on that spark— Kind breezes, blow it ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various
... the inevitable, waiting and watching, while the boat slid and blundered clumsily, paddle-wheels churning the filthy waters over side, to the floating bridge; while the winches rattled, and the woman, sitting up briskly in the driver's seat of the motor-car, bent forward and advanced the spark; while the chain fell clanking and the car shot out, over the bridge, through the gates, and away, at a very considerable, even if lawful, ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... with twenty-six Moravian fellow-passengers, on their way from Germany to settle in Georgia; and they spoilt all. On his as yet unsettled, enthusiastic, self-dissatisfied frame of mind, the spectacle of their confident, tranquil, yet fervid piety, fell like a spark on tinder. He writes, in his journal, now first begun, 'From friends in England I am awhile secluded; but God hath opened me a door into the whole Moravian Church.' Here, Wesley learned, and took in, the doctrines of Peter ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 9. September, 1880 • Various
... many a leaden sarcasm at those who despise his credulity. He speaks of those sages as men whose brain is a glass table, incapable of receiving the electric spark, and who will not believe, because, in their mental isolation, they are incapable ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... his gallant steed bestrode, And forth upon his way he rode, As spark flies from a brand; Upon his crest he bare a tower, And therein stuck a lily flower: Save him ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... stuff won't bring the dead back to life. It will only revive where a spark of life remains. And, in any case, it isn't effective on animals. It ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... had tried a child with nearly all the objects of the series without exciting the smallest spark of interest; then I casually showed him the two tablets of red and blue colors, and called his attention to the difference of tint. He seized them at once with a kind of thirstiness, and learned five ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... intelligent countenance glowed with the delicate hectic flush which so often marks the progress of consumption—and the healthy, but not robust frame of its victim, became emaciated and feeble. The fall of the year 179-, brought the chilling blasts of November to quench the flickering spark of life in ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... a terrible reflection to think that this note of warning should have gone unheeded. A body of men with a spark of humane feeling would have thrown political exigencies to the winds and defied all the powers of earth and hell to prevent them from at once offering their prisoner a home in the land of a generous people. ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... house, which reminds me of the descriptions of that doleful retreat for sinners in Normandy, where the inmates pray eleven hours a day, dig their own graves every evening, and if they chance to meet one another, salute each other with 'Memento mori!' Ugh! if there remains one latent spark of chivalry in your soul, I beseech you be merciful! Do not go off to your den, but stay here and entertain me. It is said that you read bewitchingly, and with unrivalled effect; pray favor me this morning. I will promise to lay ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... The contrary is of course probable, but it is not demonstrated. If you have, the world wants you more than you want it. It not only a desire, but a passion, for every spark of genius that shows itself among us; there is not a bull-calf in our national pasture that can bleat a rhyme but it is ten to one, among his friends and no takers, that he is the real, genuine, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... You're a brute, and a monster, and—I don't know what." I mildly suggested the words Hottentot, Pickpocket, and cannibal, Tartar, and thief, As gentle expletives which might give relief; But this only proved as a spark to the powder, And the storm I had raised came faster and louder; It blew and it rained, thundered, lightened and hailed Interjections, verbs, pronouns, till language quite failed To express the abusive, and then its arrears Were brought up all at once by a torrent ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... been, there was at any rate no possibility that he should divide with a Tigellinus the direction of his still youthful master. He was by no means deceived as to the position in which he stood, and the few among Nero's followers in whom any spark of honour was left informed him of the incessant calumnies which were used to undermine his influence. Tigellinus and his friends dwelt on his enormous wealth and his magnificent villas and gardens, which could only have been acquired with ulterior objects, and which threw into the shade the splendour ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... too far from perfection to have any title to expect it in others, and think that there are none in whom pride is so excusable as in the poor, for if there is the smallest spark of it in their compositions, and who is entirely free from it, the frequent neglects and indignities they meet with must keep it continually alive. If we are despised for casual deficiencies, we naturally seek in ourselves for some merit, to restore us to that ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... one of the reasons that children reject fairy tales this, that such very poor material is offered them? There is a dreary flatness about all except the very best which revolts the child of literary appreciation and would fail to strike a spark in the ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... held his knuckle to the key. A tiny spark flashed between the key and his knuckle. It was a little ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston
... famous places, and appearing in corners. Wherever the polarities meet, wherever the fresh moral sentiment, the instinct of freedom and duty, come in direct opposition to fossil conservatism and the thirst of gain, the spark will pass. The resistance to slavery in this country has been a fruitful nursery of orators. The natural connection by which it drew to itself a train of moral reforms, and the slight yet sufficient party organization it offered, reinforced the city with new blood from the woods and mountains. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... from the dryness of the skin. One cold night I rose from my bed, and having lighted a lantern, was going out to observe the thermometer, with no other clothing than my flannel night-dress, when, on approaching my hand to the iron latch of the door, a distinct spark was elicited. Friction of the skin at almost all times in winter produced the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... again, and shows the sinner the necessity of turning now or not at all; yea, and giveth the sinner this conviction so strongly that he cannot put it if. But behold, the sinner has one spark of enmity still: if he must needs turn now, he will either turn from one sin to another, from great ones to little ones, from many to few, or from all to one, and there stop. But perhaps convictions will not thus leave him. Why, then he will turn from ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... piece of rag, immediately make a fire. They sought beneath the tufts of grass and bushes for a few dry twigs, and these they rubbed into fibres; then surrounding them with coarser twigs, something like a bird's nest, they put the rag with its spark of fire in the middle and covered it up. The nest being then held up to the wind, by degrees it smoked more and more, and at last burst out in flames. I do not think any other method would have had a chance of ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... chattering consciousness. Tingling through the grasp of her fingers on the vibrating wheel, stinging through the sole of her foot that hovered over the throbbing clutch, she sensed the agonized appeal. "Short lever—spark—long lever—gas!" she persisted resolutely. "It must be ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... absorb property, or to destroy property, or to prevent the development of property. Yet, strange as it may seem, the men who suffer from war are those whose passions generally lead it on. The king may apply the spark, but the combustion is with the common people. They furnish the army, they themselves become destroyers; and the ravages of war, in the history of the human family, have destroyed more property than it is possible to enter into the thoughts of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Quay—alone and grave. Some people, be it noted, are gravest when alone, and they are wise, for the world has too much gravity for us to go about it with a long face, making matters worse. Let each of us be the centre of his own gravity. Maggie Delafield had, perhaps, that spark in the brain for which we have but an ugly word. We call it "pluck." And by it we are enabled to win a losing game—and, harder still, to lose a losing game—without much noise ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... Now, when a meteor-spark, forlorn, Descends upon its fiery wing, I sigh to think a soul is born, Perchance, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... Anne, when that flaming luminary, Dr. Sacheverel, set half the kingdom in blaze, the inhabitants of this region of industry caught the spark of the day, and grew warm for the church—They had always been inured to fire, but now we behold ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... the ruins of Valpinson. People in town do not mind brigands, in general: they have their gas, their strong doors, and the police. They are generally little afraid of fire. They have their fire-alarms; and at the first spark the neighbor cries, "Fire!" The engines come racing up; and water comes forth as if by magic. But it is very different in the country: here every man is constantly under a sense of his isolation. A simple ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... yet, perhaps, a spark of honorable feeling in your bosom. Because you know that my family will never receive you, but will curse and abhor you, if you dare to entice my son into a marriage. Because you know that the Prussian nobles, the king himself, are on my side. The king, signora, no longer favors you; the king ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... of them—I repeat it. My demands had no object in view but to make you happy and derive comfort from you. How hot must the blood be which boils and foams at the contact of a spark! Only too like my own; and, since I understand you, I find it easy to forgive you. Indeed, I must finally express myself grateful; for I was in danger of neglecting my duties as a sovereign for the sake of pleasing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... external heat. It is in those very currents that he feels the influence of the Lords of Form. When powerful effects of heat are produced in man's environment, the soul feels that spiritual beings are now heating the earth's circumference—beings, from whom a spark has been detached, which warms his ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... these white robes are soiled and dark, To yonder shining ground; As this pale taper's earthly spark, To yonder argent round; So shows my soul before the Lamb, My spirit before Thee; So in mine earthly house I am, To that I hope to be. Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far, Thro' all yon starlight keen, Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... of the realm and the King's Majesty's most honourable council only to have granted pardon to you, wretched creature, if but some spark of repentance would have happened in ye.' Hanging his cowled poll beneath the beam that reached gigantic and black across the crowd, the friar shook his head slowly. 'Declared to you your errors ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... absorbed. "As milk changes to curd, and water to ice, so is Brahma variously transformed and diversified, without aid of exterior means of any sort. The human soul, according to the Vedas, is a portion of the supreme ruler, as a spark ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... been created by domestic misrule and failure in France. That leader was the Duke of York, son of that Earl of Cambridge who had been executed for his part in the Southampton conspiracy, which conspiracy has been called by an eminent authority the first spark of the flame which in the course of time consumed the two Houses of York and Lancaster. Left an infant of three years, it was long before York became a party-leader, and probably he never would have disputed the succession but for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... man, but I also knew that the awakening of spirit I had found was not in any way connected with my woman's love for him, but had come to me from the years of suffering I had had while I sought it. I refused to acknowledge that a sex spark had in any way set off the blaze; the fire had been laid in my soul and it would burn on without any of his tending. But even in that honest surety Nickols' mocking words "religion is suppressed sex" haunted me. I knew it could not be true, so I put it all out of my mind as I left Harriet ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... now a spark from Spain had set the Continent ablaze. The past had bequeathed some questions which, awkwardly handled, might cause explosions elsewhere, and it was well to know the character of those who had the key to the powder magazine. More than once ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... like that, so clever as need be, and she listened with a face that didn't show a spark of the thought behind it. But he failed to move her an inch, because, unknown to him, she'd got a fine trump card up ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... to-day! Rico won't come to-day!" and scarcely ceased until the evening; and the second day it was the same, but on the third,—he was tired out by that time, and seemed like a little heap of straw, that the least spark could have reduced ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... to the Puritans, some 100 in all, who sailed from Plymouth in the Mayflower in 1620 and settled in Massachusetts, carrying with them "the life-spark of the largest ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... John! Haven't you any human sympathy? Don't you know how these things come about? It's like a spark in a straw-yard. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... rumble of expostulations from the parson's great chest, and Ralph Drake's peals of horse-laughter, and I was left to consider what a tinder-box this Colony of Virginia was, and how ready to leap to flame at a spark even when seemingly most at peace, and to regard with more and more anxiety Mary Cavendish's part ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... There is this to be said for him: that alone among the spineless crowd of royalists feebly waiting for the miracle which would restore their privilege he attempted a blow for the lost cause. But where in all that bed of disintegrating chalk was the flint from which he might have evoked a spark? ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... lower part of the rock, stripped, plunged into the water, and swam to the boat. When there, all was still—awfully still! For a minute or two, he dared not lift up the cloth. Then reflecting that the same terror might beset him again—of leaving his father unaided while yet a spark of life lingered—he removed the shrouding cover. The eyes looked into his with a dead stare! He closed the lids and bound up the jaw. Again he looked. This time he raised himself out of the water and kissed ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... its creatures, of which man is the highest type. But man, evolving a small spark of intellect, sits in judgment on his Creator, and finds the work bad. Of all the animals, man is the only one so far known that criticizes his environment, instead of accepting it. And we do this because, in degree, we have abandoned intuition before we have gotten control ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... ruling a lordly household, even wearing the peacock feather and embroidered jacket that were his by right of the Dragon's blood, that blood now hidden under the sun-browned skin of a river coolie. Kan Wong stuffed fine-cut into his brass-bowled pipe and struck a spark from his tinder box. Through his wide nostrils twin streamers of smoke writhed out, twisting fantastically together and mixing slowly with the rising river mist. His pipe became a wand of dreams summoning the genii of glorious memory. The blood of ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... which was alternately contracted and smoothed, showed that the dying man was trying with his last remnant of strength to collect his thoughts and to retain the last spark of life. ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... BROWN'S PLAN THAT WE ARE TO LEAD HIM. But the Soho house is under police supervision night and day. There are several men watching it. When we enter that house, Mr. Brown will not draw back—he will risk all, on the chance of obtaining the spark to fire his mine. And he fancies the risk not great—since he will enter in the ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... whites then made signs for a fire to be lighted. The Indians proceeded at once, according to their usual tedious fashion of rubbing two sticks together. The strangers laughed, and one of them, snatching up a handful of dry grass, struck a spark into a little powder placed under it. Instantly flashed another poo and a blaze. The Indians died. After this the new comers wanted some fish boiling. The Indians therefore put the fish and water into one of their square wooden buckets, ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... which had seized her, a moment ago, deepened as she went. Something in the scene and the hastening figure roused a sense of dread. With her, an impression was like a spark to gunpowder. Her imagination blazed up. Life, in its most tragic aspect, seemed before her in the lonely scene, with the lonely figure, moving, as if in pursuit of a lost hope, towards the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... be contented, 'tis a naughtie night to swimme in. Now a little fire in a wilde Field, were like an old Letchers heart, a small spark, all the rest on's body, cold: Looke, heere ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... trembled in his clasp; the agitation was mutual; for through the young man's delicately organized frame ran a spark of joy that warmed him to the heart. They walked on together in silence, both thrilled with a strange sensation of pleasure, and drawn, as it were, by invisible ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... good snapshots of both of you and I hid the camera, and if you choked me, I wouldn't tell you where it is. See? That old Pierce-Arrow is here because it's here. See? And it's going to stay here, too. I just threw your spark plugs into the lake. If you hadn't been a couple of big fools you wouldn't have stepped inside this car. Steal a Pierce-Arrow! You make me laugh. You couldn't even get ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... yourself into some wretched hole, and forging your father's name was the only way out of it. I suppose you think the circumstances, whatever they may be, have warranted the act; but that act puts a stigma on your name which makes it unfit for any woman to bear; and if you have any spark of manhood left, you'll unwish the wish—you will unthink the thought—that I would wait—or even want ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... disproportioned to each other are the powers of doing evil and of doing good. The poorest and most abject instrument, that is utterly imbecile for any purpose of good, seems sometimes endowed with almost the powers of omnipotence for mischief. A mole may inundate a province—a spark from a forge may conflagrate a city—a whisper may separate friends—a rumor may convulse an empire—but when we would do benefit to our race or country, the purest and most chastened motives, the most patient thought and labor, with the humblest self-distrust, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... This sacred idea may be veiled by our sorrows, perverted by our errors, obscured by our faults; but, however thick be the layer of ashes heaped together in the depth of our souls—look closely: the sacred spark is not extinguished, and a favorable breath may still ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... Time which his mates employed in recreation he had used in the steel mill. Thus he gained a trade and a knowledge of the value of time. Early he had learned that knowledge is power and that intellect and wealth rule the world. He told Gertrude that she had kindled within him the spark of ambition, and that he proposed to make life a success. "Gertrude, you must be my friend in ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... in the world," said poor Elma, who felt that she must just show the faintest spark of spirit. "We did not ask to be born," she added, "so I don't see that ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... emerging from the shackles of the kirk, from poverty, ignorance, and from his own rank appetites—(out of which latter, however, he never extricated himself.) It is to be said that amid not a little smoke and gas in his poems, there is in almost every piece a spark of fire, and now and then the real afflatus. He has been applauded as democratic, and with some warrant; while Shakspere, and with the greatest warrant, has been called monarchical or aristocratic (which he certainly is.) But the splendid personalizations ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... precious commodity, more or less, is what often makes the difference between the ordinary and the supreme achievement. It is the liquid explosive that shatters the final, and most stubborn, barrier between man and the Infinite. It is what Walt Whitman called "that last spark, that sharp flash of power, that something or other more which gives ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... this room warm, Harry," said Mrs. Castleton, "you had better go in the dancing-room—there is not a spark of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... sure, a motor brougham in the street, for a wonder (usually the Rue d'Hollande is as empty as a desert, after eleven o'clock), but a girl's face peered out at me from the window—an impish, curiously abnormal little face it was—extinguishing the spark of hope that sprang to life as I ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... noticed that I called her Dexter; and so that was the spark that caused the explosion? Well, I shall not forget it in ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... absolute prerequisites to faith in the Saviour. God, as a sovereign, calls his children to himself by various ways. Bunyan's was a very extraordinary case, partly from his early habits—his excitable mind, at a period so calculated to fan a spark of such feelings into a flame. His extraordinary inventive faculties, softened down and hallowed by this fearful experience, became fitted for most ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... comfort are rarely absent. But whoever has true and perfect charity seeks himself in nothing, but desires only the glory of God. He envies no one, because he loves no joy of his own, nor cares to rejoice in himself; but wishes, above all good things, to find felicity in God. Whoever has a spark of true charity feels at once that all earthly things are full ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... variation to the scene. The lucifer match, however, was the all-absorbing centre of interest just then, and the scratch on the pebble was a much more important sound than any bellow of cannon from the fort. The lucifer was barely equal to its duties, and half-a-dozen times it gave its feeble spark of phosphorescent light in vain; but at last it struck, and the blue and yellow sulphur bubbled and crackled into flame. The man with the newspaper was ready, and caught the fire. The wet twigs smoked pungently, and there was one heart-sinking moment ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... an English ship containing arms and supplies, lying in the bay, marched to the Church of Saint Nicholas, took the Confederate oath, and shut Willoughby up in the citadel. Clanrickarde hastened to extinguish this spark of resistance, and induced the townsmen to capitulate on his personal guarantee. But Willoughby, on the arrival of reinforcements, under the fanatical Lord Forbes, at once set the truce made by Clanrickarde at defiance, burned the suburbs, sacked the Churches, and during August and September, exercised ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... by the greatest accident I intercepted one of his letters; as it was my duty to stifle this correspondence in its birth, I made it my business to find him out, and tell him very freely my sentiments of the matter. The spark did not like the stile I used, and behaved with abundance of mettle. Though his rank in life (which, by the bye, I am ashamed to declare) did not entitle him to much deference; yet as his behaviour was remarkably spirited, I admitted him to the privilege of a gentleman, and something ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... causes the largest number of Iraqi civilian casualties. Iraq is in the grip of a deadly cycle: Sunni insurgent attacks spark large-scale Shia reprisals, and vice versa. Groups of Iraqis are often found bound and executed, their bodies dumped in rivers or fields. The perception of unchecked violence emboldens militias, shakes confidence in the government, and leads Iraqis to flee to places where their sect is the majority ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace
... a great deal of it in flesh-meats, less in herbs. Besides, the Pure, by the force of their merits, despoil vegetables of that luminous spark, and it flies towards its source. The animals, by generation, imprison it in the ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... find that Brown has not a spark of sympathy with those who say that, because Germany has destroyed art treasures in Belgium and France, the Allies should retaliate with similar rudeness if they reach Berlin. He holds that if for any reason best known to themselves (such as the wish for a sunnier ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... place. A place where we can use our cavalry when they attempt to escape," said the young sprig of an officer, when some men with a spark of ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... Plutarch says, "The influence of a true friend is felt in the help that he gives the noble part of nature; nothing that is weak or poor meets with encouragement from him. While the flatterer fans every spark of suspicion, envy, or grudge, he may be described in the verse of Sophocles as 'sharing the love and not the hatred of the person he cares for.'" Such a bit as that makes us forget the centuries which have rolled between us and Plutarch; his temptations are ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... Then the last spark of light disappeared, and through the Egyptian darkness I could see the faint line of white around the window blinds. I felt that the time had come to speak; so I pulled off my ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... smiling lustre of her eyes the tiniest spark flashed out at him—a hint of defiance for somebody, perhaps for Major Belwether who had taken considerable pains to enlighten her as to Siward's condition the night before; perhaps also for Quarrier, who had naturally expected to act as her gun-bearer in emergencies. But the gaily ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... "The mystery! the mystery!" they murmured, in hollow voices. Heads began to ferment. A tempest, which was only rumbling in the distance as yet, was floating on the surface of this crowd. It was Jehan du Moulin who struck the first spark ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... both refinement and intelligence. A man of forty—perhaps of forty-five—clean-shaven, a touch of gray about his temples, his eyes shadowed by heavy brows from beneath which now and then came a flash as brief and brilliant as an electric spark. He might have been a civil engineer, or some scientist, or yet an officer ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... personalities were held to be in excellent taste in old-fashioned Raveloe society, reverent love has a politeness of its own which it teaches to men otherwise of small schooling. But the Squire was rather impatient at Godfrey's showing himself a dull spark in this way. By this advanced hour of the day, the Squire was always in higher spirits than we have seen him in at the breakfast-table, and felt it quite pleasant to fulfil the hereditary duty of being noisily jovial and patronizing: the large silver snuff-box was in ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... stimulated my nerves as in anger and despair I quickly left the house to buy the confounded ticket for the journey, and in the beginning of February I actually started on the road to Paris. I was filled with the most extraordinary feelings, but the spark of hope which was then kindled in my breast certainly had nothing whatever to do with the belief that had been imposed upon me from without, that I was to make a success in Paris as ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Doge. A spark creates the flame—'tis the last drop Which makes the cup run o'er, and mine was full Already: you oppressed the Prince and people; I would have freed both, and have failed in both: The price of such success would have been glory, Vengeance, and victory, and such a name 250 ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... time, and feels ready to knock his head against the wall, or his fingers against somebody else's head. So he gives up altogether the lower and middle parts of the form, and looks round in despair at the boys on the top bench, to see if there is one out of whom he can strike a spark or two, and who will be too chivalrous to murder the most beautiful utterances of the most beautiful woman of the old world. His eye rests on Arthur, and he calls him up to finish construing Helen's speech. Whereupon all the other boys draw long breaths, ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... of the country. In the eighteenth century the artists, as though surfeited with nature, returned to mythology, classicism, and conventionality; their imagination was weakened, their style was impoverished, and every spark of their former genius was extinguished. Dutch Art showed the world the marvellous flowers of Van Huysum, the last great lover of nature, then folded her weary hands and the flowers fell on ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... abilities only inferior to his own. His first original work was Sartor Resartus ("The Tailor Repatched"), which appeared in 1834, and excited a great deal of attention— a book which has proved to many the electric spark which first woke into life their powers of thought and reflection. From 1837 to 1840 he gave courses of lectures in London; and these lectures were listened to by the best and most thoughtful of the London people. The most striking series afterwards appeared in the form of ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... into the gulf of despair, and surrounded by victims of poverty and votaries of crime, the poor inebriate has yet left him one lingering spark of pride. As if somewhat revived, he scrambles to his feet, staggers into the room of a poor debtor, on the left of the long, sombre aisle, and drawing from his pocket a ten-cent piece, throws it upon the table, with an air ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... have a tendency to make him nervous must be avoided. The same caution applies to exciting literature. In short, a patient with organic heart disease must be a drone in the hum of this busy, fast-rushing life, if he would hope to keep the spark of life for many years. Sleep, rest and quiet is a better motto for you than ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... burnt. Shortly after this another corner of the house was seen burning. This was in the kitchen. It was not a continuation of the former fire as the latter had been completely extinguished. Not even smoke or a spark was left to kindle. The two places are completely separated from each other being divided by an open court-yard of 30 yards in length and there is no connection between ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... extinguisher which Heaven holds suspended over the city of Rome, stifles even the subtle spark of passion. If Vesuvius were here, it would have been cold for the last forty years. The Roman princesses were not a little talked of up to the end of the thirteenth century. Under the French rule their gallantry assumed a military ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... depths for some minutes, when he became aware that down in the darkness was a bright spark, which got rapidly bigger and brighter. Again that feeling of awful fear took possession of him, and he tried to turn his eyes from the pool. But it was no use; something stronger than himself compelled ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... half-savage Greek could share our feelings thus far, it is irrational to doubt that he went further, to find, as we do, that upon that brief gladness there follows a certain sorrow,—the little light of awakened human intelligence shines so mere a spark amidst the abyss of the unknown and unknowable; seems so insufficient to do more than illuminate the imperfections that cannot be remedied, the aspirations that cannot be realized, of man's own nature. But in this ...
— On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge • Thomas H. Huxley
... Keenan in reply was like a spark to gunpowder. In a moment the cavern presented a scene singularly tragic-comic; the whole party was one busy mass of battle, with the exception of Ted and Batt, and the wife of the latter, who, having first hastily put aside everything that might ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton |
