"Afire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lights out of the darkies. I wasn't big 'nough to do field work, but 'member goin' to the field to take mammy's pipe to her. They wasn't no matches in them days, and I allus took fire from the house and sot a stump afire in the field, so ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... ask him in, and so he went away at once, beating his way back in the wind and rain, fording a little stream where the low foot-bridge was covered, reaching home soaking wet, but afire with dreams. ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... honor, dis cop is lyin' like a house afire. Dis is me gent' friend, an' I got me face hoit by dis cop hittin' me when he butted into our conversation. Dis cop assaulted us both, ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... you needn't be at a loss for a light for a cigar when all this universe is afire. Go and light it at that headboard over there, and then sit down and take your comfort while I'm starving. Why in the world doesn't it rain? I don't see why the Lord should have such a spite against Chicago: we ain't any worse ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... stars hide their faces and faint into invisibility. It will make us lords of ourselves, masters of the world, kings over time and sense and the universe. Everything will be different when 'earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God.' That is what is possible for a Christian holding fast by Jesus Christ, and in Him having communion with the Father and the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the impending fact. An epidemic of internal troubles, it is true, kept Sir Godfrey in the depths of London society, but to make up for his absence Mrs. Morris had taken a little cottage down by the river and the Wilder girls were with her, both afire with fine and subtle feelings and both, it seemed, and more particularly Betty, prepared to be keenly critical of ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... just yellow, like a goldfinch. He's solid gold all over, from the tip of his bill to the tip of his tail. Even his feet are golden. And he glistens in the sunshine as if he were afire!" That was the way Jolly Robin described the marvellous newcomer. "He's the handsomest bird that ever was seen," ...
— The Tale of Jolly Robin • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the table were eating with their knives; each had one protecting forearm and hand cast round his arc of small dishes as if to ward off probable attempt at seizure. And they swallowed as if the boat were afire. The women ate more daintily, as became members of the finer sex on public exhibition. They were wearing fingerless net gloves, and their little fingers stood straight out in that gesture which every truly elegant woman ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... summit, and I ain't despatchin' trains on this jerk-water railroad," observed the conductor coolly. Then he added, with a shade less of the belligerent disinterest: "Williams can't speed up. That housin' under the tender is about ready to blaze up and set the woods afire again, right now." ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... what was good, and she had about as clear an eye and about as pleasant a smile as any man ought to want for every-day company. I've seen a good many young ladies that could talk faster than she could; but if you'd seen her or heerd her when our boardin'-house caught afire, or when there was anything to be done besides speech-makin', I guess you'd like to have stood still and looked on, jest to see that young woman's way of goin' to work.—Dark, rather than light; and slim, but strong in the arms,—perhaps from liftin' that old mother about; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... was twenty. They did give me fits at one time. Boys"—he began to scratch himself furiously—"I've a feelin' as if I was afire inside." ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... find consolation somewhere: "Well, as one of the genuine stock, she ought to make her way with 'en, if she plays her trump card aright. And if he don't marry her afore he will after. For that he's all afire wi' love for her any ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... hail, and the breath of the storm, and thunder was heard therewith. In the night of that day the dyke between Wilsen and Kampen was broken down, and the cattle and beasts of burden at Mastebroic were drowned. In Zutphen the tower of the church was set afire by lightning, and the roof was cleft above, and certain persons were wounded, and some were slain by this sudden mischance—in other parts also divers houses were destroyed by fire. In Zwolle, after Mass, ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... citizens hurled fire upon the engines and palisades of the Romans, yet did no damage to them worth mentioning; but they themselves by reason of a violent wind which just then began to blow toward them from the opposite side fared ill: for their buildings were set afire and many persons perished from the stones and missiles, not being able to see any distance ahead of them for the smoke. After this disaster, as their land was continually ravaged, and every now and then a portion ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... hear them? Yes, I hear the children singing — and what of it? Have you come with eyes afire to find me now and ask me that? If I were not their father and if you were not their mother, We might believe they made a noise. . . . What ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... Courtot had made up his mind and, further, was publishing the fact across a wide sweep of country. Then there was no going back for him and Courtot, and like a man borne along in a swift current which offered rapids ahead, he was afire to get them behind him. If Courtot were still in Las Palmas he ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... cried Hickathrift. "I don't think house is afire yet, but it must catch the thack ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... "Nay, her heart is afire, and its light hath the color of roses," said an old philosopher who sat by. "Can you not see ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... will be searching for his mate and finding her, planning a home and building it before he is twenty-five; and the man who does not, is either too weak or too selfish to do it. In either case you need not fear him. "He will never set the world afire." ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... haven't seen it ever like that before," he said. Then he corrected himself. "Not in my recollection. But I know what it is. That's the Heart of Unaga. It's a heart always afire. It's real red-hot fire that no man's ever had the nerve to get near. The Eskimo know it. And it scares them to death. They sort of reckon it's the world where the devil reigns. The hell that some folks reckon is real, and hot—and—hellish. But the ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... seated her in the north parlor in the best rocking-chair, as if it were a throne. Then he sat down opposite her, with his Shakespeare book still on his knees. That morning he had been poring over "Romeo and Juliet." His imagination was afire with the sweet ardor of that other lover, and he would gladly have identified Dorothy, as she sat there, with Juliet; and so he ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... all, she's liable to sense a good deal. Some says she's always been foreknowledged. 'Twuz the Rural foretold the blizzit last winter; 'twuz the Rural found out Hank Jellaby's nephew was married. Wasn't it her knowed all the time who sot Mullins's barn afire? There's a good many depends on the Rural for ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... meditative man returning to where he stays, with his daily ounce of tobacco already afire, sees in the streets what are called by the natives "cherry-bangs," crowded with people, and, further, cabriolets and such vehicles holding parties and families. The good folks are driving away ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... to a burning sensation. Ken found himself bathed in a heavy sweat. Then he began to smart in different places, and he was hard put to it to keep rubbing them. The steam grew hotter; his body was afire; his breath labored in great heaves. Ken felt that he must cry out. He heard exclamations, then yells, from some of the other boxed-up players, and he glanced quickly around. Reddy Ray was smiling, and did not look at all uncomfortable. But ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... more than half a century the Balkans have presented a problem which disturbed the minds of the statesmen of Europe. Again and again, during that period, it seemed that in the Balkan mountains might be kindled a blaze which might set the world afire. Balkan politics is a labyrinth in which one might easily be lost. The inhabitants of the Balkans represent many races, each with its own ambition, and, for the most part, military. There were Serbs, and Bulgarians, and Turks, and Roumanians, and Greeks, and their territorial divisions ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... kept mumbling and crying for a long time, and I shaking more and more, when all at once, hebens, golly! I see'd somefin' bright-like shine trough de winder, and I looked out and de barn was all afire. Den dar come a yell dat nearly blowed de roof off de house. Big Mose gib a screech and run, and bang-bang went a lot ob guns all around us. De Injines was dar, burnin', tomahawkin', screechin', shoutin', and killin' de poor niggers as fast ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... the store wouldn't chalk nothin' for us no more." Then she added, quickly, as if in defence of the humiliating position, "Our corn-crib was sot afire last fall and ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... pretty, fair-haired girl with the rumpled neckerchief broke into shrieks as if her petticoats were afire. She was shaking these violently and turning out her pockets, vociferating that somebody had stolen ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... shot two holes through their window, turned their mule out of the stable, and tried to run it into the bean patch, besides hanging up a bunch of switches at the drawbars. Then their fence was set afire twice. This is said to be the work of his wife. Then, after carrying home meat, flour, lard, and vegetables to eat for her mother and sister, he whipped the latter because she refused to give him two ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... hatred of the rich that always set Tommie Gilfoyle afire. What right had such people to such majesty when Kedzie must walk? What right had they to homes and yards so big that it tired Kedzie out just to trudge past? Who was this Mrs. Cheever, that she should be so ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... Then all afire with mad desire, They chased him through the dark, And each soul carried his dead bodie, ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... the bravest thing you ever saw. She's not afraid of anything! I don't mean cows, or the house-afire, or mice, or such foolishness. I mean life and death, and ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... know," returned the youth, wagging an impudent, though good-natured head at the Doctor; "what else is there in the world if not in that? The world's full of it—flowers, trees, birds, beasts, men and women—the whole damn universe is afire with it. It's God; there is no other God—just nature building and propagating and ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Ho, water! for my heart's afire! Ho, neighbours! help me, or by God I die! See, with his standard, that great lord, Desire! He sets my heart aflame: in vain I cry. Too late, alas! The flames mount high and higher. Alack, good friends! I faint, I fail, I die. Ho! water, neighbours mine! no more delay I My heart's a cinder ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... Cantemir rehearsed them over and over, set his brain afire and before night he was in a fever. The kind and gentle Lady Bettie Payne, who had arrived late in the afternoon, had gathered nosegays and made bright his chamber, for she truly had compassion upon him. He called her Katherine, ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... through the western pines, on meadow, stream, and pond, Flamed the red radiance of a sky set all afire beyond, Slowly o'er the eastern sea-bluffs a milder glory shone, And the sunset and the ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... prety mad with me and made me clean the room and wash the floor and windows. ferst i went out and picked up my snapcrackers. they were all rite but all the canon crackers but 2 had went of. Mother she asked me how they got afire and i said i was fooling with them and they got on fire and i had to plug them out of the window. then she said that was what fritened Miss Hartnett so and i said was she fritened and she said she was so fritened that she fell over backwards and i said ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute
... following; and then I could see them pause, and hear speeches passed in a lower key, as if they were surprised to find the door open. But the pause was brief, for the blind man again issued his commands. His voice sounded louder and higher, as if he were afire with eagerness and rage. ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... woods beyond Ham and Petersham were still afire. Twickenham was uninjured by either Heat-Ray or Black Smoke, and there were more people about here, though none could give us news. For the most part they were like ourselves, taking advantage of a lull to shift their quarters. I have an impression ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... blindly, stumbling forward as he struck the ore-dump, and beating out with his hands the sparks that scorched his clothing. The smoke appeared to roll higher from the ground here, and the coughing soldier crept up beneath it, breathing the hot air, and feeling as though his entire body were afire. Mason, his countenance black and unrecognizable, his shirt soaked with blood, peered into ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... Get the car—and set the road afire between here and the 'drome. Move! Don't stand there blinking ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... coming up the compound path. He was limping very rapidly, but when he came along the veranda and entered the room his gait was slow and dignified. He sat down and watched the gun-cleaning, Though mouth and lips and tongue were afire, he gave no sign. At the end ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... heart out with a wild desire, One day, behind his counter trim and neat, He hears a sound that sets his brain afire — The Highlanders are marching down the street. Oh, how the pipes shrill out, the mad drums beat! "On to the gates of Hell, my Gordons gay!" He flings ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... bluish-white smoke banks that rose above the hills at the other side of the lake. Presently, away off to southward, a shimmery white curly cloud head appeared, while in the west, over against Great Peak, huge smoke-blended clouds rolled up and up. It seemed to him as if the whole world were afire. ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... a house afire is good!" murmured Giant, with a grin. "Now if you had only said sweat like a stone, or a piece of iron, all of us would have known what you meant. As it is—-" And then he stopped and ducked, to escape the piece of dried mud Whopper ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... too hard on you, young man," she said, "though I can talk like a house afire when I once get r'iled. I know you didn't mean to get us into this scrape. You're a good-hearted chap, or you wouldn't have given us all a breakfast when you didn't need to, and I want you to understand that I'll stand by you whatever ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... was collected into a great ball that turned crimson in the west, touching the crests of the waves with red as though blood had been splashed upon them, setting Marcella's hair afire, turning her white frock rosy-pink. Two bells sounded, and the sea and the sky grew deep blue, while shadows began to slink about the decks and stalk over the water; grey veils fell over the western sky, and she sat up straight, wondering where ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... missile fell harmlessly on to the table again—not altogether harmlessly, either, for in falling the lid had opened and the ink was now flowing over Lady Rosamund's open album. At sight of this mishap, Lionel sprang to his feet, his eyes afire. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... been able to know anything she had felt a curious, confused feeling in her head. She did not know who the man was on the deck of the boat. But she did know that he was trying to set their houseboat afire. ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... a time a woman went into a dark room and lit a match. She dropped it on the floor and it of course set the house afire. ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... heap of lookin' arter, an' no mistake," old Jacob was remarking, as he surveyed the fine crop with the bland and easy gaze of ownership. "Why, in a little while them top leaves thar will be like tinder, an' the first floatin' spark will set it all afire. That's the way Sol Peterkin lost half a crop last year, an' it's the way Dick Moss lost his whole one the year before." At Christopher's entrance he paused and turned his pleasant, ruddy face from the fresh logs which he had been watching. "So you want to ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... wrath on the wronger, with eyes that are eager for right. Zeus, thou that art lord of the world, whose kingdom is strong over all, Have mercy on us! At thine altar for refuge and safety we call. For the race of Aegyptus is fierce, with greed and with malice afire; They cry as the questing hounds, they sweep with the speed of desire. But thine is the balance of fate, thou rulest the wavering scale, And without thee no mortal emprise shall have strength ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... grey, made strange With fiery difference and deep interchange Inexplicable of glories multiform; Now, as the sullen sapphire swells towards storm Foamless, their bitter beauty grew acold, And now afire with ardour of fine gold. Her flower-soft lips were meek and passionate, For love upon them like a shadow sate Patient, a foreseen vision of sweet things, A dream with eyes fast shut and plumeless wings That knew not what man's ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... ardent than the blaze that streamed down upon the snowy marble, the delicately carved surfaces of bronze, and lit up the satin sheen of the tapestry. The contrasts of their attitudes and the slight movements of their heads, each differing in character and nature of attraction, set the heart afire. It was like a thicket, where blossoms mingled with rubies, sapphires, and coral; a combination of gossamer scarves that flickered like beacon-lights; of black ribbons about snowy throats; of gorgeous turbans and demurely enticing apparel. ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... were my words. He went, alas! he went With all the sunshine, and I wore alone The weary weeks out of that hateful month. Another month I waited, nervous, fierce With love's impatience. When that month was gone My heart was all afire; I could not stay. Consumed with jealous fears that wore me down Into a fever, necklace, earrings—all I sold, and on to Venice rushed. How long That dreary, never-ending journey seemed! I cursed the hills up which we slowly dragged, The ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... and replied and questioned in Anglo-French. Here was a man who but a few days ago had been steering his bicycle in the streets of Antwerp to avoid shell craters, pools of blood, and the torn-off arms and shoulder-blades of women. He had seen houses flaring, set afire by incendiary bombs, and once at a corner he had been knocked off his bicycle by the pouff of a bursting shell.... Not only were these things in the same world with us, they ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... of the under galleries at Norwood, Streatham is afire and burning wildly, and Roehampton is ours. Ours!—and we have taken the aeropile ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... no laws, Mr William. We never set the barn afire, and you can't prove that we did,' said ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... occurred to Prescott that it would now be the appropriate thing to fire. He made a statement of that kind to his troops, and those of the enemy who were alive went back to Charlestown. But that was no place for them, as they had previously set it afire, so they came back up the hill, where they were once more well received and tendered the ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... Her first clean, unguarded emotion was one of pride. Had it been her privilege to let herself go, she would have taken her place near him with her eyes afire—with her head held as proudly as any queen. Gladly would she have rested by his side in an olive orchard or a fisherman's hut or a forest or on the plains or anywhere fortune might take him. By his side—that would have been ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... poor little thing havin' her house set afire by a rival suitor just after she had paid off the mortgage by savin' out of her week's wages! Do you suppose ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... slipped his arm about her and led her away, supporting half her weight. They went slowly, by small, soft steps, towards the house, and before they reached it, he knew that she was weeping. But if there was sadness in Byrne, there was also a great joy. He was afire, for there is a flamelike quality in hope. Loss of blood and the stifling smoke, rather than a mortal injury or the touch of fire, had brought Black Bart close to death, but now that his breathing was restored, and almost normal, he gained rapidly. One instant he lingered on the border ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all;" "All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them;" "Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you;" "Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth." Take principles like these, set them afire in a flaming life the like of which has never come to earth, and we have in Jesus a revelation of the spiritual world which is not going to be outgrown. Still for the Christian he is Saviour and Lord, and across the centuries in his face shines the light of the knowledge of the glory ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... strength Than thou hast to deny't.—Come, let us go: This fellow had a Volscian to his mother; His wife is in Corioli, and his child Like him by chance.—Yet give us our despatch: I am hush'd until our city be afire, And then I'll speak ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... which he was never unwilling to convey. His hearers generally regarded him as an easygoing, indolent good fellow with a love of humor—with talent, perhaps—but as one not likely ever to set the world afire. They did not happen to think that the same inclination which made them crowd about to listen and applaud would one day win for him ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... graceful as a nymph in doing the awkwardest thing! When she had pretended to walk stiffly along, to some imaginary marriage ceremony, with her foot stuck out before her, with her chin in the air, and one arm akimbo, Silverbridge had been all afire with admiration. Lady Mabel understood it all. The American girl must be taken away,—from out of the reach of the young man's senses,—and then the struggle ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... your haystacks got afire, but I can guess. Remember Drazk? A little locoed, an' just the crittur to pull off a fool stunt like that. When the fire swept up the valley, instead of down, he made his get-away and has never been seen since. I reckon likely there was someone in ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... of what he had said to Palla about the wisdom of absenting himself, the mere sight of her had instantly set him afire. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... blazed, her cheek was afire. "Leave it to-day. Leave it now. Yes; that's my one condition. If you want me, and you say you do, come aboard the Ninety-Nine, and for to-day be one of us-to-morrow what ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ''Twouldn't be so much of a blaze if they could get the fire company here to put it out before it gets headway; but it's one o' those blind fires that's been sizzling away inside the walls for an hour. The folks didn't know they was afire till a girl ran in and told 'em- -your Lisa it was,—and they didn't believe her at first; but it warn't a minute before the flames burst right through the plastering in half a dozen places to once. I tell you they just dropped everything where it was and run for their lives. ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... amend this by inserting the normative "he" after "Ganymede;" and another by omitting "with" after "afire." Mr. Dyce saw that both these must be wrong, as a comparison between two wanton Ganymedes, one of which sat in the coutenance of Arcite, could never have been intended;—another, something, if not Ganymede, was wanted, and he, therefore, has this note:—"The ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various
... it was called The Age of Reason, or something like that. I didn't get a good look at it, for Father Barnum shrieked when he saw it, then snatched it as if it were afire. He carried it down to the river ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... stopped; and amid the comparative silence that followed they heard the cry of "Fire!" and the voice of the breaker boss shouting, "Clear out of this, you young rascals! Run for your lives! Don't you see the breaker's afire?" ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... I should look like a house afire, is it? I'm not going to have another bit, Sue, and you needn't insist. Uncle Cliff would have a fit if he could see me; and Aunt Lucinda! mercy, she'd think I was disgraced forever. Ugh! I think I look ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... heart out with a wild desire, One day, behind his counter trim and neat, He hears a sound that sets his brain afire— The Highlanders are marching down the street. Oh, how the pipes shrill out, the mad drums beat! "On to the gates of Hell, my Gordons gay!" He flings his hated ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... F., at the right of the roadway, and the houses afire on the road toward Lille itself are quickly cleared of the enemy. The bicycle patrol, which has undertaken a determined advance to ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... expire—here find a resurrection; And, if 'tis real, it nothing knows of rue! Each Beauty in the world is sole, unique; So must the love be that would Beauty seek! So long as Youth lives on with pulse afire, Out to the chase! To ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... is afire, Muster Winnington!" panted one of Winnington's own labourers who had outstripped the rest. "They're asking for you to come! They've telephoned to Latchford for the engines, and to Brownmouth and Wanchester too. They say it's burning like ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... think what would have happened if I'd just missed that ugly customer when I pulled those triggers. For he was coming at me like a house afire, and with blood in his eyes. But, I didn't, all the same, and what's the use bothering over it? Is the storm going down any, ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... consolatory information I went in. By-and-by a man entered and took a seat in front of us. "The box is all afire," chuckled he to his neighbor, as if it were a fine joke. By-and-by several people who had been looking out of the windows drew in their heads, rose, and went ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... Fishley?" I replied, impatiently. "Didn't you hear the dog howling that night when you broke open Miss Larrabee's letter, and put the money in your pocket? I did, and I went down stairs in my stocking feet to let him in. When I came to the store door, I saw what you were doing. I saw you set the letter afire, and throw it into the stove. Then you put the envelope in after it. But that didn't burn up, and I saved a piece of it in the morning when I ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... in white. "See the slim iceberg with the top afire!" Cairns had whispered, as she entered. Other lives must explain it, but the Titian hair went straight to his heart. And those wine-dark eyes, now cryptic black, now suffused with red glows like a night-sky above a prairie-fire, ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... lodged." She snatched her gaze from the compass and fixed him with the cold, unwinking stare of a snake. "Where thou wert lodged, my friend who would renounce all for me. Where, had I cared to, I might have left two of ye, taking with me to safety only the one whose brains are not afire with ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... round it so that the tin didn't show. 'Now,' she said to the Robin, the same as if it understood our language, 'get up and let me see if I can't better you a bit.' Then the bird left the nest, making a great fuss, and crying 'quick! quick!' as if all the woods were afire. ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... would you? Not a mite! But s'pose things went on that way till they warn't real agreeable for neither one of 'em. Then—s'pose one night—when he warn't himself, mind you!—he shook out his pipe on the settin'-room carpet and set the house afire. You wouldn't blame him for that either, would ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... great ugly building will presently be lighted with innumerable lamps. Away to the west yonder the heavens are afire with sunset, but at that we do not care to look; never in our lives did we regard it. We know not what is meant by beauty or grandeur. Here under the glass roof stand white forms of undraped men and women—casts of antique statues—but we care as little for the glory ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... outside of a spit of sand, and we on the inside. They did us little injury in our hulls, but much to our ropes and sails overhead. In this conflict, besides those who were wounded, we had five men slain. By a great mischance, the main-top-sail, top-mast, and shrouds got afire, communicated from the main-top, in consequence of the fire-works lodged there taking fire, the man being slain who had the charge there. All these were burnt quite away, together with a great part of the main-mast; and this misfortune prevented us from going out into deep water to try our ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... commerce; a superb city, their [sic] being no end to its luxuries and magnificence. In it everything that can minister to the appetite, gratify the taste, and feed the pride of the human soul is to be found in profusion, being described at length. This great city is suddenly afire, and her merchants and the great men of the world who sustain her are overwhelmed with sorrow at the sight of all their wealth disappearing. Thus is great sect Babylon represented. She is a mighty city extending not ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... soul were overthrown Should live for love's sake of itself alone, Though spirit and flesh were one thing doomed and dead, Not wholly annihilated. Seeing even the hoariest ash-flake that the pyre Drops, and forgets the thing was once afire And gave its heart to feed the pile's full flame Till its own heart its own heat overcame, Outlives its own life, though by scarce a span, As such men dying outlive themselves in man, Outlive themselves for ever; if the heat Outburn the heart that ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... they lay de whole town in ashes, 'cept de college and our house close to it, dat they use for de officers while they was in Boro. Why they hear sumpin' bout de Davis name techin' de St. John 'Piscopal Church and they march 'round dere, one cold February Sunday mornin', set it afire, and burn it up. Mother and me went to de plantation and stayed dere 'til ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... good deal o' talk about the fire, and everybody said how curious it was that it could catch on the inside when the door was locked. I never said a word, not even to Abram, but I knew well enough who set the old cabin afire, and why the key Mary gave Amos wouldn't fit the lock. Harvey's clothes was packed away under the old garret; the old cabin was burned, and the ashes and rubbish hauled away, and there wasn't anything much left to remind Mary of the things she was tryin' to forget. That's the ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... turns us mad! I'm late finding it out, but I've found it! It sent me to jail with my wits all afire. My boy drank that night, drank like a young beast, and lay on the floor of the cabin, they tell me, after I went away; and he only sixteen, and his dead uncle stark there beside him ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... words: "A house is my fire," and observe the comparative duration of time in the pronunciation of each word, the comparative stress, and the relative pitch (e. g. of a and fire). Now rearrange these nearly meaningless syllables: "My house is afire." Observe the differences, some slight and some well marked, in time, stress, and pitch. Then consider the different emotional coloring this sentence might have and the different results on time, stress, and pitch in utterance, if, say, the house contains all that you hold ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... wholly between ourselves—there's been barns burned around here. Everybody's satisfied who sot 'em afire, but nothin' can be proved. Your cow or horse, too, might suddenly die. There's no tellin' what accidents would happen if ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... vain, to break through, and was forced lower and lower to the ground. Upon reaching the ground he refused to stop his motor until, after bumping over two fields, a bullet was fired through his gas tank setting it afire. The two Germans jumped from the machine to the ground uninjured. Both wore iron crosses. Lieut. Webb landed his machine, jumped out, grabbed an iron cross from one of the terrified Germans, and rose again to ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... burnin' afire!" shouted Dotty, dancing around her sister. Prudy now felt the heat, and screamed too, bringing her mother and Norah to the spot at once. The flames were soon smothered in a rug, and so Prudy's ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... destroying the frigate Philadelphia, which had been captured by the pirates and lay in the harbor of Tripoli, on February 31, 1804, he manned a little boat called the Intrepid, with seventy volunteers, and, braving the enemy, he reached the Philadelphia, set it afire and got away, with the loss ...
— The Mentor: The War of 1812 - Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103; 15 March, 1916. • Albert Bushnell Hart
... aloud on its way to the wars, Proud as America, sweeping along Death and destruction like notes in a song, Leaping to battle as man to his mate, Joyous as God when he moved to create,— Never was voice of a nation so glorious, Glad of its cause and afire with its fate! Never did eagle on mightier pinion Tower to the height of a brighter dominion, Kindling the hope of the prophets to flame, Calling aloud on the deep as ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... him than all other disasters put together; and the sight of his fellow-seamen attacked by these same desolating flames arouses in him the warmest of his sympathy, and the full of his resourcefulness. Moreover, in Kettle's case, he had known the feel of a ship afire under his own feet, and so he could appreciate all the better ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... motley wings ever wider and wider, clutching people and dragging them after it, and striking them against one another. It lived anew, transformed into flaming wrath. A cloud of dust and soot hung over the crowd; their faces were all afire, and black drops of sweat trickled down their cheeks. Their eyes gleamed from darkened countenances; ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... tastes, the two young cooks were on their mettle, and did the best they could. If the hot biscuits were not quite so flaky as their mothers' own cooks made them at home, and some of the poached eggs broke in the poacher, and the broiled bacon got afire several time and "fussed them all up," as Mina said, the general opinion of the occupants of Green Knoll Camp was that "there was no kick coming"—of course, expressed thus by the ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... from the heights to the depths of the sky and the sea, Sprang from the darkness alive as a vision of life to be Glory triune and transcendent of colour afar and afire, Arching and darkening the darkness with light as of dream or desire. Heaven, in the depth of its height, shone wistful and wan from above: Earth from beneath, and the sea, shone stricken and breathless ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... musing chorus, and then they got to talking about differences betwixt hogs, and their different kind of habits; and next about women and their different ways: and next about the best ways to put out houses that was afire; and next about what ought to be done with the Injuns; and next about what a king had to do, and how much he got; and next about how to make cats fight; and next about what to do when a man has fits; and next about differences betwixt clear-water rivers and muddy-water ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... altruistic and supersensual, he knows no more than Sappho did a thousand years before him. Indeed, in making lovers become indolent, cry out as if they had been beaten, and jump into rivers as if they were afire, he is even cruder and more absurd than Sappho was in her painting of sensual passion. His whole idea of love is summed up in what the old shepherd Philetas says to Daphnis and Chloe (II., 7): [Greek: Egvov d' ego kai tauron erasthenta kai hos oistro plaegeis emukato, kai tragon philaesanta aiga ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... and his deep-set eyes were afire with in intense emotion. "The moon is no tiny satellite; it is a sister planet. It is whirled on the end of a rope (we call it gravitation), swung around and around the earth. How could there be water or anything fluid on this side? It is all thrown to the other side by the centrifugal ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... no bounds. "I'll baste like a house afire!" she exclaimed. "It's a thousand yards round that skirt, as well I know, having hemmed it; but I could sew pretty trimming on if it was from here to Milltown. Oh! do you think aunt Mirandy'll ever let ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... said he, "that the lamp was on a table near his bed when it exploded. In a moment the whole room was afire, and you, no doubt, being asleep at the time, he lifted you up and ran with you down the stairway and out of the open door. But in the meantime he had been horribly burned, and he fell in a faint as soon as he reached the pavement. Strangely enough you were unconscious for some ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... came rowing in his dory, putting out all his strength, splashing his oars. "My Gawd! Cap'n Mayo," he gasped, "I heard 'em hollering 'Oh, Polly!' and I was 'feard she was afire. What's the trouble?" ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... shelf, the brick hearth and jambs aglow with fresh "redding," table and chairs set back in rectangular tidiness. Only one thing made a litter, or tried to; a yellow canary that hung in the window and sang "like a house afire," as Aunt Hoskins said, however that is, and flung his seeds about like the old "Wash at Edmonton," "on both sides of the way." Prissy was turned out of doors in all pleasant weather, so otherwise the keeping-room stayed trim, and her curly hair ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... being kept wet by the enthusiastic efforts of a string of volunteers with buckets of water, and above at a bathroom window the little German waiter was busy with the garden hose. But Mr. Polly's establishment looked more like a house afire than most houses on fire contrive to look from start to finish. Every window showed eager flickering flames, and flames like serpents' tongues were licking out of three large holes in the roof, which was already beginning to fall in. Behind, larger and abundantly spark-shot gusts of fire ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... to th' Public," retorted the old dame driven to desperation. "I'm tired o' heark-enin' to thee. Get thee gone to th' Public, or we'st ha' th' world standin' still; an' moind tha do'st na set th' horse-ponds afire as ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... show any enthusiasm over Theo winning, he and Tom somehow have got the idea in their minds that she don't care a rap to be chosen Queen. I've tried to explain it to them, but the boys don't understand girls, that's all. Why, if Theo was to choose any other girl, she'd set the river afire." ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams |
