"Red-hot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... light and warmth of long ago; He sees the snake-like caravan crawl O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, He can count the camels in the sun, As over the red-hot sands they pass To where, in its slender necklace of grass, The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, And with its own self like an infant played, And ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... daughters and I were observing the mountain through a very good telescope, lent us by a friend, we distinctly saw a new crater burst out at the foot of the cone in the Atrio del Cavallo, and bursts of red-hot lapilli and red smoke pouring forth in volumes. Early next morning we saw a great stream of lava pouring down to the north of the Observatory, and a column of black smoke issuing from the new craters, because there ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... and the tombs in Perugia, which his son will carve, only that they also may be so well destroyed that only a few relics remain, scattered up and down the church,—are these, also, only the iron towers, and the red-hot tombs, of ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... thrown out stones, ashes, and streams of melted rock, called lava. This lava flows down the sides of the mountain, and, being red-hot, destroys every thing with which it comes in contact. At such times, a volcano is said to ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... burnt, though, Clarence, just in case?' suggested Cecily, in all good faith; 'there's sure to be a red-hot poker ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... opening the stove door, for the elbow of the pipe was now red-hot and threatening conflagration to the thin board partition behind, which divided the little room from that of the ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... the screaming baby out to the fire, where she washed and dressed him, soothing him with many motherly little airs. Sam and Jim ran down-stairs to hover over the red-hot stove; the father came in, bringing the pail of milk, stamping his feet, his beard white with his frozen breath; then they all sat down to breakfast by candle-light, and no one would have supposed, from their conversation, that they had ever ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... lying in bed when, as he says, "suddenly a red-hot new idea came whistling down into my camp." The idea was that the time was ripe for a book that would tell the story of the Comstock-of the Nevada silver mines. It seemed to him that the person best qualified for the work was his old friend William ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... base of supplies without inflicting more than incidental hardship on civilians. And this object he attained. He cut a swath of devastation sixty miles wide all the way to Savannah. Every rail was rooted up, made red-hot, and twisted into scrap. Every road and bridge was destroyed. Every kind of surplus supplies an army could possibly need was burnt or consumed. Civilians were left with enough to keep body and soul together, but nothing to send ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... her incapacity to sink herself in any one since her husband's death, her persistent, though concealed, worship of his memory, all these things proved her vitality. Artois was right when he said that she was a force. There was something in her that was red-hot, although she was now a middle-aged woman. She needed much more than most people, because she had much more than most ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... ask myself how three vessels could have endured for nine hours so violent a shock; for when at length the flotilla entered the fort, the English cutter had foundered, the brig had been burnt by the red-hot cannon-balls, and there was left only the frigate, with her masts shivered and her sails torn, but she still remained there immovable as a rock, and so near to our line of defense that the sailors on either side could be seen and counted. Behind her, at ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... his indignation glowed red-hot. He glanced to windward where the squall already whitened the near sea and heralded its coming with a singular and dismal sound. He glanced at the steersman, and saw him clinging to the spokes with a face of a sickly blue. He saw the crew were running to their stations ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the candle, besides being larger, burned with more splendor and heat than in that species of nitrous air; and a piece of red-hot wood sparkled in it, exactly like paper dipped in a solution of nitre, and it consumed very fast; an experiment that I had never thought of trying ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... a forge and seen a blacksmith at work? It is quite exciting, I assure you, to see the flames being fanned by the bellows, and myriads of sparks flying upwards and outwards on all sides, while the blacksmith hammers the red-hot metal on the anvil and shapes it into horseshoes and other useful things ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... Cavaliers were in great strength in Western England, and the malignity of the Gloucester pin-makers seriously embarrassed them. On August 10, 1643, the siege began with a summons to surrender, which the authorities refused. Parts of the suburbs were then burned, and next morning a bombardment began, red-hot balls and heavy stones being plentifully thrown into the place, knocking the houses into sad havoc, but in no wise damping the sturdy courage of the defenders. They replied bravely with their cannon and made repeated sorties, which inflicted ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... plunge of our ground-fast barque, left no corner of the deck unsearched, and, after a half-hearted attempt to keep us going, the Mate was forced to order 'stand by.' In half-deck and fo'cas'le we gathered round the red-hot bogies, and talked happily of the voyage's end, of the pay-table, of resolves to stop there when ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... that letter out of his vest pocket for the purpose of destroying it, and it always happened that when he got up, far into the night, he picked the letter up and replaced it in his pocket. If the words of the letter had been seared across eternity with the red-hot iron of fate they could ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... beside all this,' there lie and swim in flames for ever. These words, 'Beside all this,' are terrible words indeed. I will give you the scope of them in a similitude. Set the case you should take a man, and tie him to a stake, and with red-hot pinchers, pinch off his flesh by little pieces for two or three years together, and at last, when the poor man cries out for ease and help, the tormentors answer, Nay, 'but beside all this,' you must be handled worse. We will serve you thus these twenty years together, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... placed it in the room from which the boy had been carried, laid several lumps of sulphur upon it, and then left the room. All the doors of the other rooms were then thrown open, and a quantity of tobacco, spices, and herbs, were burnt on a red-hot iron at the foot of the stairs, until the house was filled with a dense smoke. Half an hour later all the windows ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... me," he used to tell his friends. "The air were full o' bu'sted Injun an' a barrel o' blood an' grease went down into the ground. A dozen er so that wasn't hurt run back ercrost the medder like the devil were chasin' 'em all with a red-hot iron. I reckon it'll allus be ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... begun to see I'd woke up a pretty ugly customer, Peters. In less than ten seconds that comet was just a blazing cloud of red-hot canvas. It was piled up into the heavens clean out of sight—the old thing seemed to swell out and occupy all space; the sulphur smoke from the furnaces—oh, well, nobody can describe the way it rolled and tumbled ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... wound with a red-hot wire, or darning needle, instead of cutting, but the treatment is less effective and more painful. Rambaud forbids burning. As to the general condition: if stupor is a prominent symptom the patient must be made to move about and exercise ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... spring where the embers of a fire at which the scholars were accustomed to warm their lunch, were still smouldering. The tow-headed one drew from the corner of the fence a turtle which he had captured and tied, scooped a red-hot coal from the fire with a piece of board and placed it ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... aware of my true business. He is a man of fifty, strong, active, with iron-gray hair, great bunched black eyebrows, the step of a deer and the air of an emperor—a fierce, masterful man, with a red-hot spirit behind his parchment face. He is either a foreigner or has lived long in the tropics, for he is yellow and sapless, but tough as whipcord. His friend and secretary, Mr. Lucas, is undoubtedly a foreigner, ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... flame crawl up my breast; Huge monsters glare upon me, some with horns, And some with hoofs that blaze like pitchy brands; Great trunks have some, and some are hung with beads. Here serpents dash their stings into my face, All tipped with fire; and there a wild bird drives His red-hot talons in my burning scalp. Here bees and beetles buzz about my ears Like crackling coals, and frogs strut up and down Like hissing cinders; wasps and waterflies Scorch deep like melting ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... which I used to suffer have disappeared. I used to feel as though I had a band of iron across my brain which seemed to be red-hot; added to this I had heartburn and bad nights with fearful dreams; further, I was subject to severe nervous attacks which went on for months. I felt as though pegs were being driven into the sides of my head and nape of my neck, and when I felt I could not endure these agonies any longer ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... James Dicksey, a shambling lad of eighteen, took his place, his eyes rolling in abject terror, and under the evident impression that he was being tried for his life. Every answer was wrung from this frightened youth, as with red-hot pincers, and it was with the utmost difficulty anything consistent could ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... among the trees—spouted volumes of sparks into the air, like a gigantic squib, which made it quite a marvel that all the bushes in the neighbourhood were not burnt up at once—glared out red and fierce upon the rippling water, until it became, as it were, red-hot in the neighbourhood of the boats, and caused the night to become suddenly darker by contrast; the night reciprocating the compliment, as it grew later, by causing the space around the fire to glow brighter and brighter, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... straight-forward and out-spoken remarks is set forth by Mark Twain himself: 'When the musing spider steps upon the red-hot shovel, he first exhibits a wild surprise, then he shrivels up. Similar was the effect of these blistering words upon the tranquil and unsuspecting agent. I can be dreadfully rough on a person ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... quick!" said Asa in a low voice. We did so, and six more Spaniards tumbled over. Those who still kept their legs now ran off as if the soles of their shoes had been of red-hot iron. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... course, as I conceived, incombustible. 'Santissima Madre!' exclaimed the frightened superior, who stood wringing his hands and calling on all the saints in his breviary; 'you do not know of what stone it is built. All is lava; and at the first touch of the red-hot rocks now rolling down upon us, every stone in the walls will melt like wax in the furnace.' The old monk was right. We lost no time in making our escape to a neighbouring pinnacle, and from it saw the stream of molten stone roll ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... yet she knows everything. She has the history of Madame de Cintre's marriage at her fingers' ends. She has seen the lovely Claire on her knees, with loosened tresses and streaming eyes, and the rest of them standing over her with spikes and goads and red-hot irons, ready to come down on her if she refuses the tipsy duke. The simple truth is that they made a fuss about her milliner's bill or refused ...
— The American • Henry James
... jarringly over railroad bridges. A jack-knife bridge began to descend over their very heads. Over where the new bridge was being constructed men stood on slender girders high in the air, catching red-hot rivets that were being tossed them, while an automatic riveting hammer filled the air with its nerve-destroying clamor. Everywhere was bustle and confusion, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... expected that a Conservative minister would give power to men pledged to the dismemberment of the British empire, and the supporters of a measure which he has so unequivocally denounced; neither can it be supposed that any man would be such a fool as to place red-hot Repealers in the important office of stipendiary magistrate, when the wishes of the government might be thwarted and the safety of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... plain omelet with six eggs, turn it on a heated platter. Dust it with powdered sugar, and score it across the top with a red-hot poker. Dip four lumps of sugar into Jamaica rum and put them on the platter. Put over the omelet four tablespoonfuls of rum; touch a lighted match to the rum, and carry the omelet to the table, burning. Baste it with the burning rum until the ...
— Many Ways for Cooking Eggs • Mrs. S.T. Rorer
... you want," said the one Herbert, who by an ill destiny chanced to be present, "'The red-hot poker held before the Cat's nose: When the poker advances the Cat ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... the school-bell rang, and, oh dear, those biscuits were not half done! So very queer, too, for the stove-pipe was red-hot, ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... and wind. His voice was low, and deep; his manners simple and unassuming; his ready laugh and off-hand bearing indicated the born soldier; eyes mild, friendly, and full of honesty. It was only when Breathed was fighting his guns, or leading a charge, that they resembled red-hot coals, and seemed ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... know how tired I was till I got here. Gee," he said, boyishly, "that door-knob at the back of my head is red-hot! You're good to me," ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... coal gas and air without a flame, in a bundle of iron wire. The heat is sufficient to fuse the wrought iron with ease, and the glare inside the bundle of wire is painful to the eyes. The same result could be obtained by a pile of red-hot lumps of firebrick, and the same heat obtained also without a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... classed with Thomas Bailey Aldrich, nor must any other man, ancient or modern; that Aldrich was always witty, always brilliant, if there was anybody present capable of striking his flint at the right angle; that Aldrich was as sure and prompt and unfailing as the red-hot iron on the blacksmith's anvil—you had only to hit it competently to make it deliver an explosion of ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... plucked this lad from the sharks, only to hand him over to those other fiends of the Holy Office; for he is a handsome and stalwart lad, and those limbs of his were never meant to be seared with red-hot irons, and torn asunder on ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... young tailor called Labakan, who worked for a clever master in Alexandria. No one could call Labakan either stupid or lazy, for he could work extremely well and quickly—when he chose; but there was something not altogether right about him. Sometimes he would stitch away as fast as if he had a red-hot needle and a burning thread, and at other times he would sit lost in thought, and with such a queer look about him that his fellow-workmen used to say, 'Labakan has got ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... littered with lumber and odds and ends of rigging; the guns, though loaded, were not all fitted to their carriages; and the crew was untrained. As the guns had to be fired by slow matches or by loggerheads heated red-hot, and the ammunition was stored in the magazine, the frigate was totally unprepared for action. Commodore Barron, who commanded the Chesapeake, counted on putting her into fighting trim on the long voyage across ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... field beyond the town the Danes tied St. Edmund to a tree. They were determined to have a full revenge. With long whips they began to scourge his naked body. Each lash was like the touch of a red-hot iron, and left a long, bleeding wound in the bare flesh. But St. Edmund only rejoiced that, at last, he could share truly what Christ had suffered from the Roman soldiers. No cry escaped him, except now and then the ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... fires. When I done that there was a yell that might have been heard clean down to ther Hosses. Out of them cedars came a critter that I swan was the old devil him own self! He had horns, an' he had a fiery face and hands, an' he had black holes fer eyes, jest as Jeb told it, and he had a red-hot spear of iron in his hand. He run at me to stick that spear inter me. I know he was goin' to spear me and then kerry me down below fer shootin' partridges Sunday. He waren't more'n six feet of me when I poked out my old gun an' fired the second barrel right inter his face and eyes. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... eye could reach, a wide expanse of water presented itself, and the distant shores of Canada gave beauty to the scene. At Black-rock we could distinguish the sites of the British fortifications, from which in the last war red-hot cannon-balls were ejected, to the dismay of the terrified Americans, and the destruction of many ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... has thrown off his chest. But I am afraid that Plumer will spoil it. He is a holy terror when he gets on a trail. That is his great fault: you will never catch these fellows by holding on to a trail after you have been on it three days. I don't care how red-hot it may be. You run yourself stone-cold, only to find that your quarry has outlasted you. Now, after De Wet crossed the railway at Hautkraal, Plumer's obvious move was to Strydenburg. They could have pushed stuff out there to him from Hopetown. K. wants De Wet to go south-west into the loop of the ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... looking at the fire, and seeing pictures in the red-hot coals, I almost believed that I had never been away; that Mr. and Miss Murdstone were such pictures, and would vanish when the fire got low; and that there was nothing real in all that I remembered, save ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... severity of the law."[92] When an oath of abjuration had been imposed which prevented nearly all priests from registering, a Bill was passed by the Commons in 1719 for branding the letter P on the cheek of all priests, who were unregistered, with a red-hot iron. The Privy Council "disliked" this punishment, and substituted for it the loathsome measure by which safe guardians are secured for Eastern harems. The English Government could not stomach this beastly proposal; and, says Mr. Lecky,[93] unanimously ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... sworn to:—But this is an advantage not to be had by the biographer in this planet;—in the planet Mercury (belike) it may be so, if not better still for him;—for there the intense heat of the country, which is proved by computators, from its vicinity to the sun, to be more than equal to that of red-hot iron,—must, I think, long ago have vitrified the bodies of the inhabitants, (as the efficient cause) to suit them for the climate (which is the final cause;) so that betwixt them both, all the tenements of their souls, from top to bottom, may be ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... I have once more ascended Vesuvius; there was no eruption at all this time, but I witnessed the sight of a stream of red-hot liquid lava flowing slowly down the flank of the mountain. It was about two and ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... time, several opera. Walk straight to the chapel on the right of the choir ("k" in your Murray's guide). When you first get into it, you will see nothing but a modern window of glaring glass, with a red-hot cardinal in one pane—which piece of modern manufacture takes away at least seven-eighths of the light (little enough before) by which you might have seen what is worth sight. Wait patiently till you get used to the gloom. Then, guarding your eyes from ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... was spared; that barbarity had been done away with by law. He wore his black trousers, a blue shirt, and his broad-brimmed hat. Once on the seat no one passing along the road could see his shackles, but as if they were heated red-hot these symbols of shame ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... guard-rooms, alehouses; on the exchange, in the tennis court, on the mall; at banquets, at burials, christenings, or bridals; wherever and whenever human creatures met each other, there was ever to be found the fierce wrangle of Remonstrant and Contra-Remonstrant, the hissing of red-hot theological rhetoric, the pelting of hostile texts. The blacksmith's iron cooled on the anvil, the tinker dropped a kettle half mended, the broker left a bargain unclinched, the Scheveningen fisherman in his wooden shoes forgot ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... great hole in the rear wall of the cellar, and among the ruins lay shining heaps of gold—not bezants or zecchins, but wedges and bars of a strange reddish hue. They touched it warily; it was not red-hot. They filled their pouches, and others came and did likewise. The hard-riding veterans had had no opportunity to plunder for more than a year, and John had little money for himself and none for them. When Gregory came on the scene, white and shaking with rage, and somewhat damaged about the face ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... Balloons drifting about in all parts of the deep-blue Ether. His Tummy told him that some one had moved in and was giving a Chafing-Dish Party. Furthermore, a red-hot Awl had been inserted ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... he sat down there wasn't a shred of the latter's reputation left intact. The whole school was grinning uncomfortably, and the Faculty was acting as if it was sitting, individually and collectively, on seventeen great gross of red-hot pins. ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... talk about contraband of war? I'd better tell you the Chronicle's red-hot against the olive-branch merchants, so I hope you're not one of them. Say you agree with us, and I can spread you ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... began to fear that the lady correspondent had given them the wrong dope. For, although three months had passed, and they had played golf together until they were as loath to clasp a golf club as a red-hot poker, they knew no one, and no one knew them. That is, they did not know the Van Wardens; and if you lived at Scarboro and were not recognized by the Van Wardens, you were not to be found ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... was to prove, they would have seen Henry Morgan in gaol before they 'listed. Why they did not tear him piecemeal, and heave him into the sea, must remain a mystery. They contented themselves with damning him to his face for a rogue and a thief, at the same time praying that a red-hot hell might be his everlasting portion. "But Captain Morgan," says the narrative, "was deaf to all these, and many other complaints of this kind, having designed in his mind to cheat them of as much as ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... coming opposite the Water Garden, I put the helm hard down. The schooner came round with a rapid, graceful bend, and lost way just opposite the bower. Running forward, I let go the anchor, caught up the red-hot poker, applied it to the brass gun, and saluted the mountains with a bang such as had only once ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... again in camp, on p'rade, ay, an' in action, I've seen that man shut his eyes an' duck his head as you wud duck to the flicker av a bay'nit. For 'twas thin he tould me that the thought av all he'd missed came an' stud forninst him like red-hot irons. For what he'd done wid the others he was sorry, but he did not care; but this wan woman that I've tould of, by the Hilts av God she made him pay for all the others twice over! Niver did I know that a man ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... of necromancers there was also one who had in his veins the blood of the salamanders; for he made no scruple of sitting down to smoke his chibouc in a red-hot oven until his dinner was thoroughly roasted upon its floor. (*24) Another had the faculty of converting the common metals into gold, without even looking at them during the process. (*25) Another had such a delicacy of touch that he made a wire so fine as to be invisible. (*26) Another had such ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... hammer and tongs? Come in and bear a hand, an I'll give you diet and lodging, and a few pence when you earn them.' 'Never say't twice,' says the prince. 'I want nothing but to be busy.' So he took the hammer, and pounded away at the red-hot bar that the smith was turning on the anvil to make into ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... immediate interest. On such points as the history of the Zulu and kindred tribes, or the character of Chaka, the great king, or anything else that was remote she would discourse by the hour. But when we came to current events, she dried up like water on a red-hot brick. Still, Naya grew, or pretended to grow, quite attached to me. She even suggested naively that I might do worse than marry her, which she said Dingaan was quite ready to allow, as he was fond of me and thought I should be useful in ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... true robin-like impudence. They have never probably seen a fire before, and are rather puzzled by it. I heard of one which first lighted on the embers, which were covered with ashes; finding this unpleasant, he hopped on to a burning twig; this was worse, so the third time he lighted on a red-hot coal; whereat, much disgusted, he took himself off, I hope escaping with nothing but a blistered toe. They frequently come into my hut. I watched one hop in a few mornings ago, when the breakfast things were set. First he tried the bread—that was ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... he had the rabbit eaten. "I will not; I will keep it for my comrades," said the soldier. With that the little man took a hold of the pot; but if he did, the soldier took up the tongs that he was after making red-hot in the fire; and the little man made off, and the pot in his arms, and the soldier after him with the tongs. Then the little man dropped the pot; but the soldier took no notice, but followed after him till he went down a hole into the ground. Then he took ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... sullen powers below: Hear, ye taskers of the dead. 2. You that boiling cauldrons blow, You that scum the molten lead. 3. You that pinch with red-hot tongs; 1. You that drive the trembling hosts Of poor, poor ghosts, With your sharpened prongs; 2. You that thrust them off the brim; 3. You that plunge them when they swim: 1. Till they drown; Till they go On a row, Down, down, down: Ten ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... his dark enemy with prayers and tears; he prayed God but to vary his temptation. "Oh let mine enemy have power to scourge me with red-hot whips, to tear me leagues and leagues over rugged places by the hair of my head, as he has served many a holy hermit, that yet baffled him at last; to fly on me like a raging lion; to gnaw me with a serpent's fangs; any pain, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... worthless treasure, recalling all the petty crimes by which he gained it. Not a coin must he fail to reckon in his memory, nor forget a pennyworth of the sin that made up the sum, though his agony is such as if the pieces of gold, red-hot, were stamped into his naked soul. Often, while he is in torment there, he hears the steps of living men, who love the dross of earth as well as he did. May they never groan over their miserable wealth like him! Night after night, for above ...
— Other Tales and Sketches - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... now under the influence of the late reformation, and red-hot for the gospel. The brethren believe the Government wishes to destroy them. Any train of emigrants that may come through here will be attacked and destroyed. I am particularly sure they will be wiped out ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... fleet of fireships came down the tide, but was grappled by the British soldiers and towed them free of the shipping. Point Levi, on the night of the 29th was occupied, and batteries constructed, from which red-hot balls were discharged, demolishing the lower town of Quebec and injuring the upper. But the citadel and every avenue from the river to the cliff were too ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... of her? She could not ask herself. Was this to be the end of his paternal relationship to her? the beginning of a new one? She dared not lift her eyes lest he should see their terror; the blood burnt in the surface of all her fair skin, as if red-hot irons were pressed to it. And Ahmed, gazing upon her with the pure noonday light, softened by the leafy screen without pouring over her, drank in her fair Syrian beauty with delight. The pale, rose-hued silken clothing she wore harmonised with the ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... come off the plate, they put it into the red-hot crinkly paper fire in the kitchen; but it would not ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... a crowd of convicts, with shaved heads and faces disfigured by the pincers of the public executioner. At that time red-hot irons were applied to tear out the nostrils of the condemned. They were working at the fortifications of the place under the supervision of the garrison pensioners. Some carried away in wheel-barrows the rubbish that filled the ditch, others threw up the earth, while masons were examining ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... One realized the red-hot energy which underlay Holmes's phlegmatic exterior when one saw the sudden change which came over him from the moment that he entered the fatal apartment. In an instant he was tense and alert, his eyes shining, his face set, his limbs quivering with ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it! whales close to me, Wellingborough;—would my own brother believe it? I dropt the clapper as if it were red-hot, and rushed to the side; and there, dimly floating, lay four or five long, black snaky-looking shapes, only a few ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... genius here again! Oh no, 'tis the lawyer with an itching palm; and he's come to be scratched. My nails are not long enough. Let me have a pair of red-hot tongs quickly, quickly, and you shall see me act St. Dunstan, and lead the devil ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... John Menelaws, a son of him of the very same name who dealt in pelts in a shop of the Canongate, and a student of medicine in the Edinburgh University; but as the councillor had in his secret soul hankerings after the prince, and the said student, John, was a red-hot royalist, the marriage was suspended, all to the inexpressible grief of our "bonnie Annie," who would not have given her John for all the Charlies and Geordies to be found from Berwick to Lerwick. On the other hand, while Annie ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... she said, "is a great favourite of mine. For one thing, he's fastidious, though he's fortunately very far from perfect in some respects. He has a red-hot temper, which now and then ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... in Tipperary?" "How is B—— to explain his conduct sufficiently to be retained in the Commission of the Peace?" In a word, Miss Kearney, all the troublesome details by which a Ministry have to keep their own supporters in decent order, are here hinted at, if not more, and it lies with a batch of red-hot Tories to make a terrible scandal out of ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... courage, but never like this, and deep down in his soul he prayed—prayed that death might come to him first, so that he might not have to look upon the agonies of this other, whose end would be ghastly in its fearless resignation. His own suffering had become excruciating. Sharp pains darted like red-hot needles through his limbs, his back tortured him, and his head ached as though a knife had cloven the base of his skull. Still—he could breathe. By pressing his head against the post it was not difficult ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... at the same time. They both shrieked at the same time, too—for each of them felt a sharp pain, as if a red-hot needle had been run into his finger. And Buster Bumblebee felt himself falling. Then followed a crash of splintering glass. And in another moment Buster was hurrying ...
— The Tale of Buster Bumblebee • Arthur Scott Bailey
... them the only occupants of a great salon in which a hundred people might have dined with case. A brass lamp, suspended by chains from the ceiling, illumined their corner of the' centre table, and at the far end of the room a big stove bloomed red-hot all round like a magnified cherry. These preparations were scarcely needed, for the air was balmy, the windows were open, and the sky was yet full of the evening light of early summer. The voice of a stream not far away ran on with a ceaseless, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... charge tossed it in the general direction of the enemy. Another primitive cannon, with narrow neck and flared mouth, fired an iron dart. The shaft of the dart was wrapped with leather to fit tightly into the neck of the piece. A red-hot bar thrust through a vent ignited the charge. The range was about 700 yards. The bottle shape of the weapon perhaps suggested the name pot de fer (iron jug) given early cannon, and in the course of evolution the narrow neck probably enlarged until the ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... Blake was taken unawares. He dropped the paper as though it were red-hot, and the woman laughed. A moment later he was ashamed of himself. She had trapped him into a tacit admission that he was a detective. A surprised denial of acquaintance with Mr. Foyle might have ended in an apology on her part for a mistake. Well, it was ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... his time, while the monster lay insensible, and, heartening up his men, they placed the sharp end of the stake in the fire till it was heated red-hot, and some god gave them a courage beyond that which they were used to have, and the four men with difficulty bored the sharp end of the huge stake, which they had heated red-hot, right into the eye of the drunken cannibal, and Ulysses helped to thrust it ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... upwards by tree trunks and branches, on we went, until a shrill yell from L. gave us a happy excuse for a halt. He had been bitten by a "sumut api," or fire-ant, the pain of whose bite is intense, and strongly resembles the running of a red-hot needle into the flesh. "Never mind," said H., "you won't feel it in a minute." We resume the climb, and I am just beginning to be aware that very few minutes more of this work will sew me up altogether, ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... of the soul, like that of the body, may be readily distinguished from a state of insensibility; in vain do we apply a red-hot iron to a corpse; ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... his whole being; and never could the Gentiles wrest from him another word. The fury of the governor and the executioners was redoubled against him; and, not knowing how to torment him further, they applied to his most tender members bars of red-hot iron. His members burned; but he, upright and immovable, persisted in his profession of faith, as if living waters from the bosom of Christ flowed over him and refreshed him. Some days after, these infidels began again to torture him, believing ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... That he should be uncertain on the point was ridiculous. Yet, try as he would, he could not be sure. There were moments when he seemed on the very verge of settling the matter, and then some invisible person would meanly insert a red-hot corkscrew in the top of his head and begin to twist it, and this would interfere with calm thought. He was still in a state of uncertainty when Bayliss returned, bearing healing liquids ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... my lover, wrote this with a red-hot needle, he thought me brave; if he knew my conduct for three days past, he would drive his knife in my body, as this poniard is planted in this heart; and he would be right, for be has written there 'Death to Dastards' and I ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... mobility of steel is seen when the red-hot metal is plunged into water. Instantly every particle takes a new position, making it a hundredfold more hard than before it was heated. But these particles of transferred steel are still mobile. A man's razor does not cut smoothly. It is dull, or has a ragged ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... consisted of any specific device, such as an initial, a monogram, or a conventional form that might be easily recognized. The device was registered and imprinted with a red-hot iron on the flank of the animal. Ear-marks, such as notches or ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... occurrences prior to his conversion he would have sworn dreadfully, and he had to guard himself with the greatest care lest some ungodly word should escape his lips. And so when any extra cruelty in the shape of a red-hot piece of iron came too near, or a heavy weight was dropped upon his toes, he used to cry, 'Praise the Lord.' 'Old Praise the Lord' they called him, and truly he often had sufficient reason for some such exclamation. He came to the Soldiers' Fellowship Meeting one night, and told how he ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... or sign of pain escaped the tortured priest. Then Lalement was also led out, that each might witness the other's pangs. Strips of bark smeared with pitch enveloped the naked body of Lalement, and after making him fast to a stake they set the bark on fire. Round Brebeuf's neck a collar of red-hot hatchets was hung; and in mockery of baptism the savages poured kettles of scalding water upon the heads of both. Brebeuf was scalped, his tormentors drinking the blood, thus to endow themselves with his unflinching courage. ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... short-legged ponies, has gone up in flames and puff—just like that—the social battle-ground is no more. The Boxers, for everybody who does anything nowadays is a Boxer, tried to grill our official caretakers on the red-hot bricks, but the neighbouring village came to the rescue and shouted the marauders out of the place. That is the nearest danger which has been heard of. Immediately after this some Legation students, riding out on the sands under the Tartar Wall, were ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... hear that all day yesterday when the people was coming in with their notes, the chaps there were heating the guineas in a frying-pan, pretending that they were making them as fast as they could; and sure, when they had a batch red-hot they spread them out to cool; and what betune the hating and the cooling, and the burning the fingers counting them, they kept the bank open to three o'clock, and ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... (20) He forgot that no plant or vegetation springs from earth's bosom with healthy growth without the help of sunlight, whilst the influence of fire is to parch up everything, and to destroy life; and when he came to speak of the sun as being a "red-hot stone" he ignored another fact, that a stone in fire neither lights up nor lasts, whereas the sun-god abides for ever with ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... face—glaring, glowing, gigantic. Sometimes she was trying to read them, and could not, though her life depended on them. Now Mrs Rowland had got hold of them; and now they were thrown into the flames, but would not burn, and the letters grew red-hot. Then came the image of Philip; and that horror was mixed up with whatever was most ludicrous. Once she was struggling for voice to speak to him, and he mocked her useless efforts. Oh, how she struggled! till some strong arm raised her, and some other voice murmured gently ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... right; but let them be defended because they are right, not because they are typical modern movements. Let us begin with the actual woman or man in the street, who is cold; like mankind before the finding of fire. Do not let us begin with the end of the last red-hot discussion—like the end of a red hot poker. Imperialism may be right. But if it is right, it is right because England has some divine authority like Israel, or some human authority like Rome; not because we have saddled ourselves with South Africa, and don't know how to get rid ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... his. You don't? I do. I guess my say goes, this time. I ain't enjoying being sore wherever I ain't worse, but I'd go out and take another smash like we had to-day to see him wearing zebra clothes in a jail. Missing that, I'll make that pink millionaire palace red-hot and get him ruled off every race course ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... and laughter, of anticipations, hope, and the yearning for LIFE: of long-drawn-out confabs over the glowing embers of a red-hot brazier, the crimson glow shining upon faces that showed so little of aches, fears, longings, masked behind the curling smoke from screening pipes. Silence fall oft-times upon the khaki figures clustered round the genial warmth. Each ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... the mist Encircle thee, O Nose! Shorn of thy rays thou shott'st a fearful gleam 25 (The turtle quiver'd with prophetic fright) Gloomy and sullen thro' the night of steam:— So Satan's Nose when Dunstan urg'd to flight, Glowing from gripe of red-hot pincers dread Athwart the smokes of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and the south shore. Point Levi, on this shore, opposite Quebec, was fortified by the English, and siege guns were mounted there, the channel being but a mile wide; the lower town could be reached by the red-hot balls, but not the lofty citadel. After personally examining the region during the greater part of July, Wolfe decided on a double attack; one party to ford the Montmorenci, which was practicable ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... naturally, and at once, my mind turned to poor Zosimus, as I entered Frejus. His dust is laid there—I doubt not. He had wandered there—some eighteen hundred years ago, and, like me, had inhaled the sweet scent of the flowering beans, looked on the Esterel chain glowing as if red-hot in the sunshine, and had entertained, like me, kindly, affectionate thoughts of that somewhat pedantic, conceited, but eminently worthy Caius ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... a good story to tell," he expatiated; "and there must be a great deal in that. I never heard a better story for gaining sympathy—that fine old Southern aristocrat standing by the Union in a red-hot secessionist town—actually persecuted on account of it. He was persecuted, wasn't he?" he ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the wall to keep its contents dry; the heavy shovel which it takes two hands to wield; lastly, the bellows similar to those with which I used to blow out my cheeks in grandfather's house. They consist of a mighty branch of pine, hollowed throughout its length with a red-hot iron. By means of this channel, one's breath is applied, from a convenient distance, to the spot which is to be revived. With a couple of stones for supports, the master's bundle of sticks and our own logs blaze and flicker, each of us having to bring a log of wood in the morning, if he would share ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... was any end to my misery. Suddenly I stopped in the street, stamped on the pavement, and cursed loudly. What was it he called me? A "Juggins"? I would just show him what calling me a "Juggins" means. I turned round and ran back. I felt red-hot with anger. Down the street I stumbled, and fell, but I paid no heed to it, jumped up again, and ran on. But by the time I reached the railway station I had become so tired that I did not feel able to proceed all the way to the landing-stage; besides, my anger had cooled down with the ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... time, after losing its second head, had got into a red-hot passion of pain and rampant rage. It so flounced about, half on earth and partly in the air, that it was impossible to say which element it rested upon. It opened its snake-jaws to such an abominable width, that Pegasus might almost, I was going to say, have flown right down its throat, ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... 'God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,' is as much needed, as potent, as truly adapted to the complicated civilisation of this generation, as surely reaching the deepest wants of the human soul, as it was in the days when first the message poured, like a red-hot lava flood, from the utterances of Paul. Like lava it has gone cold to-day, and stiff in many places, and all the heat is out of it. That is the fault of the speaker, never of the message. It is as mighty as ever it was, and if the Christian Church would keep more closely to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... thinking of running away. The bulldog ant has a liking for the careless picnicker, whom she—the male ant, like the male bee, is not a worker—bites with a fierce energy that suggests to the victim that his flesh is being torn with red-hot pincers. I have heard it said that but for the fact that Australia is so large an island, a great proportion of its population would by this time have been lost through bounding into the surrounding sea when bitten by bulldog ants. It is wise when out for a picnic in Australia to ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... that everlasting 'so long ago!' It shows plainly enough that you don't know anything about it. You are always telling the same old story about your father with the red-hot tongs and how he came at you with them, and every time I put a red-hot heater in the iron I see him about to kill you on account of the child that died so long ago. Indeed, Roswitha, you talk about it all the time, and all there is left for you to do now ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... native of the place whom they knew to be at home and had resolved to press. Alarmed by the forcing of the door, and only too well aware of what it portended, Trim made for the stairs, where, turning upon his pursuers, he struck repeatedly and savagely at the midshipman, who headed them, with a red-hot poker which he had snatched out of the fire at the moment of his flight. He was, however, quickly overpowered, disarmed and dragged back into the lower room, where his captors threw him violently to the floor and with their hangers took effective ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... a professional hardness in surgeons, just as there is in theologians,—only much less in degree than in these last. It does not commonly improve the sympathies of a man to be in the habit of thrusting knives into his fellow-creatures and burning them with red-hot irons, any more than it improves them to hold the blinding-white cantery of Gehenna by its cool handle and score and crisp young souls with it until they are scorched into the belief of—Transubstantiation or the Immaculate Conception. And, to say the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a rope twisted tight round your head, or red-hot irons at the soles of your feet, at this very moment, if it had not been for us," I ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... Bangs," she said. "You'll roast alive if you don't. It's warm in here. Primmie forgot and left the dampers open and the stove was pretty nearly red-hot when I came in just now. Yes, take off your overcoat and cap, and those mittens, ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... wire to Dad telling him to be sure and meet Anne at the Denver Terminal at noon, on Saturday, as she would be expecting him. So now I have all my irons in the fire and they're getting red-hot, too!" ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... she removed her rich evening costume, then donning a warm flannel wrapper, she seated herself before the glowing grate, clasped her hands around her knees, and, gazing upon the bed of red-hot coals, she ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... provoked beyond measure, speedily assembled in council. Egerton, who had the most influence, from the beginning had urged milder measures, thinking to starve the enemy into submission; but Morgan, Rigby, and some others were now red-hot for mischief, smarting from ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... lay plain before them, its sandbanks grilling in the sun, and grey lines of willows marking its eyots. By this time some of the women, white with fatigue, could only cling to their saddles with their hands; while others were red-hot, their hair unrolled, and the perspiration mingled with the dust on their faces. But he who drove them had no pity for weakness in an emergency. He looked back and saw, a half-mile behind them, the glitter ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... last undergone by Captain Wright. He was then again stretched on the rack, and what is called by our regenerators the INFERNAL torments, were inflicted on him. After being pinched with red-hot irons all over his body, brandy, mixed with gunpowder, was infused in the numerous wounds and set fire to several times until nearly burned to the bones. In the convulsions, the consequence of these terrible sufferings, he is said to have bitten off a part of his tongue, though, as before, no groans ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... purchased a good deal of the stock of the relief-store. Wretched flour; miserable, adulterated stuff of tea; pork, some of it that wasn't fit to eat; and cheap butter, that every one would have been ten times better without. I went to him one day, red-hot, in a sanitary view of the business; and he preached religion to me,—his kind. 'Boyd,' said I, 'there's Keppler's saloon, your own property, paying you a good income, no doubt, in these hard times, adding to the want and misery ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... vicinity of Chiaha seem to have abounded with pearl oysters, and large numbers of beautiful pearls were obtained. The natives nearly spoiled them all by boring them through with a red-hot rod, that they might string them as bracelets. One day the Cacique presented De Soto with a string of pearls six feet in length, each pearl as large as a filbert. These gems would have been of almost priceless value but for the action of ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... poor-hearted, we—that is, McKenny and I—were in the habit of rejoicing our spirits occasionally— not in the usual way, by drinking brandy and water (though we did sometimes, when nobody knew it, indulge in a glass of beer, with the red-hot poker thrust into it), but by shouldering our guns and sallying forth to shoot the partridges, or rather grouse, which abound in the woods of Red River. On these occasions McKenny and I used to range the forest ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... with the town burning about their ears. In Beauvaisis, the King of Navarre, after having made a show of treating with their chieftain, William Karle or Callet, got possession of him, and had him beheaded, wearing a trivet of red-hot iron, says one of the chroniclers, by way of crown. He then moved upon a camp of Goodfellows assembled near Montdidier, slew three thousand of them, and dispersed the remainder. These figures are probably very much exaggerated, as nearly always happens in such accounts; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... tossed lightly through the upper window of a baker's shop, himself diving a moment later, with a slap of his wand, through the flap of the fishmonger's door, hard by. Next, as on a frozen slide, came the Clown, with red-hot poker, the Pantaloon tripping over his stick, and two Constables wreathed in strings of sausages. The Clown boxed the Pantaloon's ears; the Pantaloon passed on the buffet to the Constables, and all plunged ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... would be well for at least another day. Suddenly up gets HARCOURT; wants to know who is responsible for the design of new police buildings on Thames Embankment? Flush of pride mantles brow of MATTHEWS. This red-hot building—its gables, its roofs, its windows, its doorways, and its twisted knockers—was designed under his direction. It is his dower to London, set forth on one of its most spacious sites. What does HARCOURT want to know about it? Why is PLUNKET so studious in repudiating ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... cast their ropes, and came jumping to us with a blatting calf trailing at their ropes' end. Two men seized the little victim, threw him on his back, cut a piece out of his ear with a knife, and still held him in relentless grip while another pressed a red-hot branding-iron on his side, which sizzled and sent up blue smoke, together with an odor of burned flesh. The calves bawled piteously. There was no more emotion on the faces of the Soledad girls than was shown by the brown cowboys. ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... metaphysics: like the Jongleurs de Dieu of St. Francis. He may be said to have serenaded heaven with a guitar, and even, so to speak, tried to climb there with a rope ladder. Thus his most vivid things are the red-hot little love lyrics, or rather, little love dramas. He did one really original and admirable thing: he managed the real details of modern love affairs in verse, and love is the most realistic thing in the world. He substituted ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... crevice, so that it was difficult to breathe. High before us, bursting out of a hill at the top of the mountain, shaped like this [HW: A], the fire was pouring out, reddening the night with flames, blackening it with smoke, and spotting it with red-hot stones and cinders that fell down again in showers. At every step everybody fell, now into a hot chink, now into a bed of ashes, now over a mass of cindered iron; and the confusion in the darkness (for the smoke obscured ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... in Mr. Pepys, but it is Mr. Pepys, the promiscuous amourist; stringing his lute (God forgive him!) on a Sunday, that is the outstanding figure in the Diary. Mr. Pepys attracts us, however, in a host of other aspects—Mr. Pepys whose nose his jealous wife attacked with the red-hot tongs as he lay in bed; Mr. Pepys who always held an anniversary feast on the date on which he had been cut for the stone; Mr. Pepys who was not "troubled at it at all" as soon as he saw that the lady who had spat on him in the theatre was a pretty one; ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... masts, and the schooner was rolling gunwale under as she headed all round the compass. The atmosphere was hot and close almost to the point of suffocation; the sky, though perfectly cloudless, was thick and hazy; and the sun, as he drooped toward the horizon, glowed like a red-hot ball, whilst the vapour through which he was seen magnified him to at least three times his ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... His face and stabbing at His heart, He takes them up in His arms and kisses their infuriated brow and cheek, saying, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." The other kind of sermon I never want to preach is the one that represents God as all fire and torture and thundercloud, and with red-hot pitch-fork tossing the human race into paroxysms of infinite agony. The sermon that I am now preaching believes in a God of loving, kindly warning, the God of spring and winter, the God of the Pleiades ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... we HAD it. You're white, old man all the way through—white as cotton and our kind—never flunked once, or turned a hair. Sally took an awful shine to you. Shake! Next time I'm in New York I'll look you up and if you ever come out our way we'll open a keg o' nails, and make it red-hot for you, and don't you forget it. Here's my card, so ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... For a moment he stood facing the window. In the same instant there came the report of a rifle and the crashing of glass. A shower of shot-like particles struck his face. He heard a dull smash behind him, and then a stinging, red-hot pain shot across his arm, as if a whiplash had seared his naked flesh. He heard the shot, the crashing glass, the strike of the bullet behind him before he felt the pain—before he reeled back toward the wall. His heel caught in a rug and he fell. ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... did you flag us for?" he cried. "You, on this bum layout? Do you stand in with these 'hold-ups'? I tell you right here this thing's goin' to be just as red-hot for you as I can make it. That train was flagged without official reason," he went on with rising heat. "Get ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... deep and eighteen inches across, with a tight-fitting, convex lid. It was provided with three legs. The kail-pot, as it was called, was used for cooking pies, and was buried bodily in burning peat. As the lower peats became red-hot, they drew them from underneath, and placed them on the top. The kail-pot may still be seen on a few farms." This was ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... fire had been kindled near by. In it there was a long gun-barrel heated to a red heat. An Indian warrior, a staid, sober man, came forward with much dignity of manner, and taking the red-hot gun-barrel pressed it upon the soles of the victim's feet, and moved it slowly up his legs. The skin and flesh smoked and crackled under the terrible infliction. The agony was such that the poor boy could not refrain ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... servants, who wondered if he were going to burn his palace and his wives. King Burtal next sent for some ghee. "What is he going to do with the ghee?" said the palace servants. Then he drove a nail into the wall, rubbed his hands with the ghee, put the iron chain into the fire and drew it out red-hot; flames came from the iron. Then King Burtal hung it on the nail and pulled and pulled at the chain till he drew it off the nail, and his hands were not in the least burnt. The Ranis and palace ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... seemed to die out. Ten seconds later his eyes looked cold, and I'm sure I'm not lying—calm. Only he was terribly pale. Of course I don't know what was passing within the man, I saw only his exterior. It seems to me that if a man should snatch up a bar of red-hot iron and hold it tight in his hand to test his fortitude, and after struggling for ten seconds with insufferable pain end by overcoming it, such a man would, I fancy, go through something like what Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch was enduring during those ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... trot. The jolting was horrible, but within an hour I began to have in my dead right hand a strange burning, which was rather a relief to me. It increased as the sun rose and the day grew warm, until I felt as if the hand was caught and pinched in a red-hot vice. Then in my agony I begged my guard for water to wet it with, but for some reason they desired silence, and at every noise threatened me with a revolver. At length the pain became absolutely unendurable, and I grew what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... Heerbrand; "that fellow, that Archivarius, is a cursed Salamander, and strikes you fiery snips from his fingers, which burn holes in your surtout like red-hot tinder. Ay, ay, thou art in the right, brotherkin Anselmus; and whoever says No, is saying No to me!" And at these words Registrator Heerbrand struck the table with his fist, till the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... Apalachicola and had terrorized the country for miles around. The Spanish commander at Pensacola was summoned to destroy this pirates' nest and to disperse the marauders; but he was either unable or unwilling to do so, and in 1816 a red-hot shot from a United States gunboat blew up the magazine of the negro fort, killing nearly three hundred men, women, and children. Early in 1818, in equally summary fashion troops of the United States expelled a band of ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... easily heated, while his knowledge was apt to be very imperfect. But now and again, and notably towards the close of his life, he got himself mixed up in politics, and I need hardly say that it was always on the Tory, and generally on the red-hot Tory, side. His first hasty intervention in politics was the song I have just referred to on Lord Melville's acquittal, during the short Whig administration of 1806. In fact Scott's comparative abstinence from politics was due, I believe, chiefly to ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... the fury of this powerful agent, which was justly denominated by the Greeks the liquid, or the maritime, fire. For the annoyance of the enemy, it was employed with equal effect, by sea and land, in battles or in sieges. It was either poured from the rampart in large boilers, or launched in red-hot balls of stone and iron, or darted in arrows and javelins, twisted round with flax and tow, which had deeply imbibed the inflammable oil; sometimes it was deposited in fire-ships, the victims and instruments ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... station. He was a few minutes late, and saw Jim's tall, rather elegant figure stalking down the station path. Jim had been an officer in the regular army, and still spent hours with his tailor. But instead of being a soldier he was a sort of socialist, and a red-hot revolutionary of a ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... and his brow was black. He had had a bad day of it. Everything had gone wrong with him and his affairs. A large lump of his adherents had sloughed off from his party and had affiliated with his opponents, and the evening opposition paper had come out with a red-hot article condemning the administration for reckless extravagance. It had especially condemned Dugan for burdening the city with new bonds to create an unneeded park, and the whole thing had ended with a screech of ironic laughter over the—so the editor called it—fitting capstone of the whole ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler
... was I when I reached the other bank. Now for a better country. Vain presage! Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage— ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... was sacrificed. But the time of our vengeance was at hand! As soon as he had finished his horrible repast he lay down to sleep as before, and when we heard him begin to snore I, and nine of the boldest of my comrades, rose softly, and took each a spit, which we made red-hot in the fire, and then at a given signal we plunged it with one accord into the giant's eye, completely blinding him. Uttering a terrible cry, he sprang to his feet clutching in all directions to try to seize one of us, but ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... getting something in her eye. It hurt very much indeed, and it felt something like a red-hot spark—only it seemed to have legs as well, and wings like a fly. Effie rubbed and cried—not real crying, but the kind your eye does all by itself without your being miserable inside your mind—and then she went to her father to have the thing in her eye ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... then the wind dispersed them as if lifting a veil, revealing a glimpse of the crater. At the bottom of the ravine stood a great cone, from the mouth of which poured dense clouds of smoke, and between the smoke could be seen fire, as if the interior of the cone were a red-hot furnace. Sometimes the vapors were shadowy as gray phantoms, sometimes glowing red with the reflection of the fire within, and as they whirled round the dim ravine loud explosions broke the silence. The view was as fleeting and evanescent as a landscape ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... windmill, the old ruin, when The noon's beams burn like red-hot iron bars, A laden sleep draws with its heavy breath All weary skippers and all mariners: The harpoons creak not in the hand's hard clasp; The fish alone stir in the realm of dew; The calm lagoon about is all agleam, A shield of silver, plaited with ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... great, wide steel grate here, and a great glowing fire—a glowing fire—with beds of red-hot coal and lots of little dancing, flickering flames. Suppose there was a soft, deep rug, and this was a comfortable chair, all cushions and crimson velvet; and suppose I had a crimson velvet frock on, and a deep lace collar, like a child in ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... freezing. To think of the progress of millions of years, with every continent swarming with good and enlightened men, all ending in this, and with probably no fresh start until this our planetary system has been again converted into red-hot gas. Sic transit gloria mundi, with ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... could stand this provocation no longer. He snatched a red-hot bar of iron from the forge, and rushed at his wife, crying out that he would "thrust it down her throat." Then, finding himself held back by the crowd from executing vengeance on the woman, all his anger turned upon Edward, whom he took to be a Jacobite emissary. For the news which had ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett |
