"Tinder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sight of him. If she saw him first, she had but to sing her wild strange song, and he would go to her; and when he was before her, two flames would come out of her eyes, and one flame would burn up his life as though it were dry tinder, and the other would wrap round his soul like a scarlet shawl, and she would take it and live with it in a cavern underground for a year and a day. And on that last day she would let it go, as a hare is let ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... true, hopes were excited on the perception of a faint brimstone odour issuing from an antiquated iron box found among some rubbish; but instead of any vellum or parchment, there were only the unused remains of some bundles of veteran matches, with their tinder-box accomplice, which had been thrown aside and forgotten, ever since the time when the functions of those old hardened incendiaries, flint and steel, were extinguished by the lucifers. All further search, it is feared, will be in vain; and ...
— The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil • Edward G. Flight
... are dry as tinder and they crackle with the heat, And the sparks, like merry children, come a-dancing round my feet, In the cold, long nights of autumn I can sit before the blaze And watch a panorama born of all my yesterdays. I can leave the present burdens and the moment's ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... materials then to help her. The letter paper was coarse; envelopes were unknown. She would have to bring a candle into the room in order to seal it; and a candle could only be lit by striking a spark from the flint upon the tinder, and then igniting a brimstone match from it,—unless she lit it at the kindled fire, which would subject her to questions and remonstrances. Also, the quill pens must be mended, and the ink renewed. But all these difficulties were ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... immense arch over my head, to which I could see no bounds; the stream itself, as I judged, was about thirty yards broad, but in some places wider, in some narrower. It was well for me I happened to have a tinder-box, or, though I had escaped hitherto, I must have at lust perished; for in the narrower parts of the stream, where it ran swiftest, there were frequently such crags stood out from the rock, by reason of the turnings and windings, and such sets of the current against them, as, could I not have ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... P: My first is Concerning tinder-boxes. You must know, No family is here, without its box. Now, sir, it being so portable a thing, Put case, that you or I were ill affected Unto the state, sir; with it in our pockets, Might not I go into the Arsenal, Or you, come out again, and ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... not a theft, for the matches have been thrown away, as you might say. Those foolish people will suppose the dead have struck them. They used to put wax candles and tinder-boxes with them in the niches, but when these sulphur matches came in fashion, they preferred them for economy. When I am working in this wood I take no fire with me, being quite sure to find the means of lighting one. Praise be to Allah for ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... gained, 170 And there, by mighty love of land the Trojans sore constrained, Leap off-board straight, and gain the gift of that so longed-for sand, And lay their limbs with salt sea fouled adown upon the strand: And first Achates smote alive the spark from out the flint, And caught the fire in tinder-leaves, and never gift did stint Of feeding dry; and flame enow in kindled stuff he woke; Then Ceres' body spoilt with sea, and Ceres' arms they took, And sped the matter spent with toil, and fruit of furrows found They set about ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... ladder, tall enough to reach to the top of the roof, for fire is very common, and generally ends in everything being demolished by the flames. Buckets of water, passed on by hand, can do little to avert disaster, when the old wooden home is dry as tinder and often rotten ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... taking out his flint and steel; but though he struck and struck, he could not make the tinder take light. "Here's a pretty affair," said he, "the tinder got damp as I ran amidst the dew of the wood endeavouring to ...
— The Story of Tim • Anonymous
... clever to cheat even by SOBER LIES. How Mr. Fisher procured the candles and the tinder box without money, and without credit, we shall discover ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... of variation are unknown. Mr. Darwin favors the opinion of the late Mr. Knight, the great philosopher of horticulture, that variability tinder domestication is somehow connected with excess of food. He regards the unknown cause as acting chiefly upon the reproductive system of the parents, which system, judging from the effect of confinement or cultivation upon its functions, he concludes ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... revealed will of God tinder the old dispensation, we will now hastily glance at the position occupied by Christ and his apostles in relation to this institution, and at their instructions and admonitions to ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... of all the creatures, and gave them names accordingly; wherefore the serpent, Adam knew, was subtil, therefore Satan useth him, thereby to catch this goodly creature. Hereby the devil least appeared; and least appearing, the temptation soonest took the tinder.[7] ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... brushwood, and another took out tinder and flint, and soon they had a big fire roaring, and my grandfather could see Patrick plainly enough. If he had kept still before, he kept stiller now. Soon they had four poles up and a pole across, right ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... must have patience!" he said to himself. He then went to the sledge to get some tinder, and asked Johnson for his steel, telling him that the fire had gone out. Johnson answered that it was his fault, and he put his hand in his pocket, where he usually kept it; he was surprised not to find it there. He felt ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... and seizing a couple of blazing brands he thrust them under the tree's trunk. The dry wood caught like tinder and soon the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... little girl is the subject. Of course that was ever so long ago, when there were no lucifer matches, and steel and tinder were used to light fires; when soda and saleratus had never been heard of, but people made their pearl ash by soaking burnt crackers in water; when the dressmaker and the tailor and the shoemaker went from house to house twice a year to make the ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... raft returned with fish enough to serve the party for a couple of days. Their success put them in good spirits, and even Mr Collinson revived greatly. A tinder-box having been found in the chest, they were able to light a fire to cook their fish. Some they boiled, and some they roasted on spits. Mr Collinson, however, who had been as a midshipman in the South Seas, recollected the way the natives of several islands cooked their fish. ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... fault? Not one of these; Only when left yourselves to please This morning but a moment here 'Mid papers tinted by my mind You took some embryo verses near— Half formed, but fully well designed To open out. Your hearts desire Was but to throw them on the fire, Then watch the tinder, for the sight Of shining sparks that twinkle bright As little boats that sail at night, Or like the window lights that spring From out the ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... groove farthest from that part of the board on which he was kneeling. He then continued his operation; and in a short time the wood began to smoke, the sides of the groove becoming completely charred. On this he stopped and gathered the tinder over that part of the groove which appeared to be most strongly heated. After a few moments, it became manifest that the sawdust or tinder was ignited; and a gentle application of the breath now drew forth a flame which rose to the height of several inches. This experiment did not always ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... time flew by as swift an' as pleasant as a bird on the wing, an' the sun wint down, an' the moon shone sweet an' soft instead, an' they two never knew a ha'porth about it, but kept talkin' an' whisperin', an' whisperin' an' talkin'; for it's wondherful how often a tinder-hearted girl will bear to hear a purty boy tellin' her the same story constant over an' over; ontil at last, sure enough, they heerd the ould man himself comin' up the boreen, singin' the 'Colleen Rue'—a thing he never done barrin' whin he had a dhrop in; an' the misthress walkin' ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... see a great deal depended on the showing each locomotive made. Unluckily in the excitement a tinder box had been forgotten, and when it came time to start, the spark to light the fires had to be obtained from a reading glass borrowed from one of the spectators. This, of course, caused some delay. But once the fires were blazing and ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... Family, to a man, had delayed; rather they had not considered that there was any immediate danger from fire; it was too early in the season for the grass to be tinder dry, as it would become a month or six weeks later. They were wholly unprepared for the catastrophe, so far as any expectation of it went. But for all that they knew exactly what to do and how to go about doing it, and they did not ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... outcry and a scuffling of feet, the sound of an opening window, a call for lights. But lights were no such speedy matters in those days when matches had not been invented. When at length the scratching of the tinder boxes was done and the candles relit, every one looked eagerly at the table. Behold, ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... grass-thatched and like tinder, were wrapped in flames. Grief emerged from the kitchen, carrying a naked black child by the leg. Its head ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... a pipe and drank a glass of water, he retired. Yet in the midst of this clock-like regularity his labors were broken by frequent unfruitful seasons. Symmons says of him, that "he frequently composed in the night, when his unpremeditated verse would sometimes flow in a torrent, tinder the impulse, as it were, of some strange poetical fury; and in these peculiar moments of inspiration, his amanuensis, who was generally his daughter, was summoned by the bell to arrest the verses as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... cooking arrangements were very primitive. In the first place, they were compelled to make a fire by the method in use among the savages, of rubbing two sticks smartly together, and catching the flame in a little prepared tinder. The fish were baked over the fire thus kindled. Though the outside was smoked, the inside was sweet and palatable, and neither was disposed to be fastidious. The preparation of the meal took considerable time, but ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... only met people in the way of business. She had seen the buttons, and was sure that they belonged to the clothes which he had worn last night. The wood-pile was very dry, for it had not rained for a month. It burned like tinder, and by the time she reached the spot, nothing could be seen but flames. She and all the firemen smelled the burned flesh from inside it. She knew nothing of the papers, nor of Mr. Oldacre's ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of combustibles,—loose straw from the mattress, dry old furniture, and old warped floors which had been parching and shrinking for a score or two of years. The whole house was, in the common language of the newspaper reports, "a perfect tinder-box," and would probably be a heap of ashes in half an hour. And there was this unfortunate deserted sick man lying between life and death, beyond all help unless some unexpected assistance should come to ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... occasion, just before the removal of the mutton, Watts-Dunton had been asking me about an English translation that had been made of M. Rostand's 'Cyrano de Bergerac.' He then took my information as the match to ignite the Swinburnian tinder. 'Well, Algernon, it seems that "Cyrano de Bergerac"'—but this first spark was enough: instantly Swinburne was praising the works of Cyrano de Bergerac. Of M. Rostand he may have heard, but him he forgot. Indeed I never heard Swinburne mention a single contemporary ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... for the cool judgment of Bob Quirk, violence would have resulted. The primitive mind is slow to resent an affront, and while the chief deputy had couched his last remarks in well-chosen language, his intimation that I was a fugitive from justice, and an outlaw in resisting arrest, was tinder to stubble. Knowing the metal of my outfit, I curbed the tempest within me, and relying on a brother whom I would gladly follow to death if need be, I waved hands off to my boys. "Now, men," said Bob to the deputies, "the easiest way out of this matter is the best. No one here has committed ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... Guess. I thought the Combustable matter was contain'd in a reed or piece of small Bamboo, which they gave a Swing round in the hand and caused it to go off.* (* The natives carry hollow canes with burning tinder for ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... bundle three or four times as big as I want," Giuseppi said, "and then half of them will be dry. I can put my clothes on them and the tinder. I will answer for the fire, but I would rather have been with you ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... Two strokes sounded from the clock in the pediment without, when, leaving the chamber-door ajar, she passed along the corridor to the other end, where, as usual, she obtained a light. So deep was the silence that he could even from his bed hear her softly blowing the tinder to a glow after striking the steel. She moved on into the boudoir, and he heard, or fancied he heard, the turning of the key in the closet-door. The next moment there came from that direction a loud and prolonged shriek, which resounded to ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... fire: hence we have "At sla elld ur tinnu," to strike fire from flint; which approaches very near to a tinder-box. Ling, Icel., the heath or heather plant: ljung I take to be the same word. Gat, Icel. for way or opening; hence strand-gata, the opening of the strand or creek. Tjarn, tiorn, Icel., well exemplified in Malham ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... Tinder-box which makes a Fire that consumes all the loads of Wood of which the Forests are despoiled and with this the flesh ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Liquor was ever his master, and to- day the King's health had been a fair excuse. He did not spy me, but the roar of his ballad had startled the two men outside, and so, while he was stumbling over chairs, and groping for a tinder-box, I slipp'd out in the darkness, and downstairs ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... tried to kindle the fire was such a long time about it, owing to the damp tinder, that Dame Zudar impatiently snatched the flint and steel out of his hands, struck away at it till she had ignited the tinder, then thrust it with her own hand in the midst of the straw surrounding the faggots, fanned it with her apron till it burst ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... I told you the other day? Stories start from nowhere. It's just like putting a match to tinder. Now ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... together with much starch-root (koonti katki) and a large quantity of yams. The granary was built of pitch-pine posts and poles, heavily thatched with palm-leaves, that the summer suns had dried to a tinder. ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... rust-colored rushes. Round about it was a girdle of the woods with their ripe autumn tints: ruddy copper beeches, pale yellow chestnuts, rowans with their coral berries, flaming cherry-trees with their little tongues of fire, myrtle-bushes with their leaves of orange and lemon and brown and burnt tinder. It was like a burning bush. And from the heart of the flaring cup rose and soared a lark, drunk with the berries ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... till he reached the cleared ground, which was not one moment too soon for his safety. For so dry and inflammable had every thing there become, under the scorching sun of the preceding fortnight, which had been relieved by neither rain nor cloud, that, the instant the fire touched the tinder-like leaves, it flashed up as from a parcel of scattered gunpowder; and, bursting with almost explosive quickness all around, and swiftly leaping from bough to bough and treetop to treetop, it spread with such astonishing celerity that he found ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... to himself, as the form in his arms relaxed. Then he laid her gently down beside Dick. He shifted forward, moving like a crab. Then he put his hand to his pocket for his pipe and tobacco and tinder box. They were in his coat pocket, but Emmeline was in his coat. To search for them would ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... out on deck again twilight had fallen, but far back on the horizon was a tiny blur—the Silver Star. As Jack gazed back at her, she vanished below the horizon as suddenly as an extinguished spark in a piece of tinder. ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... he, "when I tell you to row for an iceberg I mean you to row right away there, d'ye see, and not to go philandering about over the ocean. It's not your fault that I'm not froze, and so I would have been if I hadn't some dry tobacco and my tinder-box to keep myself warm." ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... communication, Caleb feebly stretched his wan hand, held the letter which had "come too late" over the flame of the candle. As the blazing paper dropped on the carpetless floor, Mr. Jones prudently set thereon the broad sole of his top-boot, and the maidservant brushed the tinder ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Church enterprise was commenced in 1867, tinder the labors of Rev. George Fellows, and was completed during the Pastorate of Rev. Wm. R. Jones in 1868. It was dedicated by Bishop Thomson. Oconomowoc has grown to be one of the strongest and most desirable ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... trial, two or three of the young buccaneers of literature went down to two or three newspaper offices, and wrote two or three heart-rending leading articles on the subject of the proceedings in court. The next morning the public caught light like tinder; and the prisoner was tried over again, before an amateur court of justice, in the columns of the newspapers. All the people who had no personal experience whatever on the subject seized their pens, and rushed (by kind permission ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... are we to light it?" one of them exclaimed in a tone of consternation. "I don't suppose we have got flint and steel or tinder ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... Godfrey, like every one else, was occupied in gathering and discussing news about it, and in visiting the Stone-pits. The rain had washed away all possibility of distinguishing foot-marks, but a close investigation of the spot had disclosed, in the direction opposite to the village, a tinder-box, with a flint and steel, half sunk in the mud. It was not Silas's tinder-box, for the only one he had ever had was still standing on his shelf; and the inference generally accepted was, that the tinder-box in the ditch was somehow connected ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... the forests become as dry as tinder and the loss from fire amounts to millions of dollars every year. It is the chief duty of the rangers at this time to patrol the roads and trails leading through the forests and keep a sharp ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... forth radiant; and Garth marvelled afresh at the vision of urban perfection she made in the wilderness. He was blowing the fire at the time; a typical tenderfoot's fire, all tinder and no fuel, at which the breeds grinned askance. He soon learned better. The breeds haunted their camp, enjoying their struggles with that superior, insulting grin. Natalie, rolling up her sleeves, announced her intention of cooking ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... was Mr. Stanton appointed? By Mr. Lincoln. Whose presidential term was he holding tinder when the bullet of Booth became a proximate cause of this trial? Was not this appointment in full force at that hour. Had any act of the respondent up to the 12th day of August last vitiated or interfered with that appointment? Whose Presidential term is the ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... like tinder. Ned had nothing to do but to set the torch. In an instant the leaves leaped into a roaring flame. The blaze ran higher, took hold of the trees and ran from bough to bough. It sprang to other trees, and, in an incredibly brief space, a ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... mad fit is on her. A little woman-pretty little woman!—wife to Jacob Blathenoy! She mustn't at her age have any close choosing—under her hand. And Dartrey's just the figure to strike a spark in a tinder-box head.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stake they bound Korak. Then they brought brush and piled about him, and The Sheik came and stood by that he might watch the agonies of his victim. But Korak did not wince even after they had fetched a brand and the flames had shot up among the dry tinder. ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... identical in all points. I readily grant that Father Alexis uses his thumbs better; I admit, too, that he has a grain or two more of phosphorus in his brain, for you know the savants of to-day, at their own risk and peril, have discovered that the human mind is nothing but a phosphoric tinder-box." ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... fruit had been taken from a tabooed place, exclaimed that the spirit of the chief, whose sanctity had been thus profaned, would kill her. This was in the afternoon, and next day by twelve o'clock she was dead. A Maori chief's tinder-box was once the means of killing several persons; for, having been lost by him, and found by some men who used it to light their pipes, they died of fright on learning to whom it had belonged. So, too, the garments of a high ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the British took possession of New York, a fire started one night in a drinking saloon, where soldiers were revelling (perhaps celebrating their triumphal entry into the city), and it spread with great rapidity. The buildings were mostly of wood, so that the devouring flames licked them up as tinder; and although the thousands of British soldiers exerted themselves to the utmost to extinguish the fire, one quarter of the city, about one thousand buildings, was ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... great coat — his new saddle — his silver mounted pistols — and worse than all, his darling horse, his young, full-blooded, bounding Selim — all these keen reflections, like so many forked lightnings, falling at once on the train and tinder of his passions, blew them up to such a diabolical rage that the old sinner had like to have been suffocated on the spot. He turned black in the face; he shook throughout; and as soon as he could recover breath and power of speech, he ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... so well that, though half the town, through which the news of my adventure had spread, as fire spreads in tinder, were assembled outside the inn until a late hour, no one was admitted to see me; and when I made my appearance next morning in the market-place and took my seat, with my two attendants, at a table by the corn-measures, ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... show ability in mechanics. "Lieutenant Douglas occupied a room barely habitable, and had to contest the tenancy with rats, which asserted their claim with such tenacity, that he went to sleep at the risk of being devoured. Their incursions compelled him to furnish himself with loaded pistols and a tinder-box, and he kept watch one night, remaining quiet till there was an irruption, when he started up and struck a light. But his vigilance proved of no avail, for the clink of the flint and steel caused a stampede, and not a rat remained by the time he had kindled the tinder. Their flight suggested ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... her appearance never once crossed her mind, for, stepping across the floor, she held the pieces of paper over the lamp till ignited, then quickly thrust them one by one between the small crack or chink in the center of the door. It was of wood, old and dry, and caught like tinder. She watched it burn; the door was narrow, and the devouring element soon consumed all save the top and bottom pieces which extended across. These quivered as their support crumbled beneath them, and soon would fall with a crash. She watched ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... of—yes! Of a truth, there will, for the priests will see to it! There is a padre-sahib here in Howrah now for the Hindoo priests to whet their hate on. You saw the woman ride past here a half-hour gone? There is a pile of tinder ready here, and any fool of a priest can make a spark! There will be a ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... absence without leave, who was bound to a stake in the presence of his sister, and destroyed by a cannon placed six paces off, but only loaded with powder, in order to prolong the agony; now, a Christian accused of having tried to blow up Janina by introducing mice with tinder fastened to their tails into the powder magazine, who was shut up in the cage of Ali's favourite tiger and devoured ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... a balance, apt to propend each way, and to be weighed down with every wench's looks, his heart a weathercock, his affection tinder, or naphtha itself, which every fair object, sweet smile, or mistress's favour sets on fire. Guianerius tract 15. cap. 14. refers all this [4770]to "the hot temperature of the testicles," Ferandus a Frenchman in his Erotique Mel. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the sulphur splinters kindled by the tinder burned up, first blue and then red, Shcherbinin lit the tallow candle, from the candlestick of which the cockroaches that had been gnawing it were running away, and looked at the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was bespattered all over with mud and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... am so acquit of this tinder-box: his thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful singer—he kept ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... rock breathless; about my body was strapped a leather belt to which was attached a wicker bottle. When we were seated on the rock, my dear Brigitte asked for the bottle; I had lost it, as well as a tinder-box which served another purpose: that was to read the inscriptions on the guide-posts when we went astray, which occurred frequently. At such times I would climb the posts, and read the half-effaced inscription by ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... assurance that the little, low, yellow bush was "Mexican saddle blanket" or "Tinder bush," this last because it burns like tinder in ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... wafers being of a great variety of colours, and the monotony of printed inscriptions being relieved by every possible size and style of hand-writing. It is confidently rumoured that Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy have engaged three beds and a sitting-room at the Pig and Tinder-box. I give you the rumour as it has reached me; but I cannot, as yet, vouch for its accuracy. The moment I have been enabled to obtain any certain information upon this interesting point, you may depend ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... from one hundred to one thousand wooden flues of a highly inflammable character arranged expressly to carry fire from the bottom to the top, valiantly consuming themselves in the operation. Furthermore, they are frequently charged with shavings and splinters of wood, which, becoming dry as tinder, will respond at once to a spark from a crack in the chimney, an overheated stove or furnace-pipe, or a match in the hands of an inquisitive mouse. They are, likewise, so arranged that no water can be poured ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... About two hours afterwards, he slowly opened the door, and came out to look about him, in his old prowling way. He was instantly seized and bound, by a party of soldiers under SIR THOMAS KNEVETT. He had a watch upon him, some touchwood, some tinder, some slow matches; and there was a dark lantern with a candle in it, lighted, behind the door. He had his boots and spurs on—to ride to the ship, I suppose—and it was well for the soldiers that they took him so suddenly. If they had left him but a moment's ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... kick, pointed to something on the floor. Amazed and wrathful, Mrs. Cross saw a long roller-towel, half a yard of it burnt to tinder; nor could any satisfactory explanation of the accident be drawn from Martha, who laughed, sobbed, and sniggered by turns as ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... the result of much anxious thought. All the way up to London he had pondered what he should say to Tom by way of parting advice—something that the boy could keep in his head ready for use. By way of assisting meditation, he had even gone the length of taking out his flint and steel and tinder, and hammering away for a quarter of an hour till he had manufactured a light for a long Trichinopoli cheroot, which he silently puffed, to the no small wonder of coachee, who was an old friend, and an institution on the Bath road, and ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... mercy, mum, be that you?" he cried, as he recognised the white half-dressed figure clinging to the bell-rope "let me get 'ee out o' this; the old place'll burn like so much tinder;" and before she could object, he had taken her up in his arms as easily as if she had been a child, and was carrying her towards the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... to stop this clatter somehow. The stones are hot now. The whole thing'll burn up like tinder if we can't ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... While Sir Edmund was bandying threats with stout Robert Treat, the queller of Indians and now governor of Connecticut, in the course of their evening conference the candles were suddenly blown out, and when after some scraping of tinder they were lighted again the document was nowhere to be found, for Captain Wadsworth had carried it away and hidden it in the hollow trunk of a mighty oak tree. Nevertheless for the moment the colony was obliged to submit to the tyrant. Next day ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... are other ways, William, although, in most of them, tinder is necessary. The savages can produce fire by rubbing a soft piece of wood against a hard one. But we have gunpowder; and we have two ways of igniting gunpowder - one is by a flint and steel, and the other is by collecting the sun's rays into one ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... the first flicker of a piece of tinder, fired by a beaten flint. It is like something come, only to go again, but presently it passes into a stronger flame, and then into light. This is the awakening of a Highland day, when the conditions resemble those of ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... "here in my pocket is a tinder box, the which is a very comfortable thing, here in my belt a good, stout, knife, which is another comfortable thing, and yonder is a cave, dry and airy, shall make you a goodly chamber; so take comfort to-night, ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... back to his old position. He glanced at Mollie. But it was easy to see that she was trying to get away, not to hinder him in what he was doing. He picked up the oil can again. This time he poured the few remaining drops on a little pile of chips and lit another match. The tinder blazed up. The man fanned the tiny flames with the brim of a torn hat. The flare of light grew brighter; a great flame leapt up and then a snake-like curve of fire ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... the "company-room," or parlor, was faintly indicated by the light that streamed beneath it. She stood still for a moment hesitatingly, when suddenly a hand grasped her own, and half led, half dragged her, into the sitting-room opposite. It was dark. There was a momentary fumbling for the tinder-box and flint, a muttered oath over one or two impeding articles of furniture, and Thankful laughed. And then the light was lit; and her father, a gray wrinkled man of sixty, still holding her hand, stood ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... as most, had come to think that the man was innately a libertine, awaiting but the right one to strike the hidden flint and set the tinder aglow—the tinder that would burn, and consume, and destroy. He had known of men like that—of men who went the even pathway of their lives until there crossed it another who tore them from it; and that one ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... day dawned when the tinder was lighted in the Balkans and Austro-Hungary seized a bit which brought her a step nearer to the world's highway; she seized one bit and poised herself for another. Then came that curious chorus of challenges, those leaping suspicions, raking all causes for ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Dashall, "though I must confess you have travelled a long way for your illustration, which is quite sufficient to shew the utility of signs. But I would ask you if you can explain or point out the derivation of many we have in London—such for instance as 'The Pig and Tinder-Box'—'The Prad and Blower'—'The Bird and Baby'—'The Tyrant and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... enough in those days, of King George and Queen Charlotte, with all their numerous children, down to the little Princess Amelia in a go-cart. On each side hung a small portrait, also engraved: on the left, it was Louis the Sixteenth; on the other, Marie-Antoinette. On the chimney-piece there was a tinder-box and a Prayer-book. I do not remember anything else in the room. Indeed, in those days people did not dream of writing-tables, and inkstands, and portfolios, and easy chairs, and what not. We were taught ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Okhotsk and Yakutsk, and as a week might pass without the shelter of so much as a hut, it was necessary to take tents and bearskin beds for the Chamberlain, his Cossack guard, valet-de-chambre, cook and other servants, one set of fine blankets and linen, cooking utensils, axes, arms, tinder-boxes, provisions for the entire trip, besides a great ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... on the crook of his arm, and not yet slung over his shoulder, was a soiled buckskin pouch, which went always with the rifle—the "possible sack" of the wilderness hunter of that time. It contained his bullets, bullet-molds, flints, a bar or two of lead, some tinder for priming, ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... bush, when it struck me that there must be an uncommonly fine aurora, but getting up a little rising ground where the trees were thinner, I observed it was to the south-west, not the north. That way there lies prairie land, at this season one ocean of dry bents, fit to burn like tinder, so that one spark would set fifty square miles alight at once. All the sky in that quarter was the colour of glowing copper, but the distance was so enormous that danger never occurred to me till I saw the deer scampering headlong, the birds awake and flying, and my horse trembling ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of a good excuse to knock on her door. It 'ud be a stunt, wouldn't it, to raise an alarm of fire in this old tinder-box. Say, if there's ever a fire I bags the new roomer to save—that is until I get a look at her. If it's over a hundred and fifty, I'll give ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... Phoenicians would have done as much, and, at least, with distant and half-civilized tribes, have replaced the more costly tin by the cheaper metal. . . . On the whole, then, I consider that the first knowledge of bronze may have been conveyed to the populations of the period tinder review not only by the Phoenicians, but by other civilized people dwelling ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... soaked in a solution of nitre and then thoroughly dried. This string, when once lighted, burns very slowly and a piece one inch long is sufficient for the purpose. Some performers prefer a small piece of punk, as it requires no preparation. Still others use tinder made by burning linen rags, as our forefathers used to do. This will not flame, but merely smoulders until the breath blows it into a glow. The tinder is made by charring linen rags, that is, burning them to a crisp, ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... return was to organize his expedition to the interior; and in order to add to his available resources he practised medicine and surgery during the winter. A cargo of corn, medicine, knives, tinder-boxes, and spirits for the preservation of specimens was collected, and packed in an immense waggon, drawn by five ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Baroda Railway Offices, a great domed building that burned up last night after the illuminations. It was madness to cover public buildings with open oil lamps and leave them to be looked after by natives—this huge Taj hotel, dry as tinder outside, a complexity of dry wooden jalousies and balconies, was covered with these lights and floating flags—how it didn't go off like a squib was a miracle. I saw one flag gently float into a lamp, burn up and fall in flaming shreds and no one was the wiser or the worse. The faintest ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... Germans catch you with that Mauser, they will hang you. Take the Webley. Then you can always draw Service ammunition." Wagstaffe ran his eye over the rest of Bobby's outfit. "Smokes? Take your pipe and a tinder-box: you will get baccy and cigarettes to burn out there. Keep that electric torch; and your binoculars, of course. Also that small map-case: it's a good one. Also wire-cutters. You can write letters in your field-message-book. Your compass is all right. Add ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... was in flames; she had first to tear off the sleeve, which was, luckily for her, not sewn to her dress. By the time she recovered presence of mind to attend to the book, half its leaves were reduced to tinder. She did not dare then to replace what was left of the manuscript on your table; returned with it to her room, hid it, and resolved to keep her own secret. I should never have guessed it; I had never even spoken to her of the occurrence; but when ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... firing, combustible. [solid fuels] coal, wallsend^, anthracite, culm^, coke, carbon, charcoal, bituminous coal, tar shale; turf, peat, firewood, bobbing, faggot, log; cinder &c (products of combustion) 384; ingle, tinder, touchwood; sulphur, brimstone; incense; port-fire; fire-barrel, fireball, brand; amadou^, bavin^; blind coal, glance coal; German tinder, pyrotechnic sponge, punk, smudge [U.S.]; solid fueled rocket. [fuels for candles ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... structures packed in closely together were like so much tinder wood. Those who had escaped drowning died in their prisons a ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... are, I'll reap up all your false prophecies, ridiculous dreams, and idle divinations. I'll swear you are a nuisance to the neighbourhood. What a bustle did you keep against the last invisible eclipse, laying in provision as 'twere for a siege. What a world of fire and candle, matches and tinder-boxes did you purchase! One would have thought we were ever after to live under ground, or at least making a voyage to Greenland, to inhabit there all ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... things had not wholly ceased during my childhood; they were kept up in these old towns longer than elsewhere. We used tallow candles and oil lamps, and sat by open fireplaces. There was always a tinder-box in some safe corner or other, and fire was kindled by striking flint and steel upon the tinder. What magic it seemed to me, when I was first allowed to strike that wonderful spark, and light the ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... be saved from the wreck. Bales of cloth, cases of wine, a few boxes of cheese, some hams, the carcass of a milch cow that had been washed on shore, buckets, tubs, butts, a seaman's chest, (containing a tinder-box and needles and thread,) with a number of elegant mahogany turned bed-posts, and part of an investment for the India market, were got on shore. The rain poured down in torrents—all hands were busily at work to procure shelter from the weather; ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... looks it deserved the title. Never was there anything so lonesome as that endless stretch of snow reaching across the world until it cut into a cold grey sky, excepting the same desert burned to a brown tinder by ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... on me and gave me a couple of biscuits and a swig of water. He was more or less talkative, besides, and from him I learned that Daggs planned to start about midnight for your side of the island, carrying buckets of pitch and tinder, so as ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... He was indeed a holy man. Not in the memory of the oldest had a miracle such as this happened. Upon their return with wood and embers the holy man built the fire, handing a lighted torch to Kathlyn and signifying for her to touch the tinder. The spirit in Kathlyn told her that these people meant her no immediate harm, so she stepped out of the sarcophagus and applied the torch. The moment the flames began to crackle the villagers prostrated themselves again and the holy man besmeared his bony ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... Indians lighted some tinder, and threw it far off into the tall grass. The fire scorched the Buffalo Being's eyes, and injured his horns. The hard part of the horn slipped off, leaving only the softer part, so that he could ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... fully half a foot under water already, and the volume was increasing every moment. Fogg piled on the coal, which seemed to burn like tinder. Twice a great jar sent him sprawling back among the coal of the tender. The shocks were caused by great cakes of ice or stray timbers shooting down stream with the gathering flood, and ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... house is a serious matter. The old beams and boarded walls are like so much tinder, and burn up immediately, as though soaked with some inflammable liquid. I rose, and went out to see if there were anything wrong. As I opened the door which shut off the whole apartment from the stairs, I heard a strange ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... an envelope. Riles sealed, stamped, and addressed it, and a moment later the dust was rising down the trail as the cowboy bore the fatal missive to town. The die was cast; the match had been set to the tinder, and the fire must now burn through to a finish, let it ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... I am going to try it. The question is, will the Governor make good what I shall have to promise? It may be that he will. If not,—then my life will not be worth a box of tinder if I stray a league from Quebec without a guard." He looked down at the daisy on his coat. "But the maid will be safe, ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... desire, Thou tempting, consuming and treacherous fire, That catches like tinder and scorches like flame, Consigning the victim to sorrow and shame, Thy honeyest potion is wormwood and ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... necessaries. Of the inner bark is formed a kind of cloth; the wood, which is soft, smooth, and of a yellowish colour, serves for the building of boats and houses; the leaves are used for wrapping up food; some parts of the flowers are good tinder; and the juice, when boiled with cocoa-nut oil, is employed for making bird-lime, and as a cement for mending earthenware vessels. So you may guess how useful it is to the people of Jamaica, and yet it is not a native of the West Indies, but was first ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... highly inflammable heap, and when tired Mr. Sterling went home to snatch a bite of something to eat, and lazy Lem Wacker came strolling into the place, pipe in full blast, Bart had not hesitated to exercise his brief authority. A spark among that tinder pile would mean sure and swift destruction. Besides, light-fingered Lem Wacker was not to be trusted where things ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... without his cigarette-case, was longing to smoke, and hung behind for that purpose. But on applying to the Marshal, he was told that only common soldiers ever smoked in Maerchenland. With some trouble a highly flavoured pipe, a tinder-box, and a pouch containing a dried herb that appeared to be the local substitute for tobacco were procured for him. However, a very short experience convinced him that duty required him to put in an appearance ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... out among the Indians. They could be plainly seen in the red glare thrown by the burning cabin. It had been a very dry season, the rough shingles were like tinder, and the inflammable material burst quickly into great flames, lighting up the valley as far as the edge of the forest. It was an awe-inspiring and a horrible spectacle. Columns of yellow and black smoke rolled heavenward; ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... explosion. Stones and timber and iron are flying high into the air, and falling to the earth with horrible crashes. The very trees are on fire. They are crackling, and their leaves and branches are like tinder. The buildings in the Place de la Concorde reflect the flames, and every stone in them is like bright gold. Montmartre is still outside the circle of the flames; but the little wind that is blowing carries the smoke up to it, and in the clear heavens ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... attention. And two people idling in a boat get very close in thought together and come soon to know each other well. And a ruthless young man of twenty and a tempestuous woman of thirty are as the conventional tow and tinder. ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... shure as there is a God in heav'n, if you don't get Squire to consint to let me go back, there'll be mischief. There now, Miss Nora, I've spoken. You're purty, and you're swate, and 'tis you has got a tinder heart; but that won't do you no good, for I'm mad with misery. It's me bit of a cabin I want to die in, and nothing less will contint me. You may go back now, for I've said what I come to say; but it's to-morrow night I'll be here waiting for ye, and I warn ye to bring me the consint that I ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... which we passed. The stair ended in a passage; we turned down it till we found a door on the left hand. Charmion entered silently, and I followed her into a dark chamber. Being in, she barred the door and, kindling tinder to a flame, lit a hanging lamp. As the light grew strong I gazed around. The chamber was not large, and had but one casement, closely shuttered. For the rest, it was simply furnished, having white walls, some chests for garments, an ancient chair, what I took to be a tiring table, on which were ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... th' hippypotamus. He don't look to be full iv sintiment, but ye never can tell. Manny an achin' heart beats behind a cold an' sloppy exteeryor. Somewhere in sunny Africa a loving fam'ly may be waitin' fr him. Th' wallow at th' riverside is there, with th' slime an' ooze arranged be tinder paws. But he will not return. They will meet, but they will miss him, there ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... rest. Another hour, and before noon, hot and jaded, we came out upon a low bluff overhanging the river, and stopped for lunch. The guide, apparently fresh and unwearied, cut a sheet of birch bark for tinder, lit a fire as defence against mosquitos, and in sixty seconds was snoring. We were not slow in following his example, and the sun was dropping over into the west when we awoke. The guide examined the river, and informed us that our ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... Viz. Ten days Provision, Rice, Flesh, Fish, Pepper, Salt, a Bason to boil our Victuals in, two Calabasses to fetch Water, two great Tallipats for Tents, big enough to sleep under if it should rain, Jaggory and Sweet-meats, which we brought from home with us, Tobacco also and Betel, Tinder-Boxes two or three for sailing, and a Deers Skin to make us Shooes, to prevent any Thorns running into our feet as we travelled through the Woods; for our greatest Trust under God was to our feet. Our Weapons were, each man a small Axe fastned to a long Staff in our hands, and a ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... slipper, cross-embroidered, but leaden-soled; Garibaldi was fighting for liberty in "the golden South Americas"; Mazzini was yet dreaming of liberty—so was Kossuth. Russia was quietly gathering herself up for new leaps of conquest tinder her most imperial, inflexible ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... waded through the dismal marsh to the higher land, where grew the low bushes, and by the use of his tinder box kindled a light and, wrapping his boat cloak about him, sat down on a broken mast, which some storm had driven to the highest part of ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... some fish in the cove and we cooked them; and—thanks, O Lord!—how good they were! We sat up very late comparing impressions, each saying how each felt when the smoke began to show sparks and when the tinder pieces finally caught, and how each had felt when the broiled smell of the fish had begun to go abroad in the land. We told each other of all the good things we had eaten in our day, but how this surpassed them all. And ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... advanced on the trail of those ahead. This was a rather difficult task, for the lantern had been put out, and it was pitch-dark tinder the trees. More than once their steeds went into a hollow with a jounce that threatened to throw one ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... where I visited, or any great wonder that always, where two or three met together, there was I among them. But far beyond all other impulses of my heart was a leaning toward the adorable half of humankind. My heart was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other; and, as in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was various; sometimes I was received with favour, and sometimes I was mortified with a repulse. At the ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... time of distress from the very harbor he had discovered. He retired from the river full of grief and indignation. His crew murmured loudly at being shut out from a port of their own nation, where even strangers, tinder similar circumstances, would be admitted. They repined at having embarked with a commander liable to such treatment; and anticipated nothing but evil from a voyage, in which they were exposed to the dangers of the sea, and repulsed from the ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... up a different air. The dwarf muttered something unintelligible into his mustache, and grimaced hideously. Then he took from his tobacco-pouch flint, tinder, and steel, and struck fire in the proper manner; he thrust the burning tinder into his pipe, and pressed it down ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... especially American. We have yet to know of any one who really ranks as a scholar in his subject from whom students do not derive inspiration and enthusiasm. Such a one usually pays little attention to the methods of others, for the divine fire of knowledge itself does not need much of tinder to kindle the torches of others. Our greatest plea is for our teachers to be men of understanding, for then they will be found ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... Chastity is a flower so delicate that it takes but little to make it wither: the heart of man, the opportunity for temptations, the frequency of errors, and the ease with which men stumble, are as tinder and fire, which are kindled, whoever blows. Do not believe that in this regard there is any caution that is too great in the Indias. In the external encounters that may arise with alcaldes or with others, let the cura endeavor to conquer them by patience rather than by arrogance. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... fireplace where he knew the tinder-box to be kept, and then groped for and found the heap of pine knots. A moment more and the fat wood was burning brightly, casting its red light throughout the hut, and choking ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... tinder-box which he found on the mantel, he lighted a candle, and dressed himself in his old clothes, with a melancholy satisfaction. They exhaled the strong and aromatic odor of the plants and herbs of the surroundings through which Croustillac ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... the salon to fetch what he needed; he brought in a tiny and graceful Chinese tea-pot of the Rose family, which he filled with gun powder, and through the neck of which he carefully introduced a long piece of tinder, lighted it and, running, carried this infernal machine into ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... walk, however, soon put the blood in circulation, and ere long we entered a shanty where we experienced the usual hospitality of these generous folks. Here we borrowed a "smoking-bag," containing a steel, flint, and tinder. With the aid of these desiderata in the appointments of a voyageur, we had a comfortable encampment ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... 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 birds, They'll pine for grief ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... home-sick. When he strolled tinder the shady trees of the Janiculum or Sallust's gardens, he already said to himself what he would repeat later to his listeners at Hippo: "Take an African, put him in a place cool and green, and he won't stay there. He will feel he must go away and come back to his ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... a natural transition. How to get a blaze just when you want it puzzles the will sometimes hugely. Every traveller should provide himself with a good handy steel, proper flint, and unfailing tinder, because lucifers are liable to many accidents. Pliny recommended the wood of mulberry, bay-laurel, and ivy, as good material to be rubbed together in order to procure a fire; but Pliny is behind the times, and must not be trusted to make ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... by the example or conversation with wicked company:" and would therefore as often say, "That ignorance of vice was the best preservation of virtue; and that the very knowledge of wickedness was as tinder to inflame and kindle sin and keep it burning." For these reasons she endeared him to her own company, and continued with him in Oxford four years; in which time her great and harmless wit, her cheerful gravity, and her obliging behaviour, gained ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... mailin has Geordie, An' routh o' gude gowd in his kist, An' if siller comes at my wordie, His beauty I never will miss 't. Daft gowks, wha catch fire like tinder, Think love-raptures ever will burn? But wi' poortith, hearts het as a cinder, Will ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... and it was said they clenched their arguments with chink of Spanish gold. Treason and patriotism, a wild indignation at wrongs unredressed, and a wilder enthusiasm for conquest sent the blood of Kentucky to fever-heat. Passions were inflamed until it needed but a spark from a tinder to set them ablaze. ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... is a limping one, and thou art on the lame side of it. Does it not make thee a little sad to look at the pictures of the Paradiso? Thou wilt never be able there to chaffer for rags and rusty nails: the saints and angels want neither pins nor tinder; and except with San Bartolommeo, who carries his skin about in an inconvenient manner, I see no chance of thy making a bargain for second-hand clothing.' But God pardon me," added Nello, changing his tone, and crossing himself, "this light talk ill beseems a morning when Lorenzo ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... of midwives to put a piece of burnt rag to it, which we commonly call tinder; but I would rather advise them to put a little ammoniac to it, ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... Pan-at-lee found this ancient cave homelike and familiar. There was less litter within than she had found without and what there was was mostly an accumulation of dust. Beside the doorway was the niche in which wood and tinder were kept, but there remained nothing now other than mere dust. She had however saved a little pile of twigs from the debris on the porch. In a short time she had made a light by firing a bundle of twigs ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a dark and rainy evening, and as the entrances to the catacombs were not guarded in those days, it was not difficult for me to make my way unseen into their interior. I had brought with me a tinder-box and several rushlights, and as soon as I felt secure from observation from the outside I struck a light and began my operations. Then, according to a plan I had previously made, I slowly walked along the solemn passageway ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... pertinacious in vengeance. I could have shot him in the back, or the neck, or where I liked, if I had only one cap. He was within three feet of the muzzle of my rifle; but what of that when I could not get the gun to go off? After a while I thought of making some tinder paper, and then trying to 'touch off' the piece with it, but a far better plan at that moment came into my head. While I was fumbling about my bullet-pouch to get at my flint and steel, of course my fingers came into contact with the lasso, which was still hanging around my shoulders. ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... door. Suddenly, one day, there was a smell of fire: the old man rushed out. To his horror he saw that the thatch was aflame, the rotten pillars were catching fire one by one, and the rafters were burning like tinder. But, inside, the children went on amusing themselves quite happily. The distracted Father said: "I will run in and save my children. I will seize them in my strong arms, I will bear them harmless through the falling ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... fire, then taught to light the fire either in windy or calm weather. One of the leaders among the more experienced Camp Girls started a second fire for them by rubbing two sticks together. She explained that it required dry tinder for this purpose, something seldom found in ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge |
