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Alight   Listen
verb
Alight  v. i.  (past & past part. alighted, sometimes alit; pres. part. alighting)  
1.
To spring down, get down, or descend, as from on horseback or from a carriage; to dismount.
2.
To descend and settle, lodge, rest, or stop; as, a flying bird alights on a tree; snow alights on a roof.
3.
To come or chance (upon). (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Alight" Quotes from Famous Books



... Coats of a pretty little Dancing-girl, that was playing a Dryad in the Wood where Orpheus charms the Beast, caught Fire. I think 'twas the Candle fell out of the Moon-box, and so on to her Drapery; but, at all events, she was Alight, and ran about the Scene, screaming piteously. The poor little cowardly wretches her Companions all ran away in sheer terror; and as for the two Musqueteers of the Guard who stood sentry at each side of the Proscenium, one dastard ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... seas swelled up in agitation. The rivers began to run in a contrary course. The summits of mountains, O Bharata, began to split. Diverse animals began to pass by the left side of the Pandavas.[260] Darkness set in, the sun became obscure. Diverse kinds of carnivorous creatures began to alight on the field in joy. The gods, the Danavas, and the Gandharvas, O monarch, all became inspired with fear. Beholding that tremendous agitation (in nature), all began to ask one another loudly about its cause. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... squadrons attack railway positions along the Rhine, and bombard the Muehlheim and Habsheim stations; at Mannheim huge forage stores are set on fire; Garros is captured by the Germans at Ingelmunster, Belgium, after being forced to alight there; German aeroplanes drop bombs in Belfort; Germans repulse French ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... squabble that they agreed that the person to whom the most singular thing happened should be Emir. Our young traveller entered the town at this juncture, with his agreeable face and jaunty air, and all at once felt something alight upon his head, which proved to be a snow-white pigeon. Thereupon all the people began to stare, and to run after him, so that he presently reached the palace with the pigeon upon his head and all the inhabitants of the city at his heels, and before ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... out at a house near the Park. I assisted Ethel to alight, and, as her hand rested on mine, the thought crossed my mind—How sweet if this were our own home that we are about to enter!—and I glanced at her face to see whether a like thought had visited her. She maintained ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne

... him from the top of the steps, her cheeks brightly flushed, her eyes alight with interest, "I simply have to know what's beyond ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond

... lit it, he puffed a few times to get it well alight and then reached for a covered basket that Louise had noticed on a small stand under Jerry's cage. He drew from this a half-fashioned gray stocking that was evidently intended for his own foot and the needles began to click in his ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... alarmed, he was not afraid; his senses were not acute enough for fear. The heat increased; his hands were intolerably hot as if he had been in a fever, he panted; but did not perspire. A dry heat like an oven burned his blood in his veins. His head felt enlarged, and his eyes seemed alight; he could see these two globes of phosphoric light under his brows. They seemed to stand out so that he could see them. He thought his path straight, it was really curved; nor did he know that he ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... ignominious flight, feeling that it were better to face the perils of the storm without than go down to certain defeat before this relentless enemy within. These blood-thirsty villains began to probe eyelids, ears; in fact there was no part of one's anatomy where they did not alight; and unlike other members of their tribe that dwell farther north, who advance, buzz, sting and retreat these "Jersey Skeeters" knew no retreat. Hurriedly gaining the highway and cautiously proceeding there was seen broad ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... I cried, springing up after her. How queerly the inner house stood alight and silent, its guests and inmates hidden, while outside pistols and carbines flashed and cracked. I came upon Charlotte, just recrossing her chamber to leave it, with her doll in her arms. "Come!" I cried, "our line is falling back behind the house!" Her head flinched aside, a ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... leaving the battlements of St. Elmo, you alight upon the deck of our ship, which you find to be white and clean, and, as seamen say, sheer—that is to say, without break, poop, or hurricane-house—forming on each side of the line of masts a smooth, unencumbered plane the entire length of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... It has a neat, cheerful, welcoming aspect. At left a small fire glimmers on the brass andirons of a well-kept hearth. A brass kettle rests on a hob. On the shelf above the hearth candles are alight. ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay

... proceeded from some suspicion of a plan to escape. Two persons who drew near the King's carriage were very ill treated. My father-in-law was violently laid hold of by the guards, who took his sword from him. The King and his family were obliged to alight and return to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... coming up, being caught in the jam. It was night by the time the eats were ready and I left my bus in front of the church I spoke of. I'd wished myself on the officers of a battery having mess in trees back of a ruined house. When I went back to the bus, it was clean dark. But the sky was alight with gun flashes from everywhere, a continuous flicker like summer lightning with glares here and there like a sudden blaze from a factory chimney. The rumbling gun thunder was without a break, punctuated by heavier boomings; the near guns seemed an insane 4th of July. I looked in at my load ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... was a mass of struggling, writhing youths, with Jack underneath, and all piling on top of him. The last arrival, seeing little chance for effective work, took a running leap, and, landing on the apex of the pyramid, whirling about while in the air so as to alight on his back, kicked up his feet and strove to made himself as ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... too," said the young farmer, reaching for the little child and setting her down by the pump, and then helping the woman to alight. ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... received a signal of the first consul's approach. At the appointed time, Bonaparte left the Tuileries, and crossed the Rue Nicaise. His coachman was skilful enough to drive rapidly between the truck and the wall; but the match was already alight, and the carriage had scarcely reached the end of the street when the infernal machine exploded, covered the quarter of Saint-Nicaise with ruins, shaking the carriage, ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... her clothing was certainly not a mass of flames, as the more excitable members of the party afterwards declared, but the edge of her skirt and part of the table-cover in which she had been hastily wrapped were alight in a flickering, half-hearted manner. Rex flung his struggling burden on the billiard table, and for one breathless minute the work of beating out the sparks with rugs and cushions and playing on them with soda-water syphons engrossed the ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... bamboo groves from which it is generally hard to flush them, while the cover is so thick that it is impossible to shoot until they come out, though be it only for an instant, when, topping the bamboos, they alight again on the opposite side. I have spent nearly an hour in killing a brace which, although I saw perhaps twenty times, I had the greatest difficulty in getting a snap at. They also frequent pine woods and heather on the hills, and are identical in appearance ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... the ground, exhausted by his wounds. I rushed out into the hall to see whence the danger came. It was our explosion which had set alight to the dry frame-work of the door. Inside the store-room some of the boxes were already blazing. I glanced in, and as I did so my blood was turned to water by the sight of the powder barrels beyond, ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... stupefaction, that he could alight on the spot, if he pleased, otherwise he would be driven into Carlsruhe. And now they had a lingual encounter, hot against cool; but the eyes of Chummy Potts having been beaten, his arguments and reproaches were not backed by the powerful looks which are an ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the indictment of the Senior Subaltern by his wife. Nor will he. It was so sudden, rushing out of the dark, unannounced, into our dull lives. The Captains' wives stood back; but their eyes were alight, and you could see that they had already convicted and sentenced the Senior Subaltern. The Colonel seemed five years older. One Major was shading his eyes with his hand and watching the woman from underneath it. Another was chewing his moustache and smiling quietly as if he were witnessing ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... whole thing's settled. It's too late to change it now. Is this the place? We'll turn right in, shall we?" And with the words he swept up under the elaborate wooden porte-cochere, and, swinging down, flung the door open for Julia Cloud to alight. ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... both the lamps were alight and revealed a curious scene. We were huddled together in a rocky chamber, some ten feet square, and scared enough we looked; that is, except Ayesha, who was standing calmly with her arms folded, and waiting ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... invariably the aggressor. This is how they fight, or rather engage in a vulgar brawl which has in it a smack of tragedy. The osprey, with steady beat of outstretched wing, flies "squaking" from its agile enemy, who endeavours to alight on the osprey's back. Just as white-belly stretches its talons for a grip among the osprey's feathers, the osprey turns—and turns without a tremor in its long, sweeping wings—to shake hands with white-belly. For a moment the huge ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... Leila, as she brought her car to a stop and prepared to alight. "Miss Humphrey told me she thought a large part of the freshman class would be in on Friday and Saturday. I was complaining to her of how few we had landed ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... plant called LLARETTA, the root of which burns tolerably well. This precious combustible was carried back to the CASUCHA and heaped up on the hearth. It was a difficult matter to kindle it, though, and still more to keep it alight. The air was so rarefied that there was scarcely oxygen enough in it to support combustion. At least, this was the reason assigned by ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... will be of service to me," he interrupted. "I desire even that, when we shall come to Edinburgh, you should alight at my house. You have very warm friends in the Miss Grants, who will be overjoyed to have you to themselves. If you think I have been of use to you, you can thus easily repay me, and so far from losing, may reap some advantage by the way. It is not every strange young man who is presented ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Central Asia. The Mongol emperors of India also established large astronomical instruments in the chief cities of their empire. When the revival of learning took place in the West, the Europeans came to the front once more in science, and rapidly forged ahead of those who had so assiduously kept alight the lamp of ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... sidewalk one winter morning, I observed a carriage draw up before a stately mansion; a portly gentleman alight, and take from his carriage the ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... of the night scarce permitted me to see, he says, whither we were borne, but when the guard stopped and required us to alight from the carriage in which we had been placed, I perceived that we were at the steps of the temple—victims therefore in his own regions of a man, as much more savage than Aurelian, as he than a beast of the forest. We were denied the happiness of being confined in ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... fell in strangled, huddled heaps before the vengeful fire of the American planes, the Secret Agents sighed, and Maniel, his face alight with the pride of accomplishment, switched to another point along ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... Rather than alight at Gridley, and face the whole High School crowd—-for scores who had not been able to meet the expense of the trip to Tottenville would be sure to be at the station to meet the victorious team—-Bert and Bayliss rode on to the next station, then got off ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock

... the speed of the trains never exceeds twenty-five miles an hour, such little contretemps which occur from time to time do not ruffle the serenity of those concerned. Resigning myself to a delay of a few hours, I determined to alight and explore the country. But alas! I had no mosquito veiling, and to stand for a moment outside without this protection was to risk disfigurement for life. So I humbly yielded to adverse circumstances and returned to try and ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... had bowed her head, and the soft and plenteous waters of her eyes had dried like dew under the midsummer sun; yet still she closed her eyes, for her brain felt fixed and alight with a nameless awe, such as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... dark when Joyselle's cab stopped in front of it, and he, after tenderly depositing his violin-case under the little portico, assisted Brigit to alight. "They are, of course, in the kitchen," he remarked as he paid the cabby. ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... shower so severe, that it will be scarcely possible for thee to endure it and live. And the shower will be of hailstones. And after the shower, the weather will become fair; but every leaf that was upon the tree will have been carried away by the shower. Then a flight of birds will come and alight upon the tree; and in thine own country thou didst never hear a strain so sweet, as that which they will sing. And at the moment thou art most delighted with the song of the birds, thou wilt hear a murmuring and complaining coming towards thee along the ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... further incentive, but started off at full speed, to come back again directly to say that the brimstone wasn't burning. However, on giving two or three puffs with the bellows, Sam found this was not the case, for it was alight; so off they started, half wild with excitement, across the lawn, and old Sam rubbing his hands down the sides of his trousers to give vent to his intense feeling of satisfaction to think how well his device ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn

... it before him, and the chirp of their welcome to their nests was sinking into silence; but the whirring beetles were abroad. The frogs were scarcely heard from the marshes below; but the lizards and crickets vied with the young monkeys in noise, while the wood was all alight with luminous insects. Wherever a twisted fantastic cotton-tree, or a drooping wild fig, stood out from the thicket and apart, it appeared to send forth streams of green flame from every branch; so incessantly did the fireflies radiate from every ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... speaking, the Queen herself came unto the tent, riding in a chariot, having her daughter by her side. And she bade one of the attendants take out with care the caskets which she had brought for her daughter, and bade others help her daughter to alight, and herself also, and to a fourth she said that he should take the young Orestes. Then Iphigenia greeted her father, saying, "Thou hast done well to ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church

... the stars, Rachel. There is a dark casement in the heavens—a blink of the eye and the lamp is alight." ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... roused her and looking out she saw the Oaks and Ion carriages drive up, young Horace and Rosie alight from the one, Mr. Travilla and ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley

... you were going to stay in New York," Jack whispered, as he helped her to alight. "We'd get my car and whiz all around this old city until you'd know ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... hat rather gravely; but there was restrained eagerness in his manner as he helped them to alight. ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... again and called for assistance to arrest him. She wondered if the man had got up: she tried to remember if she had seen him move; she wondered if he could have been seriously hurt. She ventured out; the platform was all alight, but still quite deserted; she went to the end, and looked over, somewhat fearfully. No one was there; and then she was glad she had made herself go, and inspect, for otherwise terrible thoughts would have haunted her dreams. And ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... was with Papa and Mama, and they weren't hard like you; they said I had been married to him, and weren't unkind to me at all. It isn't every one that looks at things like you do,' 'You don't want that candle alight now Ragnhild's gone, do you?' said the Captain. 'It looks so out of place to have it burning there beside the lamp—as if it were ashamed.' 'Ashamed of me,' she says quickly. 'Oh yes, that was what you meant. But you've been to blame as well.' 'Don't misunderstand me,' he says. 'I know I've been ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun

... sir said the noble footman if you will alight I will see to your luggage there is a convayance ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford

... awaited me. I met my brother and my son, who had, it appears, preceded me. We entered the train to proceed in company to Stockerau, a place between twelve and thirteen miles off; but were obliged to alight halfway, and walk a short distance. The Embankment had given way. Luckily the weather was favourable, inasmuch as we had only a violent storm of wind. Had it rained, we should have been wetted to the ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... halt on the spot to discuss the point. The discussion was not long, and it was brought to a cheerful, demoralized end by the approach of the trolley, into which, regardless of right or wrong, we climbed with alacrity, not to alight till not only Elmira was left behind, but more weary suburbs, too, on the other side. That night, as old travellers phrase it, we lay at Waverly, on the frontier of Pennsylvania, a sad, dirty little town, grotesquely belying its romantic name, and only surpassed in squalor by the classically ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne

... he that skies are fair And coombs alight," she cried, "and fallows gay, When I have placed no sunshine in the air Or glow on ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy

... He helped me to alight, and I thanked him for his kindness, and acted as polite as a person could whose brain lay a wreck in the upper part of her head. The last word Mr. Bolster said to us wuz, as he gathered up the ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... hugged one another in an ecstasy of delight. When the first burst of joy had at last subsided the women crept one by one into the apartment where the sea-horses had been conveyed. Here they obtained blubber enough to set all their lamps alight, besides a few scraps of meat for their children and themselves. Fresh cargoes were continually arriving, the principal part being brought in by the dogs and the rest by the men, who tied a thong round their waist and dragged in a portion. Every lamp was now swimming with oil, ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... the trouble, Mrs. Courage," Steptoe informed her. "Mr. Rash 'as just gone out. Besides, I've good news for all of you." He waited for each to take an appropriate expression, Mrs. Courage determined, Jane with face eager and alight, Nettie tittering behind her hand. "Miss Walbrook, which all of us 'as dreaded, is not a-comin' to our midst. The young lydy Nettie see in the back spare-room is ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... after breakfast the barouche arrived, Mr. Crawford driving his sisters; and as everybody was ready, there was nothing to be done but for Mrs. Grant to alight and the others to take their places. The place of all places, the envied seat, the post of honour, was unappropriated. To whose happy lot was it to fall? While each of the Miss Bertrams were meditating how best, and with the most appearance of obliging the others, to secure it, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... door wide open until the candle was well alight, and then I shut them in, and walked down the ...
— The Red Room • H. G. Wells

... Indian whom the second young lady hailed as George. O. and the brunette young lady were dropped at 846 Elm Street while Cardigan and the other young lady proceeded directly to No. 38 Redwood Boulevard. After aiding the lady to alight, Cardigan talked with her a few minutes at the gate, then bade her good-night and after waiting until she had disappeared inside the front door, returned to the automobile and was driven to his home, while the chauffeur George ran the car into ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... the steady scrutinizing glance of her grey eyes, he felt the blood rioting in his heart, and for a moment his eyes were alight with dreams. Then he ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... is after?" he mused. "It is coming this way, and it seems to be getting ready to alight. Perhaps it has a nest somewhere ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... condition she was conducted to the provost's house, into which she was assisted to alight, more dead than alive, and next morning she was conveyed a prisoner to Lochleven Castle, where she was soon after compelled to resign the crown to her son, and the regency to the Earl of Murray, by whose great wisdom the Reformation was established in truth and ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... "Juliet entered the cottage by means of her latch-key. She found Miss Loach dead and the knife on the floor. You dropped it there. She came out and saw a man of my height—which you are, and of my appearance (you are not unlike me at a distance) climbing the wall into the park. He had on alight overcoat—my overcoat. Juliet thought I was the man. I did not say no. But the moment she mentioned the coat I knew it was you. You borrowed the coat from me, and returned it the other ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... so much ashamed that he tried hard to make himself more miserable, by going over all the miseries in store for him. But his thoughts would not obey him. They would take their own way, fly where they pleased, and alight where they would. And the meeting in November was the most attractive object in sight.—So easily is Hope born, when the time of her ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... characteristic of Yule to dwell with gusto on little points such as this; he prosed for a quarter of an hour, with a pause every now and then whilst he kept his pipe alight. ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... was flung aside, and Jessie, arrayed carefully in her best shirtwaist and skirt, suddenly appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were glowing with excitement and fear. But her rich coloring was alight with warmth, and the man stared in admiration. Yes, she was very good ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... army simplicity is in its proper place; but in a great city, in a palace, the Chief of the Government must attract attention in every possible way, yet still with prudence. Josephine is going to look out from Lebrun's apartments; go with her, if you like; but go to the cabinet as soon as you see me alight from my-horse." ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... of trees in the deer park not far away. There they poured the oil over her, piled faggots of wood around, and set all on fire. They fed the flames with more and more kerosene, until everything was consumed, save a few bones. Almost before the body was alight the Regent was being borne in triumph to the palace under an escort of triumphant Japanese soldiers. He at once assumed control of affairs. The King was made a prisoner in his palace. The Regent's partizans were summoned to form a Cabinet, and orders were given that all officials ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... his journey's end, to alight amid a number of minor troubles, which to a less easy tempered man would have been real annoyances. He found that Deyverdun had reckoned without his host, or rather his tenant, and that they could ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... privileged race in Europe, belonging generally to the south of France, although produced in all lands. They travelled over Europe singing the lays which they themselves had composed, and were treated with all honour at the castles where they chose to alight. It would have been considered as foul a deed to use discourtesy to a minstrel as to insult a herald. Their persons were, indeed, regarded as sacred, and the knights and barons strove to gain their good will by hospitality and ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... Tweed. Edward, as Argentine bade him, rode to Stirling, but Mowbray told him that there he would be but a captive king. He spurred south, with five hundred horse, Douglas following with sixty, so close that no Englishman might alight, but was slain or taken. Laurence de Abernethy, with eighty horse, was riding to join the English, but turned, and with Douglas, pursued them. Edward reached Dunbar, whence he took boat for Berwick. In his terror he vowed to build a college of Carmelites, students in theology. It is Oriel College ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... as good evidence for the migration of woodcocks as can be desired. We find they disappear at a certain time of the year, and appear again at a certain time of the year; and some of them, when weary in their flight, have been known to alight on the rigging of ships far out at sea.' One of the company observed, that there had been instances of some of them found in summer in Essex. JOHNSON. 'Sir, that strengthens our argument. Exceptio probat regulam. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... bodies that we formerly inhabited? The bodies will reply, "we are not dead, but still living." The souls and bodies will not be re-united; the former will live in trees during the day, and at night alight on the ground, and eat grubs, lizards, frogs, and kangaroo rats, but not vegetable food of any description. The souls are never again to die, but will remain about the size of a boy eight ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... power of observation and analysis. Self-interest with her was high, but not strong. It was, nevertheless, her guiding characteristic. Warm with the fancies of youth, pretty with the insipid prettiness of the formative period, possessed of a figure promising eventual shapeliness and an eye alight with certain native intelligence, she was a fair example of the middle American class—two generations removed from the emigrant. Books were beyond her interest—knowledge a sealed book. In the intuitive graces she was still crude. She could scarcely toss her ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... Ali acts justly." The Nawaub then inclined himself graciously to Hartley, and then turning to the Vakeel, who appeared much discomposed, "You have brought to me," he said, "words of peace,—while your masters meditated a treacherous war. It is not upon such as you that my vengeance ought to alight. But tell the Kafr [or infidel] Paupiah and his unworthy master, that Hyder Ali sees too clearly to suffer to be lost by treason the advantages he has gained by war. Hitherto I have been in the Carnatic as a mild Prince—in future ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... dazzling—alight; it was agony to comprehend her beauty in a glance. Her hair, full of a heavenly glamour, was gay against the winter ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... which is a very busy place during the nights of summer. Here, before the first of July, Purple Martins begin to collect of an evening. In companies of hundreds and thousands, they whirl about over the tops of the houses, alight in the trees, and then almost {67} immediately dash upward and away again. Not till dark do they finally settle to roost. Until late at night a great chorus of voices may be heard among the branches. The multitude increases ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson

... is shed by a late sunset through a window unvisited for a year past; it betrays the flitting of the sun into unwonted skies—a sun that takes the midsummer world in the rear, and shows his head at a sally-porte, and is about to alight on an unused horizon. So does the grey drawing, with which you have allowed the sun and your pot of rushes to adorn your room, play the stealthy game of ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... band strikes up, and Mr Punch, that model of connubial bliss, salutes his wife. Now, the people run, and push, and press round in a gaping throng, while Mr Dombey, leading Mrs Dombey by the hand, advances solemnly into the Feenix Halls. Now, the rest of the wedding party alight, and enter after them. And why does Mr Carker, passing through the people to the hall-door, think of the old woman who called to him in the Grove that morning? Or why does Florence, as she passes, think, with a tremble, of her childhood, when ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... leading to a little room under the roof, the entrance of which is visible through the open shutter. In this room a table is laid. A small Flemish luster is alight. It is a place for eating and drinking. A wooden gallery, continuing the staircase, apparently leads to other ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand

... show Bill that he did not greatly fear his smiles, the youth sprang down and offered a hand to assist his charming fellow-passenger to alight; and she, with kindly understanding, again accepted his aid—to Bill's chagrin—and they walked up the path ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... to go to assist my father, and that I ought not, on a bare apprehension, to exempt myself from it." I then went alone, abandoned to Providence, with people unknown. My weakness was so great, that I could hardly keep my seat in the coach. I was often forced to alight, on account of dangerous places in ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

... mean that?" he asked, his face alight, his eyes shining. "You will let me have the privilege, the honour? What a queen you are! You give largesse with both hands when a simple coin would have been enough. Shall I secure your tickets? When will you have your luggage ready? Is ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... avalanches roll down the different sides of the mountain—at mid-day or at night-fall—which depended upon the heat of the rays of the sun. He taught him to notice the chamois, in order to learn from them how to jump, so as to alight steadily upon the feet. If there was no resting place in the clefts of the rock for the foot, he must know how to support himself with the elbow, and be able to climb by means of the muscles of the thigh and calf, even the neck must ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen

... have yet two or three miles to go before we reach our quarters. I think we had better alight and look after ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... waited. At first he had not heard her stir; she had no doubt remained standing against the iron bedstead. But at last he detected a slight rustling, a slow, faint movement, as if amidst her preparations she also were listening, frightened perchance by the candle which was still alight. At last, after several minutes, the spring mattress creaked, and then ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... large black mule fore and aft, a groom to each mule, and a tall and exceedingly good-natured and mahogany-coloured infidel to walk by the side of the carriage, to balance it as it swayed to and fro, and to offer his back as a step to the inmates whenever they were minded to ascend or alight. These three fellows, fasting through the Ramazan, and over as rough a road, for the greater part, as ever shook mortal bones, performed their fourteen hours' walk of near forty miles with the most admirable courage, alacrity, and good-humour. They ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... swallow'd, Soon as his meal was o'er, what follow'd? Led by the Deuce, to a neighbour he went, And talk'd of my food to his heart's content: "The soup might surely have had more spice, The meat was ill-brown'd, and the wine wasn't nice." A thousand curses alight on his head! 'Tis a critic, I vow! Let the dog ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... They alight in front of the dun. They tent their steeds, and they loose the chase-hounds. They (the hounds) chase the seven deer to Rath-Cruachan, and seven foxes, and seven hares, and seven wild boars, until the youths kill them in the lawn of the dun. After that the chase-hounds dart a leap into Brei; ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy

... train came into the station he saw her standing there, tall, very pale, and, as he thought, looking even more beautiful than ever in her plain black dress. She was the only person on the platform, just as he was the only passenger to alight; but, seeing the look in her eyes, it would have been the same had there ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt

... team, and extended my hand for the purpose of assisting the lady to alight, for her husband seemed occupied with his cattle, and unable to afford her those delicate attentions which ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... time the attack without had redoubled, and Cash, mounting up to the loophole, began to operate on the besiegers with his pea-shooter. He had to guess where to shoot, for though the gas was alight in the passage, he was unable for anatomical reasons to look and shoot through the same hole at the same time. However, he had the satisfaction of feeling sure his fire was taking effect, by the ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... spirit of superior rank, who is a stranger to human nature, accidentally alight upon the earth, and take a survey of its inhabitants, what would his notions of ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... quite; ordinary stars, I think he said, only very large, and apparently blazing as though the ground was alight. He was too terrified to go close and examine, and he has never ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... whole doorway, and hemming them up in the entrance. At this moment a carriage dashed rapidly down the street, drew up at the door, and Lord Sidmouth exclaimed from within it, "Let me out—I must get out!" But another and a commanding voice replied, "You shall not alight—drive on!" and instantly the carriage bounded forward and disappeared, but not before the glass of the window nearest the speaker had been shivered to atoms by a stick or stone. In a moment afterwards, at a signal given, the mob dispersed, leaving the watchman and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... and how to get there. As it is now, the entire aim and end of the scheme is to reduce friction, worry and expense, and give the public the greatest accommodation—the best possible service—to make travel easy and life secure. Servants in uniform meet you as you alight, and answer your every question—speeding you courteously and kindly on your way. There are women to take care of women, and nurses to take care of children, and wheel chairs for such as may be infirm or lame. The intent is ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard

... me, didn't she?" And Claire's eyes were suddenly alight with the hatred of her outcast class. "Why did she get him? Why is she Mrs. van Tuiver, and I nobody? Because her father was rich, because she had power and position, while I had to scratch for myself in the world. Is that true, or isn't ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... enter upon any account of her evening's work until she felt sure that the wants of her father's inner man were satisfied; but when supper was over, and his evening pipe—the one luxury in the day he allowed himself—alight, she drew up a hassock beside his chair and prepared for what she called ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... world, in the same measure only painful recollections remained for Madame Olivier. She said that this was good enough for Arabs or for a chit like Nell, who could not be jolted any more than a fly which should alight upon a camel's hump, but not for persons dignified, and not too light, and having at the same time a certain proneness ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... greatest numbers, and where they have, in the neighbourhood of Axum, a church of their own, dedicated to their patron saint, Oun Arvel. Here there is an ever-burning lamp, and they contrive to impress a belief that this is kept alight by supernatural means. They also here keep a holy water, which is said to be a cure for those who are affected ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker

... would often fly in to see her. The first thing he would do would be to hug her. No, he would alight on the water-jug first, ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... had brought with her in a bottle and placed them neatly in a row. Then from her basket she took rolls of paper cash and paper 'shoes' and unravelled them, so that they should burn easily. She made a little bonfire, and when it was well alight she took the three bowls and poured out some of their contents before the smouldering joss-sticks. She bowed herself three times and muttered certain words. She stirred the burning paper so that the flames burned brightly. Then she emptied the bowls on the stones and again bowed ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... hand on the pipe, which Inspector Chippenfield had deposited on the table. The bowl was still warm, indicating that the pipe had recently been alight. ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... they don't want their wives to be. There is no fitness of disposition and character, no unity of ideals, no passionate surrender of the Self in devotion, no fixed purpose of duty, no harmony in tastes or outlook. Such love must come to disaster; it is like a damp squib, it is never properly alight and fades out swiftly in noisy splutters. Then, when the first desire goes, no friend but ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... a fire alight on board," he said. "I smelt the smoke. That means food, and someone ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler

... girl was moving in a wide circle inside the fringe of young beeches. Her arms were extended above her head; at regular intervals she poised and stood upon her toes, then danced more rapidly. At length, with a little fluttering movement like a swallow about to alight, she dropped on the grass, ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook

... o' grog to me any day. It makes me feel stronger than the stoutest man in the brigade. Good night, lass, or good mornin'. I must make the most o' my time. There's no sayin' how soon the next call may come. Seems to me as if people was settin' their houses alight on purpose ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne

... flow'rs with love alight, Thou bridal crown, all maids' delight, Thou art bedight With heaven's ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... carriage was turning, and heard the horses' hoofs clatter on what he imagined to be the stones of a courtyard. The carriage stopped. Pomerantseff opened the door himself, and assisted the blindfolded priest to alight. ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... Biology of Insects. Some of you may, perhaps, have watched this progress of ovipositing, as I have done, and noticed how the female moth will hover in a peculiar way over different plants, but does not alight until she comes to a plant near akin to the one she is seeking. She then alights, but remains, on tip-toe as it were, with legs outstretched and wings quivering, and soon mounts again into the air; it is only when she alights on the proper food plant that she shows unmistakably that ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein

... Commune, with red sashes and pistols stuck in them, after the fashion of the theatre. As I looked out of my cab window, longing to see more, a cheerful young woman, with a pretty, wan infant in her arms, encouraged me to alight, and a young man to whom she was talking, a clean, trim, fair young fellow, with a military look, stepped forward and saluted me. He seemed pleased at my admiration of the barricade, and having handed ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... of July 25, when the constable on duty at the head of Clarges Street, Piccadilly, was startled to see a red limousine swing into that quiet thoroughfare from the Curzon Street end, come to an abrupt halt, and a man who had every appearance of a sailor alight therefrom, fish a key from his pocket, and admit himself to a certain house. This house for more than a year had been known to be occupied only by one Captain Burbage, a retired seaman of advanced years, his elderly housekeeper, a deaf and dumb maid-of-all-work, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... all alight with smiles, and buried her nose in it. I stood looking at her, caught by her pretty ways and graceful boldness. Boy though I was, I had been right in telling her that there are many ways of beauty; here were two to start with, hers and Barbara's. She ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... is one of the most useful agents in the economy of nature for disseminating forest trees and other nuciferous and hard-seeded vegetables on which they feed. In performing this necessary duty they drop abundance of seed in their flight over fields, hedges, and by fences, where they alight to deposit them in the post holes, etc. It is remarkable what numbers of young trees rise up in fields and pastures after a wet winter and spring. These birds alone are capable in a few years' time to replant ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... one blow-pipe only, and to do this conveniently and quickly is rather an object. Now, in my arrangement I have to turn off both the gas and air from the farther system, and then put in a bit of asbestos board to prevent the nozzles being damaged by the flame or flames kept alight. As I said before, when some experience is gained, glassblowing, becomes a very simple art, and work can be done under circumstances so disadvantageous that they would entirely frustrate the efforts of ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... the carriage began to roll up the avenue, Kitty was all excitement, looking from the window, and moving her tail back and forth, then with a spring bounding to another window, where she could see them alight. If the door happened to be shut, she cried piteously until let out, when she ran quickly and jumped on Minnie's shoulder, purring as loud as she could, to ...
— Minnie's Pet Cat • Madeline Leslie

... there was much anxiety at home over their long absence. Mr. Sherwood was on the watch when the sleigh drove up, and was beside it in time to help the muffled figures alight, and anxious to hear the particulars of ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... blowing, and on the muddy streets were evident traces of a recent shower. I had no notion that the gates of Kensington Gardens were open so early; and the sensation was novel as I threaded the devious paths in morning dawn, and saw the gas still alight along the Bayswater Road. A solitary thrush was whistling his Christmas carol as I struggled over the inundated sward; presently the sun threw a few red streaks along the East, over the Abbey Tower; but, until I had passed the Serpentine Bridge, not a single ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... star again. And it was now so bright that the waxing moon seemed but a pale yellow ghost of itself, hanging huge in the sunset. In a South African City a great man had married, and the streets were alight to welcome his return with his bride. "Even the skies have illuminated," said the flatterer. Under Capricorn, two negro lovers, daring the wild beasts and evil spirits, for love of one another, crouched together in a cane brake ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... down the pipe, filled it generously, set it alight, and sat for a few minutes trying vainly to keep up a connected conversation. After he had puffed a few minutes at Geordie's pipe he laid it down, dived his hand into his trousers pocket as he made for the door. He pulled forth the money, which was ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... of Bonshrive, which is crossed by the high road." "It is a custom," adds Lord Lovat, "in the north of Scotland, for almost every gentleman to have a servant in livery, who runs before his horse, and who is always at his stirrup when he wishes to mount or to alight; and however swift any horse may be, a good runner is always able ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... anxiety not to drop the match, at once dropped it into the waste-paper basket, which was instantly alight. A stamp of the foot might have extinguished it, but this did not occur to either of the domestics. The housekeeper, who was a courageous woman, seized the basket in both hands and rushed with it to the fireplace, thereby fanning the flame ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... between them. An extra pine-knot was thrown on the fire, which, in a few minutes, rendered the candle on the table unnecessary. Stanley lit his pipe, and after drawing one or two whiffs to make sure that it would keep alight, said,—"Now, Frank, my boy, we're ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... ordeal. At last he came, very smiling, his little eyes dancing with the apologies he made for his late arrival. He insisted as usual on pouring out the Frau Professor a glass of his Moselle, and he offered a glass to Fraulein Forster. The room was very hot, for the stove had been alight all day and the windows were seldom opened. Emil blundered about, but succeeded somehow in serving everyone quickly and with order. The three old ladies sat in silence, visibly disapproving: the Frau Professor had scarcely ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... time, any one observing the cottage would have seen an old-fashioned phaeton, to which a plump old nag was hitched, driven up to the door and halted, and a man alight and enter at the gate. If the observer had been at Margaret's funeral, he would instantly have recognised the man as the Rev. Mr. Simpson's assistant, Mr. Hodges. The man walked deliberately around to the kitchen, and, ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... secure your flight, and lead the pursuers on a false trail. The king has honored you with a travelling-carriage.—At half-past eleven order horses to be put to it and leave the Alcazar. When you arrive before our palace, stop it, alight, and remain with me. Ulrich, whom everybody knows—who has not noticed the handsome, fair-haired lad in his gay clothes—will stay with the carriage and accompany it along the road towards Burgos, as far as it goes. A better decoy than he cannot be imagined, and besides he is nimble and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the court, and many attendants on foot, who came forward and assisted the guests to alight. Tancred and Fakredeen did not speak, but exchanged glances which expressed their secret thoughts. Perhaps they were of the same opinion as Baroni, that, difficult as it was to arrive there, it might not be more easy to return. However, ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... slept warm enough, although latterly, when our blankets and clothes became loaded with ice, we felt the cold severely. When our low doorway was carefully blocked up with snow, and the cooking-lamp alight, the temperature quickly rose, so that the walls became glazed and our bedding thawed; but the cooking over, or the doorway partially opened, it as quickly fell again, so that it was impossible to sleep, or even to hold one's pannikin ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... his perch, and approaching the door of the carriage, opened it, and respectfully assisted two gentlemen to alight. These gentlemen ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... rummaging in the chaise and assisting the travellers to alight, suddenly turned back and shouted in a voice as frantic and choking as though he were drowning ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... upon him, he sent an invitation to the king to visit him at his mine, assuring his majesty that if he would confer on him such an exalted favor, his majesty's feet should not tread upon the ground while he was in the New World. Wherever he should alight from his carriage it should be upon a pavement of silver, and the places where he lodged should be lined with the same precious metal. Anecdotes of this kind are innumerable, which, of course, amount to no more ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... have our way, your experience will be like that of the old lady, who was travelling on the underground railroad in London. Just as they were approaching a station, she said to a gentleman, in the compartment with her: "Will you assist me to alight at this station, sir? I am, as you see, rather stout, and I have a physical infirmity which makes it necessary for me to step out backwards, and every time I try to get out the guard bundles me back into the car, shouts 'All aboard,' shuts the door, and I have gone around this line ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... unnecessarily rigid; at the third round he shut his eyes. During the fourth his hat fell off, and he clasped his horse's neck. By the fifth he had laid his yellow head against the Black Prince's mane, and so clung anyhow till the hobby-horses stopped, when the proprietor assisted him to alight, and he sat down rather suddenly and said he ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... of the house he halted them, and sent one forward to reconnoitre, following himself with the others as quietly and noiselessly as possible. Mr. Newlington's house was all alight, but from the absence of uproar—sounds there were in plenty from the main street, where a dense throng had collected to see His Majesty go in—Mr. Wilding inferred with supreme relief that they were still in time. But the danger was not yet past. Already, perhaps, the assassins were penetrating—or ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... anguish ceaseless comes upon anguish I came, and sad at heart, my brow I frowned; She went, and oft her head to look turned round. Facing the breeze, her shadow she doth watch, Who's meet this moonlight night with her to match? The lustrous rays if they my wish but read Would soon alight upon her ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... planted across the threshold, Connell hung back, but the colonel would not so have it. The corporal of the guard, surprised at the intrusion, stepped forward to check the strangers within their gates, then as suddenly halted, his eyes alight with instant recognition and rejoicing, his hand springing up in salute, even as the cadet officers at the head of the nearest tables found their feet in instant and irresistible impulse. Up, too, sprang the first captain, at the opposite side, his first thought ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... structure not at all in agreement. What can be plainer than that the webbed feet of ducks and geese are formed for swimming? yet there are upland geese with webbed feet which rarely or never go near the water; and no one except Audubon has seen the frigate-bird, which has all its four toes webbed, alight on the surface of the sea. On the other hand grebes and coots are eminently aquatic, although their toes are only bordered by membrane. What seems plainer than that the long toes of grallatores are formed for walking over swamps and floating plants, yet the water-hen is nearly ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin

... injustice: it had been working round me. Approaching the next corner, I would hear the tattoo of its drum. Before I had gone another quarter of a mile it would be in full pursuit of me. I would jump upon a tram, and travel for miles. Then, thinking I had shaken it off, I would alight and proceed upon my walk. Five minutes later another detachment would be upon my heels. I would slink home, the Belgian Army pursuing me with its exultant tattoo. Vanquished, shamed, my insular pride for ever vanished, I would creep up into my room and close ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... boy's face, still alight with content at having reached the mountain, upon his white, blue-veined body, so pitifully frail, and marveled that a frame so weak, so tender, so peaceful, had been only now a ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain

... was to cross the British Channel, and alight as near Paris as possible, the voyagers had taken the precaution to prepare themselves with passports directed to all parts of the Continent, specifying the nature of the expedition, as in the case ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... hour or more Mandy Ann was utterly absorbed in her enchanting task. So quiet she was over it that every now and then a yellow-bird or a fly-catcher would alight upon the edge of the bateau to bounce away again with a startled and indignant twitter. The woodchuck, having eaten his carrot, curled up in the sun ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... no side-arms, and when once the English had closed, their troops were powerless. As the parties met, the company under Oxenham came into the Plaza at the double, by the eastern road, with their trumpets blowing and the firepikes alight. The Spaniards made no further fight of it. They flung their weapons down, and fled along the forest road. For a little distance the cheering sailors followed them, catching their feet in muskets and linstocks, which the troops had flung ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... steps to receive her. Not till Loupe in his best style had trotted up the road and stopped, and she had risen to throw down her reins. Then Daisy started a little. One gentleman touched his cap to her, and the other held out his hands to help her to alight. ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner

... than he is doing at this moment, I pity his publisher. Come here," he added, brusquely, dragging the young man to the angle of Rue Borgognona. "Did you see the victoria stop at No. 13, and the divine Fanny, as you call her, alight? . . . . She has entered the shop of that old rascal, Ribalta. She will not remain there long. She will come out, and she will drive away in her carriage. It is a pity she will not pass by us again. We should have had the pleasure of seeing her disappointed ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... thrown a glance at the shifting aspects of the danger, now let us alight for a moment on the cause of this dreadful outbreak. We have no separate information upon this part of the subject, but we have the results of our own vigilant observations upon laying this and that together; and so much ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... say, Miss, you will have to wait here for two hours and a half," said the guard, as he helped the young lady who had been given into his charge to alight. "I will carry your bag for you to the waiting-room. It's a slow one, too, the next train, and don't get into Seabourne until 7.10, whereas the express you have just missed would have got you ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler

... rode up to the gate-way, I perceived it slightly open, and the visage of a man peering through. In an instant afterward, this man came forth, accosted my companion by name, shook him cordially by the hand, and begged him to alight. It was Monsieur Maillard himself. He was a portly, fine-looking gentleman of the old school, with a polished manner, and a certain air of gravity, dignity, and authority which was ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... called Duchbin. Among them are about 3,000 Jews, and these Duchbin have priests in their several temples who are great wizards in all manner of witchcraft, and there are none like them in all the earth. In front of the high place of their temple there is a deep trench, where they keep a great fire alight all the year, ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela

... the king's hearth is not merely of symbolical importance, but of great practical utility, in that it is kept continually burning as the source of fire on which the individual householder may draw: hence it is the duty of the king's daughters to care for it and keep the flame perpetually alight. In Rome the temple of Vesta is the king's hearth, situated, as one would expect, in close proximity to the regia. The fire is kept continually blazing except on the 1st of March of every year, when it is allowed to go out and is ceremonially renewed. The Vestal virgins, sworn to ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey

... is alight some items become visible of the dismal super-chaos in which we are walled up,—the piece of bed-ticking fastened with two nails across the bottom of the window, because of draughts; the marble-topped chest of drawers, with ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... Christie when the mist about her was so thick she would have stumbled and fallen had not the little candle, kept alight by her own hand, showed her how far "a good deed shines in a naughty world;" and when God seemed utterly forgetful of her He sent a friend to save ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... alight with windows. Theah shall be no da'k spot in it. Windowless houses ah fo' creatuahs of a clay less fine than hers," repeating tenderly, "of less fine clay. She is a bein' created to bask in the sunshine. She shall bask in it. These windows shall be thrown wide open to the sun, upstaiahs and ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris

... a slim moon in the west above the Canon Country. The skies were softly alight, high and vaulted, ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... wild hill that gave it its name. What the moat originally was I know not. I think, now, it must have been a gravel-hill, for it was full of deep gashes, of pits and quarries, run over by briar, alight with furze-bushes. It must have been long disused, for the hedge that was set around it—to keep the cattle out, perhaps—was tall and sturdy, and grew up boldly towards the trees that studded it at intervals. There was no other entry to it except ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan

... James Branch Cabell, Edward Peple, dramatist, J.H. Whitty, biographer of Poe, and Colonel W. Gordon McCabe, soldier, historian, essayist, and local character—a gentleman upon whose shoulders such imported expressions as litterateur, bon viveur, and raconteur alight as naturally as ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... men's tempers. And he knew very well that such words as "patriotism" and "service of the sweet city" and "honorable death for a great cause" are as so many flames that will set the torch of a young man's heart alight. There was no generosity in Messer Simone, yet—and this I think is the marvel—he could guess at and count upon the generosity of others, and know that they would be ready to do in an instant what he would never do nor never dream of doing. He was ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... hour immense heat was rising from the pavement and from all the furnaces in the factories, setting alight a reflecting oven over the city and beyond the octroi wall. Out upon this very pavement, into this furnace blast, she had been tossed, alone with her little ones. As she glanced up and down the boulevard, she was seized with a dull dread that her ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... she smiled down at him, with her bright hair roughened, and the afterglow of the dance alight in her eyes and cheeks. Nevertheless, for one whirling moment, the old Adam, an Adam blissfully unaware of the existence of Eve, asserted himself in Rupert. He picked up his cap and stick without a word, and turned towards the door. There, however, he was confronted by Mrs. Carteret, tugging ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... middle-leg in prison; In circle magical conflu'd, With walls of subtile air and wind, 1145 Which none are able to break thorough, Until they're freed by head of borough. Thither arriv'd, th' advent'rous Knight And bold Squire from their steeds alight At th' outward wall, near which there stands 1150 A bastile, built to imprison hands; By strange enchantment made to fetter The lesser parts and free the greater; For though the body may creep through, The hands ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... was standing before the gate, and the gentleman, who was Margaret Hamilton's husband—a Mr. Elwyn, from the city—assisted his young wife to alight, and then followed her to the house. No answer was given to their loud ring, and as the doors and windows were all open, Margaret proposed that they should enter. They did so; and, going first into Mrs. Hamilton's sick-room, the sight of the little table full of vials, and the tumbled, empty ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes

... have fallen wholly upon Nels, who supported her on the other side. They helped her alight from the car. For a moment the white walls, the hazy red sky, the dark figures of the rebels, whirled before Madeline's eyes. She took a few steps, swaying between her escorts; then the confusion of her sight and mind passed away. It was as if she quickened with a ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... and setting alight to a bit of fire now and again, and the season keeping mild and favourable, with only light frosts in the early morning—only what could you ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... must be very strong to have all this vexation and still to be well. I was weighed the other day, and the gross weight of my large person was eight stone six! Does it not seem surprising that I can keep the lamp alight, through all this gusty weather, in so frail a lantern? And yet it ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a while. The gardens were brighter now. The stars were shining with their full radiance, and the lamps were alight, so that even their ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... the policeman, with the air of a man who has made a discovery. "What sort of a thing is that? A blazer? Was it alight?" ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed



Words linked to "Alight" :   aflare, aflame, go down, on fire, set down, land, come down, ablaze



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