"Taper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arrises which would constitute the flutings of the Doric column. Its derivations from the Minoan and Mycenaean columns seems most improbable. There are two essential parts in the Doric column, the shaft and the capital (the Greeks did not use any base for this order). The Minoan columns taper downwards instead of upwards, an utterly unconstructional form, and though in the palace of Knossos and at Tiryns columns of this shape appear to have been used to carry lintels, the stone columns on either side of the entrance to the Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae were used ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... proportion of the clergy according to his quality, assembled without, in front of the house, to receive the corpse; and so the dead man was borne on the shoulders of his peers, with funeral pomp of taper and dirge, to the church selected by him before his death. Which rites, as the pestilence waxed in fury, were either in whole or in great part disused, and gave way to others of a novel order. For not only did no crowd ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... up to 160 pounds, all fittings 3-1/2 inches and under should be screwed. Fittings 4 inches and over should have flanged ends. Fittings for this pressure should be of cast iron and should have heavy leads and full taper threads. Flanged fittings in high pressure lines should be extra heavy, and in low pressure lines standard weight. Where possible in high pressure flanges and fittings, bolt surfaces should be spot faced to provide suitable bearing for ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... some inspiration for tragedy—for I should like to try, once for all—if I should have to give up the stage—whether I had the stuff of a tragic actress in me. And, you know, in that case, I ought to dress in black velvet, and carry a taper through dungeons, and get accustomed to storms, and gloom, and thunder ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... the twinkling taper's gleam, Her bed she seeks, of me to dream, But ere she sleeps she kneels to pray For one who loves ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... new structures for the rising town. Bright with a radiant gem his sword hung down, A mantle graceful o'er his shoulder thrown With sparkling gold and Tyrian purple shone. 330 'Twas Dido's present: thro' the blushing thread The docile gold her taper fingers led. The god accosts him.—"With uxorious care The walls of Carthage does AEneas rear, Himself forgotten and his future state? 335 But he that reigns—the pow'r who next to Fate, Roles Earth and Heav'n, ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... being the worse for wine, I knew not when going to her whither I went, so my drunkenness turned me into a by street called Syndic Street;[FN523] and the while I walked up that street behold, I caught sight of an old woman faring with a lighted taper in one hand, and in the other a folded letter.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Gaston eagerly, so soon as the door had closed behind the three, and Raymond had coaxed the dim taper into its feeble flicker — "Father, we have come to thee for counsel — for help. Father, chide us not, nor call us ingrate; but it has come to this with us — we can no longer brook this tame and idle life. We are not of the peasant stock; ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... English; "you need make no mystery of it. You wish to marry my sister-in-law. C'est un beau choix. A man like you ought to marry a tall, thin woman. You must know that I have spoken in your favor; you owe me a famous taper!" ...
— The American • Henry James
... protesting as it stamped Idly the granite? Let me glide unseen From thy proud presence: well may'st thou be queen Of all those strange and sudden deaths which damped So oft Love's torch and Hymen's taper lit For happy marriage till the maidens paled And perished on the temple-step, assailed By—what except to envy must man's wit Impute that sure implacable release Of life from warmth and joy? But ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... a superstition in the East, That Allah, written on a piece of paper, Is better unction than can come of priest, Of rolling incense, and of lighted taper: Holding, that any scrap which bears that name In any characters its front impress'd on, Shall help the finder thro' the purging flame, And give his toasted feet a place to ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... hold a relic of Buddha—some whispered a finger, some a piece of the great teacher's robe; but whatever the holy emblem, both place and shrine were surrounded with a veil of superstitious mystery and held in awe. A lonely taper burned before the shrine, dimly lighting a small opening covered with ground glass and disclosed above a written warning to all passers-by to stop and offer prayer or ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... on such an occasion decency forbade that positive orders for departure should be passed from mouth to mouth. The heads of the stables, therefore, agreed with the people who were in the King's room, that the latter should place a lighted taper near a window, and that at the instant of the King's decease one of them should ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... smirking genius, of a sudden, Extinguish life's taper, well pleas'd I'll hasten To Xenophon and Plato's musing shade And to ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... the usual vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, laid special stress upon preaching and ministry to the soul and body. After the conversion was complete, she was taken by Saint Francis and his brother, each one bearing a lighted taper, to the nearest convent, and there, in the dimly lighted chapel, the glittering garments of her high estate were laid upon the altar as she put on the sombre Franciscan garb and ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... not jam down the cover in that "movie" way common to runaways, rather she paused, glanced furtively about the gloomy place, and finally taking a candle from a very high shelf, lighted the taper, evidently for some delicate task in the way of gathering up ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... 2.20. From five to ten seconds, then, in about a hundred and sixty is the whole range of the maxima of the present race of trotting horses. The same thing is seen in the running of men. Many can run a mile in five minutes; but when one comes to the fractions below, they taper down until somewhere about 4.30 the maximum is reached. Averages of masses have been studied more than averages of maxima and minima. We know from the Registrar-General's Reports, that a certain number of children—say from one ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... out the candle, which had enabled him to do so, and, exchanging a look with Wordsworth, began to admire in silence the undulating thread of smoke which slowly arose from the expiring wick, when Crabbe put on the extinguisher. Anne laughed at the instance, and inquired if the taper was wax, and being answered in the negative, seemed to think that there was no call on Mr. Crabbe to sacrifice his sense of smell to their admiration of beautiful and evanescent forms. In two other men I should ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... eyes shot a shy-bold glance straight into his; it was as if those slim, taper fingers of hers had twanged the strings of the lyre of his nerves. "You despise all this sort of ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... you Taper into a point the ruffled ends Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid lips. My hair is fallen now: knot ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... off so easily. The mayor, Adam Stable, was removed, and Nicholas Brembre appointed in his place. A fresh election of aldermen took place,(613) and the City did penance for the recent insult to the duke's escutcheon by offering, at the king's confidential suggestion, a wax taper bearing the duke's arms in St. Paul's. Even that did not satisfy him; nay, it was adding insult to injury (he said), for such an act was an honour usually paid to one who was dead! The citizens were in despair, and doubted if anything would satisfy him, ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... little matters to this argument, the question of the possibility, value, or utility of an external revelation,—whether the truths it is to communicate be absolutely unknown till it reveals them only not known, which you confess was your own case. If your natural taper of illumination is stuck into a dark lantern, and its light only can flash upon the soul when some Mr. Newman kindly lifts up the slide for you; or if your internal oracle, like a ghost, will not speak till it is spoken to; or, like a dumb demon, awaits to find a voice, and confess ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... the former mistress of his 'prentice days, who has recorded that she never saw him look so pleasant. Arrived at the door of Notre Dame, where the clerk was awaiting him, he descended from the tumbril without assistance, took a lighted wax taper weighing two pounds in his hand, and did penance, kneeling, bareheaded and barefooted, a rope round his neck, repeating the words of the death-warrant. He then reascended the cart in the midst of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... wondering smile flickered over the old man's wrinkled countenance, like the reflection of a passing taper-flame on ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... of extraordinary dignity, sitting upright and stiff like a pagan idol, dressed in a magnificent and fantastic purple robe, with a great double ruff, like a huge collar, behind her head; a long taper waist, voluminous skirts spread all over the cushions, embroidered with curious figures and creatures. Over her shoulders, but opened in front so as to show the ropes of pearls and the blaze of jewels on the stomacher, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... being a well-shaped creature: it appears disproportioned. Its back is long and hollow; and its tail does not taper so gracefully as in some other animals of the cat kind. Its legs are short and stout; and although far from clumsy in appearance, it does not possess the graceful tournure of body so characteristic of some of its ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... At plays of Corpus Christi oft was seen, And on Palm Sunday bore his bough of green. His only pastime was to hunt the boar Through tangled thickets of the forest hoar, Or with his jingling mules to hurry down To some grand bull-fight in the neighboring town, Or in the crowd with lighted taper stand, When Jews were burned, or banished from the land. Then stirred within him a tumultuous joy; The demon whose delight is to destroy Shook him, and shouted with a trumpet tone, "Kill! kill! and let the Lord find ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... around, The ploughshare snaps in the iron ground, The Finn with face like paper And eyes like a lighted taper Hurls his rough rune At the wintry moon And ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... python, and one of enormous dimensions, as they could tell by what they saw of it, knowing that this was only a portion of the whole; at least ten feet of it were depending from the tree, while, judging by the taper of its body, and applying the ordinary rule as to serpent shape, there could not be less than ten or twelve other feet concealed among ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... the prospect of half the church with her flaring brim and flaunting feathers. The worshippers came and went, and while the monk preached and reposed a man crept dizzyingly round the cornice with a taper at the end of a long pole lighting the chandeliers, while two other men on the floor kindled the candles before the altars. As soon as their work was completed, the monk, as if he had been preaching against time, sat definitely down and left us to the rapture of the perfected splendor. The high-altar ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... watchful warrior bent his head, And shunn'd the coming stroke; Upon his taper spear it fell, And all to ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... A poor taper burns upon the toilet,—just bright enough to give the cognizance of something in woman's shape and in negligent attire scribbling near it. Thou needst not tap her on the shoulder; she need not look up and smile a welcome to the friendly ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... which led to her apartments. Esmond stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce seemed to see until she was gone; and then her image was impressed upon him, and remained forever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating, the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and her shining golden hair. He went to his own room, and to bed, where he tried to read, as his custom was; but he never knew what he was reading. And he could not get to sleep until daylight, and woke with a violent ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... and o'er the moorland Blows the wild gust high and higher, Suddenly the maiden pauses Spinning at the cabin fire, And quick from her taper fingers Falls away the flaxen thread, As some neighbor entering, whispers, "Jessie Carol lieth dead." Then, as pressing close her forehead To the window-pane, she sees Two stout men together digging Underneath the church-yard trees. And she asks in kindest accents, "Was she happy when she ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... Barons bold, In weeds of Peace high triumphs hold, 120 With store of Ladies, whose bright eies Rain influence, and judge the prise Of Wit, or Arms, while both contend To win her Grace, whom all commend. There let Hymen oft appear In Saffron robe, with Taper clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask, and antique Pageantry, Such sights as youthfull Poets dream On Summer eeves by haunted stream. 130 Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonsons learned ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... informed her, with confidence, that it was not only her boy that loved her. There were others;—or, at any rate, one other. She might be sure of one faithful heart, if she cared for that. Lizzie only smiled, and threw from her taper fingers a little paper pellet into the middle of the room,—probably with the view of showing at what value she priced the heart of which Mr. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... drives and walks I have ever enjoyed have been those taken at night. Driving out one evening from Cirencester, the road on either side was illuminated with the fairy lights of countless glow-worms. It is the female insect that is usually responsible for this wonderful green signal taper; the males seldom use it. Whereas the former is merely an apterous creeping grub, the latter is an insect provided with wings. Flying about at night, he is guided to his mate by the light she puts forth; and it ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... and feathers; while from the fatty yolk of the egg, it gets the heat and energy which enable it at length to break its shell and begin the world. It is less interesting, perhaps, but still it is interesting, to know that when a taper burns, the wax is converted into carbonic acid and water. Moreover, it is quite true that the habit of dealing with facts, which is given by the study of nature, is, as the friends of physical science praise it for being, an excellent discipline. The appeal, ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... O poplar, tall and taper, Reachest up on high; Like a preacher pointing upward— Upward to the sky. Thou, O holly, with thy berries, Gleaming redly bright, Comest, like a pleasant friend, When the dying year hath end, Comest to the Christmas ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... building, shaken over the heads of dogs, horses, and cattle, when they are ill, effect a cure; and a faithful worshipper finds relief from acute suffering by standing on one foot and holding a wax taper in his hand, during particular portions of the mass. It is common in some places to lay upon the altar, during mass, the nails of a shoe taken from a horse which has become lame, to restore the animal to soundness. Pieces of consecrated ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... white-heat,—to a point just as near the melting as can be attained without actually dropping apart,—and then passed between three sets of rollers, each of which elongates the barrel, reduces its diameter, and assists in forcing it to assume the proper size and taper. The metal by this process is firmly compacted, becoming wholly homogeneous through its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... of St. Severinus. The reader finds how the man who had secretly celebrated a heathen sacrifice was discovered by St. Severinus, because, while the tapers of the rest of the congregation were lighted miraculously from heaven, his taper alone would not light; and passes on impatiently, with regret that the biographer omits to mention what the heathen sacrifice was like. He reads how the Danube dared not rise above the mark of the cross which St. Severinus had cut upon the posts of a timber chapel; how a poor man, ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... attendants, who had charge of the baggage, to their rooms. Gabrielle caught sight of her favourite lute, and desired a page to bring it to her, that she might see if the precious instrument had been injured by the sea-voyage. As she bent over it with earnest attention, and her taper fingers ran up and down the strings, a smile, like the dawn of spring, passed over the dark countenances of Biorn and his son; and both said, with an involuntary sigh, "Ah! if you would but play on that lute, and sing to it! It would be but ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... taper and lit every gas-jet in the room. "Look around, father, you will see her everywhere." He led him first to the picture still upon his easel—Maggie, in her long, brown merino kirk dress; with linen cuffs folded back over the tight, plain sleeves! and a small, turned down linen ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... dressing-rooms, libraries, bedrooms, drawing-rooms, oratories, all crowded into the space of a hearthrug. The first night, I remember, with my books and maps about me, I wanted light; they brought me a taper, and immediately from out of the silent Desert there rushed in a flood of life unseen before. Monsters of moths, of all shapes and hues, that never before perhaps had looked upon the shining of a flame, now madly thronged into my tent, and dashed through ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... comes! The Sultan himself hath chosen this beauty for Her Majesty—she who perchance will never mount him, scorning to do aught that would make the blood flow warmer through the veins;—going daily to San Nicolo with her taper and knowing naught of pleasure in life; unless it verily pleaseth her to grieve! What availeth it to her that she ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Fleet prison to St. Paul's Cathedral. The warden of the Fleet was there, and the knight marshal, and the tipstaffs, and "all the company they could make," "with bills and glaives;" and in the midst of these armed officials, six men marching in penitential dresses, one carrying a lighted taper five pounds' weight, the others with symbolic fagots, signifying to the lookers-on the fate which their crimes had earned for them, but which this time, in mercy, was remitted. One of these was Barnes; the other five were "Stillyard men," undistinguishable ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... flask? No? Well, then, I trust that you have no objection to tobacco-smoke, to the mild balsamic odor of the Eastern tobacco. I am a little nervous, and I find my hookah an invaluable sedative." He applied a taper to the great bowl, and the smoke bubbled merrily through the rose-water. We sat all three in a semicircle, with our heads advanced, and our chins upon our hands, while the strange, jerky little fellow, with his high, shining head, puffed uneasily in ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was silent in the death-chamber. The night-taper was placed behind a screen; and the fire-light flickered with a tremulous motion on the richly-carved, antique furniture, black and polished by age, and creeping upwards, threw long, wavering shadows on the wall. Amidst ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... vision! his hour was not yet, And waking, he turn'd on his pallet of straw, And a form by his side he could never forget, By the pale misty light of a taper he saw. "'Tis I! 'tis thy Winifred!"—softly she said, "Arouse thee, and follow—be bold, never fear! There was danger abroad, but my errand has sped, I promised to save thee—and lo I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... me deep in love—put out My senses, leave me deaf and blind, Swept by the tempest of your love, A taper ...
— Love Songs • Sara Teasdale
... curiosity answer as well? And how different this from having a few social friends at a cheerful board! The usual time of setting at table, a walk, and tea bring me within the dawn of candle-light, previous to which, if not prevented by company, I resolve that, as soon as the glimmering taper supplies the place of the great luminary, I will retire to my writing table and acknowledge the letters I have received; but, when the lights are brought, I feel tired and disinclined to engage in this work, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... foolish mumming came—the carnival mumming that as a boy I had loved so well, and that, ever since I had come and stitched under my Apollo and Crispin, I had never been loth to meddle and mix in, going mad with my lit taper, like the rest, and my whistle of the Befana, and all the salt and sport of a war of wits such as old Rome has always heard in midwinter since the seven nights ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... little apart from the rest. The herd made an inclination in my direction, in which the solitary animal coincided, and this brought him within fifty yards of the spot where I stood. I profited by the opportunity, and by the aid of steel and taper, I wrote his description on the spot. I would have given a thousand dollars, Ellen, for a single shot from the rifle of one ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... is so soft, as it were made on purpose to take hearts, and handle them without hurting! These taper fingers too, and even joints so supple, that methinks I mould them as they pass through mine: nay, in my conscience, though it be nonsense to say it, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... out over the stairs, "Light up!" and Jane went round with a taper, and when the landing gas was lighted Noel turned the knob of the bath-room, and Archibald exited in his Indian red and yellow dressing-gown that he thought so much of. Of course we expected his face to be red with rage, or white with passion, or purple with mixed ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... breathing that Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o' the taper Bows toward her; and would underpeep her lids To see the enclos'd lights, now canopied Under those windows, white and azure, lac'd With ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... wiring, and stringing of the newly-disgorged wine are going on. Another flight of steps leads to the second tier of cellars, where the moisture trickles down the dank dingy walls, and save the dim light thrown out by the candles we carried, and by some other far-off flickering taper stuck in a cleft stick to direct the workmen, who with dexterous turns of their wrists give a twist to the bottles, all is darkness. On every side bottles are reposing in various attitudes, the majority in huge square piles on their sides, others in ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... his feet and snatched her into his arms. The babe cried sleepily from its mother's room. She tenderly disengaged herself, left him in the door, moved on to the child's crib, and in the dim light of the bedside taper, facing him from beyond it, soothed the little one by her ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... in women's voices. Beneath that window was a little altar, with a crucifix and two candlesticks, a holy-water stoup by the side, and there was above the little deep window a carving of the Blessed Virgin with the Holy Child, on either side a niche, one with a figure of a nun holding a taper, the other of a bishop ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... consequently need renewing frequently—their average life being not more than 60 working hours. Fig. 13 gives an outline drawing of an iron tube, with its burner and chimney fixed in position. The tube is very similar to a piece of 1/4-in. gas-barrel, closed up at one end and a taper thread (1/4-in. gas) cut on the other; in fact, gas-barrel may be used for making these tubes at home—and measure about 7 or 8 in. over all It is screwed into a firing block, which in turn is screwed ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... Miss Bordereau's room was open and I could see beyond it the faintness of a taper. There was no sound—my footstep caused no one to stir. I came further into the room; I lingered there with my lamp in my hand. I wanted to give Miss Tita a chance to come to me if she were with her aunt, as she must be. I made no noise to call her; I only waited to see ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... discerned the passing shape of Feliu, making for the beach—a broad and bearded silhouette, bending against the wind. Still the waxen Virgin smiled her Mexican smile,—but now she was only seven inches high; and her bead-glass eyes seemed to twinkle with kindliness while the flame of the last expiring taper struggled for life in the earthen socket at ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... struck two, the expiring taper rises and sinks in the socket, the watchman forgets the hour in slumber, the laborious and the happy are at rest, and nothing wakes but meditation, guilt, revelry, and despair. The drunkard once more fills the destroying bowl, the robber walks his midnight round, and the suicide lifts ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... increases in diameter the bundles become broader and broader toward the outside, and taper to a point toward the centre, appearing wedge-shaped, the inner ends projecting into the pith. The outer limits of the bundles are not nearly so distinct, and it is not easy to tell when the phloem of the bundles ends and the ground tissue of ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... into niches. Three of these were filled with statues of gigantic proportions. Their beauty was Grecian, their deformity Egyptian, their tout ensemble French. In the fourth niche the statue was veiled; it was not colossal. But then there was a taper ankle, a sandalled foot. De L'Omelette pressed his hand upon his heart, closed his eyes, raised them, and caught his ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... strumming on one of the windows that overlooked an expensive tree and lake vista of Central Park, he had wanted very suddenly and very badly to feel those fingers in his and to kiss down on them. He liked their taper and the rosy pointedness, those fingers, and the dry, neat way they had of slipping in between ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... one lit up by the miners returning from tunnel and claim. These stars were of varying brilliancy that evening, two notably so—one that eventually resolved itself into a many-candled illumination of a cabin of evident festivity; the other into a glimmering taper in the window of a silent one. They might have represented the extreme mutations of fortune in the settlement that night: the celebration of a strike by Robert Falloner, a lucky miner; and the sick-bed of Dick Lasham, an ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... and obscene jokes. They saluted one another with: 'Long live the grenadiers!' 'Long live the lancers!' and all joined in, 'Long live Louis-Napoleon!' One heard the clinking of glasses, and the crash of broken bottles. Here and there, in the shadow, women, with a taper of yellow wax or a lantern in their hands, prowled among the dead bodies, gazing at those pale faces, one after another, and seeking a son, a father, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... his red beard showing like a fire in the shine of the taper. "What is it now, Master Foy?" he asked yawning. "Are they after us ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... conquest of his son. She wedded him on condition that he would never look upon her by candlelight. The youth, like a masculine Psyche, breaks the taboo; and a drop of the wax, falling on her cheek, awakens her. It was in vain that he blew out the taper and lay down. When he awoke in the morning she was gone; but a pair of shoes with iron soles stood by the bed, with a paper directing him to seek her till the soles were worn out, and then he should find her again. ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... the taper wing— The pilgrim there his thirst assuage, The wandering minstrel sit and sing, Or muse ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... conviction of those who do not sufficiently reverence the religious society. It were to be wished, perhaps, that some of the secrets of electricity were improved enough to be piously and usefully applied to this purpose. If we beheld a shekinah, or divine presence, like the flame of a taper, on the heads of those who receive the imposition of hands, we might believe that they receive the Holy Ghost at the same time. But as we have no reason to believe what superstitious, credulous, or lying men (such as Cyprian himself was) reported formerly, ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... stuffed with pith, or hollow, fibrous, firm and tough (cartilaginous). It is often brittle and breaks easily, or it will not divide evenly in breaking. Its color and size both vary, like the cap. It may taper toward the base, or toward the apex, be even or cylindrical. Its surface may be smooth (glabrous), covered with scales (squamulose), rough (scabrous), dotted, lacerated, or be marked with a network of veins (reticulated). The base may be bulbous, or only swollen (incrassated), and ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... little in the unessential parts of it. It is this: Alfred commanded six wax tapers to be made, each 12 inches in length, and of as many ounces in weight. On these tapers he caused the inches to be regularly marked; and having found that one taper burnt just four hours, he committed them to the care of the keepers of his chapel; who, from time to time gave him notice how the hours went. But as in windy weather the tapers were more wasted—to remedy this ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... fullest moon on happy night. * Taper of waist with shape of magic might: She hath an eye whose glances quell mankind, * And ruby on her cheeks reflects his light: Enveils her hips the blackness of her hair; * Beware of curls that bite with viper-bite! Her sides are silken-soft, that while the heart ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... their ease, and the whirr of the lathe slept not; the latter was all patterns, tapes, hooks and eyes, whalebone, cuttings of muslin, poplin and paper; clouds of lining-muslin, snakes of piping; skeins, shreds; and the floor literally sown with pins, escaped from the fingers of the fair, those taper fingers so typical of the minds of their owners: or they have softness, suppleness, nimbleness, adroitness, and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... their taper Till they hail the rising sun? Who discards the garb of winter Till the ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... piled in great heaps round a kind of pyramid some sixty feet in height. Old King Carnival, in effigy, was placed at the apex of the pyramid, and the interior was filled with comestibles that would set the whole erection in a blaze as soon as a taper was applied. When the signal was given, bells pealed and trumpets sounded glad farewell to the customs of the ancient carnival. The procession set forth from San Marco on Palm Sunday (led by white-robed children with garlands on their heads), ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... said, And from his wallet drew a human hand, Shrivelled and dry and black. And fitting, as he spake, A taper in his hold, Pursued: "A murderer on the stake had died. I drove the vulture from his limbs and lopt The hand that did the murder, and drew up The tendon strings to close its grasp, And in the sun and wind Parched it, ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... written a good deal of graceful verse, and one or two pretty idyllic stories, and there were people who looked very hopefully on him as a rising light of literature. His sudden accession to wealth had almost buried the poor taper of his genius when the hands of Love triumphant took it suddenly at the time of that lazy lounge beneath the awning, and gave it a chance once more. He was meditating, as lovers will, upon his own unworthiness and the ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... Addison was not insensible to these charms, and he felt the seductive art of Cicero when he said, that "there is as much difference in apprehending a thought clothed in Cicero's language and that of a common author, as in seeing an object by the light of a taper, or by ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... good pleasure! And what is His good pleasure at this moment? To unite two souls in His service! Yea, He hath turned my desire towards you, Froeken Thelma,—even as Jacob's desire was towards Rachel! Let me see this hand." He made a furtive grab at the white taper fingers that played listlessly with the jessamine leaves on the porch, but the girl dexterously withdrew them from his clutch and moved a little further back, her face flushing proudly. "Oh, will it not come to me? Cruel hand!" and he rolled his little eyes with an absurdly sentimental air ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... firm, round figure, no angles, everything, including elbows, in curves; blooming cheeks and smooth-skinned, taper-fingered hands tanned a very honest brown,—the hands of a ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... guess, Thirteen summers, or something less: Girlish bust, but womanly air; Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair; Lips that lover has never kissed; Taper fingers and slender wrist; Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade; So they ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... the heavy old beams and high wainscoting of the walls speak of ages gone by. But so it is. The cheerful paper-hangings have the air of belonging to the old walls; and such modernisms as astral lamps, card-tables, gilded Cologne-bottles, silver taper-stands, and bronze and alabaster flower-vases do not seem at all impertinent. It is thus that an aged man may keep his heart warm for new things and new friends, and often furnish himself anew with ideas; though it would not be graceful for ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thee," said an old man who watched our coming; "tarry here and honour my roof." Another came up, shook us by the hand, his eye sparkling with kind feelings. A third took our mules by the bridles and led us to his own door, when half-a-dozen pretty girls, with flashing dark eyes and long taper fingers, insisted on undoing our leggings and ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... stringency of these three precepts is the unbroken continuity which they require. To rejoice, to pray, to give thanks, are easy when circumstances favour, as a taper burns steadily in a windless night; but to do these things always is as difficult as for the taper's flame to keep upright when all the winds are eddying round it. 'Evermore'—'without ceasing'—'in everything'—these qualifying words give the injunctions of this text their grip ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... in rapid flight, then whirl away. So do the pools and rushes, haystacks, sheep, clover in full bloom delicious to the sight and smell, corn-sheaves, cherry- orchards, apple-orchards, reapers, gleaners, hedges, gates, fields that taper off into little angular corners, cottages, gardens, now and then a church. Bang, bang! A double-barrelled Station! Now a wood, now a bridge, now a landscape, now a cutting, now a - Bang! a single-barrelled Station - there was a cricket-match somewhere with two ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... rust and dust, when it wished it, yet it did not do it; and so it came into the furnace and was re-cast as a pretty iron candlestick, in which any one might set a wax candle. It had the form of an angel, bearing a nosegay, and in the centre of the nosegay they put a wax taper and it was placed on a green writing-table; and the room was so snug and comfortable: there hung beautiful pictures—there stood many books; it was at a poet's, and everything that he wrote, unveiled itself round about: the room became a deep, dark forest,—a sun-lit meadow where the stork ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... particularly banks and finance companies. In the early 1990s, Thailand liberalized financial inflows; banks and other firms borrowed in dollars and did not hedge their positions because there was no perceived exchange rate risk. These funds financed a property boom that began to taper off in the mid-1990s. In addition, export growth - previously a key driver of the Thai economy-collapsed in 1996, resulting in growing doubts that the Bank of Thailand could maintain the baht's peg to the dollar. The Bank mounted an expensive defense of the exchange ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... general effect. There are the same precious pictures on the walls of the salon—the same great dusky fresco in the concave ceiling. The daughter is not rich, I suppose, any more than the mother. The furniture is worn and faded, and I was admitted by a solitary servant, who carried a twinkling taper before me up the great ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... horse's 'knee' thus corresponds to the middle finger in ourselves, what has become of the four other fingers or digits? We find in the places of the second and fourth digits only two slender splintlike bones, about two-thirds as long as the cannon bone, which gradually taper to their lower ends and bear no finger joints, or, as they are termed, phalanges. Sometimes, small bony or gristly nodules are to be found at the bases of these two metacarpal splints, and it is probable that these ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... on her beautiful smooth and white belly and pressed against the hair of her mount. With her long taper fingers she guided my prick—I trembled in every limb and almost felt sick with excitement—but when I felt the delicious sensation caused by the insertion of my skinned pintle between the smooth warm oily folds of the lady's ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... two barrels is emptied—I've often thought of doin' some sich matter; and, ag'in and ag'in, has Dolly and Blossom advised me to fall into the plan; but it's hard to give up old habits, all at once. If I could only taper off on a pint a day, for a year or so, I think I might come round in time. I know as well as you do, Bourdon, that sobriety is a good thing, and dissipation a bad thing; but it's hard to give up ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... Several times, as Madame Claes rested from her writing, Marguerite said: "Mother?" then she dropped as if choking; but the mother, occupied with her last thoughts, did not ask the meaning of the interrogation. At last, Madame Claes wished to seal the letter; Marguerite held the taper, turning aside her head that she might not see ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... lustre shed the heat Of bright meridian day; the heavenly mould Of that angelic form; the hands, the feet, The taper arms, the crisped locks of gold; Charms that the sweets of paradise enfold; The radiant lightning of her angel-smile, And every grace that could the sense beguile Are now a pile of ashes, deadly cold! And yet I bear to drag this cumbrous chain, That weighs my soul to ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... absorbed in a melancholy silence, Scholastique left her old wooden chair, fixed a taper on the end of a candlestick, lit it, and placed it near a small waxen Virgin, sheltered in her niche of stone. It was the family custom to kneel before this protecting Madonna of the domestic hearth, and to beg her kindly watchfulness during the coming night; but ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... or bechic arrest of the foreign body the author has given the name "audible slap;" when felt by the thumb on the trachea he calls it the "palpatory thud." These signs can be produced by no condition other than the arrest of some substance by the subglottic taper. Once heard and felt ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... the Burgomeister's sinall-ale, were growing friendly beyond all telling, when, in the light of the offertory taper, now growing beguttered and burning low, there appeared ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... down. At first she felt a little shy, and all her surroundings were so strange, the piano was so big; she touched it with her small, taper fingers, and it seemed to her that the deep, soft notes were going to overpower her. Then she looked at Miss Goring and felt uncomfortable; but she touched the notes again, and she began to forget the room, and Miss Goring, and the grand piano; and the soul of music ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... o'clock, having finished dressing, she put in order her bedroom, which formed a sort of free passage between the studio and a small dining room to the kitchen beyond. Then, going into the studio, she lit a wax taper and was in the act of touching off the brass candlesticks that lighted the room when three knocks sounded on the door and a Mr. Flanders, a broker, compact, nervously alive, well groomed, entered with the ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... anxious care, Allowed the prince to enter; took his light, (Which only glimmered in the midst of night,) Then put it out, and quickly left the room:— A little lantern to dispel the gloom, With waxen taper that emitted rays— In diff'rent countries various are ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... shrine of all within, where the darkness broods, lit at intervals by the shining of a divine light, that glimmers on the ark and touches the taper wings of the adoring angels. The contents indeed of the sacred chest are of the simplest; a withered branch, a pot of food, two slabs of grey stone, obscurely engraved. Nothing rich or rare. But those who ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... any rate, ought to have agreed. No satirist has ever struck off happier portraits of the ordinary British legislator, or been more alive to the stupefying influences of a parliamentary career. We have gone through a peaceful revolution since Disraeli first sketched Rigby and Taper and Tadpole from the life; but the influences which they embodied are still as powerful, and a parliamentary atmosphere as little propitious to the pure intellect, as ever. Coningsby, if he still survives, must have lost many illusions; ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... them into one glowing and glorious conception of the God of power, wisdom and love. But even then the heart whispers: "He is that, and infinitely more than that, even as the sun is more than the little taper man has made." But if the reason and memory, through misuse, furnish but few of the truths about God, and if the imagination has been weakened in its power, then how poor ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... mattered what or how much he had written: he had written, and of his own accord—as Carolyn made a point of from the first. There is an algebraic formula expressive of the truth that "1" is an infinitely greater number of times than "0." And a single small taper is infinitely greater in point of light and cheer than none at all. Carolyn's little world underwent illumination, and she with it. She promptly soared ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... of the third century, now wreathed and garlanded with luxuriant ivy. Beside these ruins I descended into the Catacombs by an ancient staircase, at the foot of which my guide provided me with a long twisted wax taper, calculated to last out my visit. A short distance from the entrance, I came to a vestibule surrounded with loculi or rock-hewn graves. The walls were plastered, and covered with rude inscriptions, scratched with a pointed iron instrument. These were ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... a click, I saw a door open a little way, and the small blue flame of a taper floated into the room. Then the door closed with a definite sound of shutting in. The light shone redly through protecting fingers, and upwards on to a small face. It came to a halt, and I made out the figure of a girl leaning across a table and ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... everywhere from the thick boughs of the spruce, now devising an airy settlement for some gossamer-robed doll, now adjusting far back on a stiff branch Tom's new little skates, now balancing bags of sugar-plums and candy, and now combating desperately with some contumacious taper that would turn slantwise or crosswise, or anywise but upward as a Christian taper should,—regardless of Mrs. Crowfield's gentle admonitions and suggestions, sitting up to most dissipated hours, springing out of bed suddenly to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... letter, probably for publication, passionately defending the disinterestedness of his military services, calling attention to the fact that Clay had never yet risked himself for his country, and soothing himself in defeat by this consolation: "No midnight taper burnt by me; no secret conclaves were held; no cabals entered into to persuade any one to a violation of pledges given or of instructions received. By me no plans were concerted to impair the pure principles of our republican institutions, nor to prostrate that fundamental maxim, ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... lifted the lantern now, and I was striving to touch the wax taper to the wick, with imminent danger to my ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... o'er the trackless heath, at midnight seen, No more the windows ranged in long array (Where the tall shaft and fretted arch between Thick ivy twines) the taper'd rites betray. ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... read the holy book, and extended the measuring cord, and laid the foundations on the spot which the temple was to occupy. A grand building arose; but it has been wholly demolished by the ruthless hand of time and the barbarity of conquerors. Of all its glories nothing now remains but the one taper obelisk of pink granite, which rises into the soft sleepy air above the green cornfields of Matariyeh, no longer tipped with gold, but still catching on its summit the earliest and latest sun-rays, while ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... on his humble couch with a pocket Bible open in his hand, which he seemed to study with intense meditation. His broadsword, which he had unsheathed in the first alarm at the arrival of the dragoons, lay naked across his knees, and the little taper that stood beside him upon the old chest, which served the purpose of a table, threw a partial and imperfect light upon those stern and harsh features, in which ferocity was rendered more solemn ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... richness of color, was left, untortured, to fall in the natural ringlets of infancy, and it shaded a face which was glowing with the united charms of health, youth, and artlessness; her eyes spoke volumes, but her tongue was silent; her hands were interlocked before her, and, aided by her taper form, bending forward in an attitude of expectation, gave a loveliness and an interest to her appearance, that for a moment chained her lover in silence ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... and restless. The young teacher could not wait for the late breakfast of the luxurious Grahams, and, just as the first level ray of sunshine flashed up from the east, she tied on her bonnet and noiselessly entered Cornelia's room. The heavy curtains kept it close and dark, and on the hearth a taper burned with pale, sickly light. Cornelia slept soundly; but her breathing was heavy and irregular, and the face wore a scowl, as if some severe pain had distorted it. The ivory-like arms were thrown up ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... hasty meal, she and Mr. Hazel worked for a wager. Her taper fingers went like the wind, and though she watched him, and asked questions, she never stopped plaiting. Mr. Hazel was no carpenter, he was merely Brains spurred by Necessity. He went to work and sawed off four short disks ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... one chance human body that is brought in to land, and the long spur, from which man's dancing cordage wastes by degrees, find yields its place to long, green streamers, much like those that clung to this tall, taper tree when it stood in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... out on the street, wear an English silk hat, not one of the taper crowned variety popular in the "movies." And wear it on your head, not on the back of your neck. Have your overcoat of plain black or dark blue material, for you must wear an overcoat with full dress ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... select two good 20-foot pieces, 3 inches wide and 1 1/2 inches thick, and one 10-foot long, of the same thickness and width. Plane off the bottom sides of the 10-foot strip, beginning about two feet back from each end, and taper them so the strip will be about 3/4 inch thick at the extreme ends. Lay the two 20-foot beams end to end, and under the joint thus made place the 10-foot strip, with the planed-off ends downward. The ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... opened it, took out implements for writing, and some note-paper, which emitted a faint and very peculiar perfume, as she began to write. After tracing a few hasty lines, she folded the paper, placed it carefully in an envelope, and proceeded to seal it. Taking from her pocket a singular little taper box of gold, covered with antique chasing, she lighted one of the tapers, and dropped a globule of green wax upon her note, which she carefully impressed with a tiny seal taken from another compartment ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... drove round very quick to and fro by means of a small Wheel, which may be mov'd with ones foot, serves to grind the Glass: The other Mandril is shap'd like this, but it has an even neck instead of a taper one, and runs in a Collar, that by the help of a Screw and a joynt made like M in the Figure, it can be still adjustned to the wearing or wasting neck: into the end of this Mandril is screwed a Chock N on which ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... what manner I lost my sleep during my youth. I had since that time contracted a habit of reading every night in my bed, until I found my eyes begin to grow heavy. I then extinguished my wax taper, and endeavored to slumber for a few moments, which were in general very short. The book I commonly read at night was the Bible, which, in this manner I read five or six times from the beginning to the end. This evening, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... of horizontally. The inner ends are secured in position by one or two cords extending to the center frame. The funnels are about 11 or 12 inches deep, and therefore extend about halfway to the center of the pot. They taper rapidly and form a strongly inclined plane, up which the lobsters must climb in their search for the bait. A two-strand manila twine is most commonly used for the funnels. Cotton is also used, but is more expensive and ...
— The Lobster Fishery of Maine - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Vol. 19, Pages 241-265, 1899 • John N. Cobb
... hence the erroneous names tiger and hyaena, given to it by the early settlers. The muzzle is rather elongated, the ears short and erect, and the pupils elliptical, corresponding with its leaping, predaceous habits; if it had the characteristic brush instead of a long taper tail, its figure would bear a considerable resemblance to that of the fox. The female is much smaller, but more active and supple in its movements than the male. They prey upon kangaroos, opossums, bandicoots, and other ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... that find it. The still small voice is surely to be found there, if any where. A sounding board is merely there for ceremony. It is secure from earthquakes, not more from sanctity than size, for 'twould feel a mountain thrown upon it no more than a taper-worm would. Go and see, but not ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... how he had found his way from the hall to his lodging. Neither he nor Rex spoke during the quarter of an hour they employed in reaching the street door, but Rex's arm was aching with the effort of sustaining and directing his companion. He lit a taper and prepared to help him up the stairs. But the sight of the familiar entrance recalled Greif to himself and dissipated the first stupor of his grief. He ascended the steps firmly, though he went like a man overcome with fatigue, to whom every movement is difficult. Still ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... town of the nameless name, To the marching troops in the street she came, And she held high her boy like a taper ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... he awoke it was dark outside, but on the table by his cot was a lighted taper and a dish of fruit. He ate of the fine grapes and pears, then rose and opened his door. In the small room beyond a young priest was seated at a table, bending over a large leaf of parchment, ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... was carrying the young man up-stairs, Mrs. Sandford put on a shawl, and, by the time he had reached the second flight, she opened a door, and lighted the gas with a taper, saying,— ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... are caught in the incandescent wax of a taper, Rouget rapidly dissipated his remaining strength. In presence of that decay, the nephew remained as cold and impassible as the diplomatists of 1814 during ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... of quitting the house he remembered that something was written on the fan that held the flowers. It was already twilight, and he asked Koremitz to bring a taper, that he might see to read it. It seemed to him as if the fragrance of some fair hand that had used it still remained, and on it was written ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... hoping that some chance exclamation, or even perhaps an answer, might give her curiosity the food it longed for. But Margaret read and reread the note, and tore it up into very small pieces, thoughtfully; and, as an afterthought, she burned them one by one over a wax taper till nothing was left. Then she sent her maid away and fell to thinking. But that did not help her much; and the warm sun stole through the windows, and the noise in the street prevented her from sleeping, for she was unused to the sound of wheels after the long weeks ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... the Church of Rome is frequently to be observed the figure of a dragon, in the mouth of which "holy and everlasting fire" is observed to be burning. A boy follows the procession with a lighted taper, so that in case the fire is extinguished it may be relighted. In referring to this subject the ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... yielded; the long glass door gave inward, and he stepped on the carpetless floor of the library. Then the fact of the change that must have passed upon the whole house enforced itself, and he felt a passionate desire to face and appropriate the change in every detail. He lit one of the little taper matches that he had with him, and, hollowing his hands around it, let its glimmer show him the desolation of the dismantled and abandoned rooms. He passed through the doors set wide between library and drawing-room and dining-room and hall; and then from his dying taper ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... pointed to the horizon, and called the attention of his crew to the taper spars of a ship lying snug in harbour under the guns of ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens
... in Via Sette Chiese, with Maria, Guido and Pascarella. The impression of walking for miles by taper-light between those close walls of brown friable stone, or that soft dusty ground, in a warm vague stifling air; the monotonous rough sides, the monotonous corners, the widenings in and out of little Galla Placidia-like ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... their wings; while beyond rose a range of smooth downs, the intermediate space being sprinkled over with neat farmhouses and labourers' cottages; and rising above the trees appeared the grey, ivy-covered tower of the parish church, with the taper spire pointing upwards to the clear blue sky—not more clear or bright, though, than his Mary's eyes; so True Blue thought, whether ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... Oh! And look! [She paints to a rounded metal object lying in the bin, close to where the taper was] ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... stooped over, and recovering the Idiot's bill from under the table, called the maid, and ostentatiously requested her to hand it to the Idiot. He, taking a cigarette from his pocket, thanked the maid for the attention, and rolling the slip into a taper, thoughtfully stuck one end of it into the alcohol light under the coffee-pot, and lighting the cigarette with it, walked ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... the room; it was Mistress Pauncefort. She held a taper in her hand, and came tripping gingerly in, with a new cap streaming with ribands, and scarcely, as it were, condescending to execute the mission with which she was intrusted, which was no greater than fetching her lady's reticule. She glanced at the table, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... about midnight, when silence rested on the monastery, and the priests were all wrapped in slumber, Chan, with a lighted taper in his hand, stole with noiseless footsteps along the dark passages into the chamber of death where his beloved lay. Kneeling beside the coffin with a heart full of emotion, in trembling accents he called upon Willow to listen to the ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... old, Elspie Murray "laid the child in her bosom and became nurse unto it." But for her, the life of our Olive Rothesay—with all its influences, good or evil, small or great, as yet unknown—would have expired like a faint-flickering taper. ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the Musk Bull are remarkably broad at their bases, which are closely united; they bend down on each side of the head, with an outward curve turning upwards towards their ends, which taper to a sharp point. They are two feet long measured along the curvature, and two feet in girth at the base; the weight of a pair of these horns is sometimes sixty pounds. The broad base of the horn is hollow on the inside, ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... cradled as the Baby of her Eye. In Rose and Musk she wash'd him—to his Lips Press'd the pure Sugar from the Honeycomb; And when, Day over, she withdrew her Milk, She made, and having laid him in, his Bed, Burn'd all Night like a Taper ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... put out, and the gloom of the room was only lightened by a single bed-room taper, which, as it stood near the door, only served to render palpable the darkness of the further end of the chamber. For half an hour Lord Cashel walked to and fro, anxious, wretched, and in doubt, instead of going to his room. How he wished that Lord Ballindine ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... Schottus. I remember that Monsieur Huygens (author of the pendulum), who brought up the learned father of that incomparable youth Monsieur de Zulichem, who used to prescribe to me the benefit of his little wax taper (a type whereof is, with the history of it, in some of our Registers) for night elucubrations, preferable to all other candle or lamp light whatsoever. And because it explodes all glaring of the flame, which by no means ought to dart upon the eyes, it seems very much to establish your happy ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... themselves from the sunlight, Where disease and sorrow in garrets languished neglected. Night after night, when the world was asleep, as the watchman repeated Loud, through the gusty streets, that all was well in the city, High at some lonely window he saw the light of her taper. Day after day, in the gray of the dawn, as slow through the suburbs Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruits for the market, Met he that meek, pale face, returning ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... gyrde]. A long cylindrical timber suspended upon the mast of a vessel to spread a sail. They are termed square, lateen, or lug: the first are suspended across the masts at right angles, and the two latter obliquely. The square yards taper from the middle, which is called the slings, towards the extremities, which are termed the yard-arms; and the distance between is divided by the artificers into quarters, called the first, second, third quarters, and yard-arms. The middle quarters are formed into eight sides, ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... light, As if it had but newly come Up from some subterranean palace, The haunt of fairy or of gnome, With its waxen taper still alight, And beaming in its leafy chalice, That lit the revellers down below, When the nights were long, and the moon was low You might have heard, far-off and sweet, The sound of the elfin revelries, Like a bugle strain blown over seas, And the ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... From outside came the cheery piping of a robin that had paused upon a convenient window sill to peep in. There was a rush of tiny, furred feet through the drifted leaves, and a gleam of scarlet as a falling maple leaf floated past the open door. In the sunlight the taper lights on the altar gleamed like great stars suddenly ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Lincoln was preceded by a trifling incident to which the chroniclers have attached importance. It was the Feast of the Purification; and at the mass which was celebrated at the dawn of day, when the King was holding a lighted taper in his hand it was suddenly extinguished. "This was an omen of sorrow to the King," says Hoveden. But another chronicler, the author of the Gesta Stephain, tells us, in addition, that the wax candle was suddenly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... lamp is brimful, how the taper flame shines, Which, when moisture is wanting, decays; Replenish the lamp of my life with rich wines, Or else there's an end of my ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... exertions of the reluming powers of the mind in the very lowest state of the dying faculties. We see something of the same kind in the physical economy—moments of strength in the most exhausted weakness—bright glows of the taper of life in the socket of death—a collected unity of power in moments of dissolution, as if the spirit made a last struggle to assert its lost authority over the great archangel. I can speak at least to their effects—a wretched boon of nature to miserable ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... tool, made in a few minutes, and very convenient in this business. Any one can make it. Get a piece of narrow hoop-iron, (steel would be better,) three-fourth inch wide, five inches long; taper from one side three inches from the end to a point; then grind each edge sharp; make three or four holes through the wide end, to admit small nails through it in the handle, which should be about two feet long and about half an inch square. Armed with this weapon, you can proceed. ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... with jet black and the top and back of the head of a very fine yellow. Their feet were black with four claws, on each of which was a yellow line the whole length of the foot. The bill was four inches long, without nostrils, and very taper ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... quickly over his face, the light in his eyes went out, and he rose from his stool with a short, dissatisfied sigh, which was repeated once or twice as he put away his work and arranged his tools. He made the rounds of the workshop, looked to the fastenings of the windows, lighted a taper, and then extinguished the lamp. He threw a loose overcoat over his shoulders without passing his arms through the sleeves, and went out into the street. Glancing up at the windows of his house opposite, he saw that the lights were burning brightly, and ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford |
