"Burn down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all their former insolent practices; but that they, instead of concord, had chosen sedition; instead of peace, war; and before satiety and abundance, a famine. That they had begun with their own hands to burn down that temple which we have preserved hitherto; and that therefore they deserved to eat such food as this was. That, however, this horrid action of eating an own child ought to be covered with the overthrow of their very country itself, and men ought not to leave ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... be a risk. What if my house were to take fire and burn down? What should I have to show for ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... relatives. It took all the influence we could bring to bear to break up these absurdly superstitious practices, and it looked as if no permanent improvement could be effected, for as soon as we got them to discard one, another would be invented. When not allowed to burn down their tepees or houses, those poor souls who were in a dying condition would be carried out to the neighboring hillsides just before dissolution, and there abandoned to their sufferings, with little or no attention, unless the placing under their heads of a small stick of wood—with ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... an' bright-eyed an' plump an' hearty an' happy, an' them po' little child'en that never get a chance to go fishin' or swimmin' or to learn anything, I allow I wouldn' mind if the durned old mill would catch fire an' burn down. They work children there from six years old up, an' half of 'em die of consumption before they're grown. It's a durned outrage, an' if I ever go to the Legislatur', for which I mean to run, I'll try ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... for blessing us, like the god Savitri, straight a winner of booty, when we with our worshippers and with ointments call thee in emulation with other people. Standing straight, protect us by thy splendor from evil; burn down every ghoul. Let us stand straight that we may walk and live. Find out our worship among the gods. Save us, O Agni, from the sorcerer, save us from mischief, from the niggard. Save us from him who does us harm ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... into consideration the amount to be paid, are much lower than life premiums. We know that a man must die, but a building may never burn down, therefore the ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... damp voice from behind the lilac bush, where the hose was turned. "Surrender, or we burn down your ranch over your head!" and a painted Indian, with red, short hair showing under the feather, crawled toward a rosebush, where it ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... inflicted a wound on his forehead. Bound with cords, the Pope was removed to a mansion in the city, from which he was the next day to be removed to exile or to death. A sword was aimed at the Pontiff's bosom, when the cries of a fierce multitude, threatening to burn down the house, arrested the arm of the assassin. An arrow, discharged from below, reached and slew the latter. Cencius fell at the Pope's feet, a suppliant for pardon and for life. The Pontiff immediately pardoned him. Then, amid the acclamations of the Roman people, Gregory proceeded ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... "I expect I'll have to burn down the cottage when he has done with it; his son is certainly not going to stop there afterwards. I don't know if a rich man is justified in loafing or not. We'll leave that to the economists, but I've frankly no use for the fellow who wants ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... purty pass," Dan stated to the onlookers, "when a man can't burn down his own coops to get rid of the mites without the whole blame town turning out to interfere. If the very last one of you don't clear out, I'll use my office as constable of this town to run the ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... ladies, some of them embarrassed by their weird inheritance. And indeed the trouble caused by this endowment is so great, and the protection afforded so infinitesimally small, that I hesitate whether to call it a gift or a hereditary curse. You may rob this lady's coco-patch, steal her canoes, burn down her house, and slay her family scatheless; but one thing you must not do: you must not lay a hand upon her sleeping-mat, or your belly will swell, and you can only be cured by the lady or her husband. ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... average of 5,000 or 6,000 under the paternal inspection of Pius IX. Not only is the planting of young trees abandoned, but the sheep are allowed to nibble down the tender shoots of the old ones. Besides this, speculators are tolerated, who burn down whole forests, for the ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... reaction; and Isdigerd, deserting the cause which he had for a time espoused, threw himself (with all the zeal of one who, after nearly embracing truth, relapses into error) into the arms of the opposite party. Abdaas had ventured to burn down the great Fire-Temple of Ctesiphon, and had then refused to rebuild it. Isdigerd authorized the Magian hierarchy to retaliate by a general destruction of the Christian churches throughout the Persian dominions, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... would put in fifteen years looking for him. You murder your grandmother, or rob a bank, or burn down an orphanage with the orphans all in bed upstairs, or something trivial like that, and if you make an off-planet getaway, you're reasonably safe. Of course there's such a thing as extradition, but ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... scatter until it was all over the floor and stairs. Then pretty soon they all felt so choky from that queer smelly smoke that they went out in the air and piled up their things at a safe distance and stood, waiting for the flames to break out and burn down their big Hollow Tree they had lived in ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and even highlarious the man seemed in talkin' about there not bein' any future." And he says, "It wuz a good deal like a man laughin' and clappin' his hands to see his house burn down" ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... burn down the schoolhouse right before his face and eyes, and then mebbe the State Board'll git ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... inside the pocket of her sweater. She brought out a box of safety matches. "I thought we could set fire to the house and burn down the outside door," she proposed. "I suppose I am silly to speak ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... la Staten Island, to burn down our yellow-feverish neighbor's house. We will give everybody time to pack up. We will make up a little purse for any specially hard case which the removal may show. But stay and be plague-stricken we will no longer; nor are we disposed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... near the Concord battle-field—if such an encounter can be called a battle—a shot from a British bullet pierced the wood, and that historic orifice is carefully preserved; a diamond-shaped pane surrounds it. Our friend, Rev. A.W. Jackson, remarked, "I suppose if that house should burn down, the first thing they would try to save would ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... Alexandria and Rome, and for aught I care every nest and nook on the face of the earth. It may all burn together. The Roman Empire can never be greater or more splendid than under Caesar! It may burn down like a heap of straw, it is all the same to me—I ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... occasion demanded. But it is possible that the slave girls may not have set fire to the buildings, but merely availed themselves of the occasion of the fire to run off; indeed, slave girls are under so little restraint in India, that it would be hardly worth while for them to burn down a house to get out. I am satisfied that the Begam believed them guilty, and that the punishment, horrible as it was, was merited. It certainly had the desired effect. My object has been to ascertain ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... what? What is I puttin' you up to?—This here old shed is goin' to burn down sometime. It's goin' to burn down one time or 'nother, if it don't first come topplin' down over our heads. It's squeezed in here between the other houses in a way to make a person feel ashamed, if he looks ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... old fisherman-chief. "We saved your building for ye, Mr. Ringold. Ain't no use in buyin' a shack an' then havin' it burn down—no matter if it ain't wuth much. We saved her for you, though at one time it looked pretty dubious. This is the first fire we've had in some time, an' I reckon we got ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... he would have to stand up and salute and answer humbly, not from civility, but from the fear of being punished, was bitter as wormwood, filled him with a childish desire—to prove his worth to them, as when older boys had ill- treated him at school and he had prayed to have the house burn down so that he might heroically save them all. There was a piano in an inner room, where in the dark the chairs, upside down, perched dismally on the table tops. He almost obeyed an impulse to go in there and start playing, ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... cigarettes up here in the hay, and burn down my ancestral stables for me!" shouted the Earl in surprise. "Good night! You've got about as much brains as Holmes says you have, Letstrayed. But here, I realize that it'll be pretty lonesome up here watching for a hidden crook with nobody ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... the stones long enough for the wood to burn down nearly to his hand. When he came out, and flung the burning fragment from him, his face was flushed deeply, his eyes sparkled. He leaped carelessly on to the heath, over the bushes through which he had threaded his way so warily but a few minutes ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... my room or I'll burn down the whole plant," her father warned. "And if I were you I'd tell Steve ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... or that sweetheart you were writing to this morning, you would feel like me. You would say, What matters laws, and God, and that? My folks are hard up, I belong to them, I'll get them bread, or, by God! I'll get them wealth, if I have to burn down London for it. That's what you would say. And I'll tell you more: your heart is saying so this living minute. I can see it in your face. You're thinking, Here's poor friendship for the man I've starved ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... We knew that women did not take journeys through woods without bonnet or shawl, and we spread a veil of ignorant, indifferent incredulity over the whole. But as we grow up, printed words take on new life. The latent fire in them lights up and glows. The mystic words throb with vital heat, and burn down into our souls to an answering fire. As we stand, on this soft summer day, by the old tree which tradition declares to have witnessed that fateful scene, we go back into a summer long ago, but fair and just like this. Jane McCrea is no longer a myth, but a young ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... nothing particularly striking about the story. We are sorry for Mr. Jones, but many houses worth $4,000 are set on fire by poor chimneys and many more houses burn down. No one was hurt, no one was killed; the most striking part of it all is that there was a fire. We would begin with the word "Fire." Perhaps our readers would be most interested in the cause of the fire and we shall tell them that first. ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... Bill. The doctor can say, "Tobacco is death to you," because the dislike of death can be taken for granted, being a highly democratic institution; and it is the same with the dislike of the indubitable exception called madness. The doctor can say, "Jones has that twitch in the nerves, and he may burn down the house." But it is not the medical detail we fear, but the moral upshot. We should say, "Let him twitch, as long as he doesn't burn down the house." The doctor may say, "He has that look in the eyes, and he may take the hatchet and ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... you want me to do? Burn down Academy Hall or chuck one of the Faculty in the river?" inquired ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the price of listening to other people's wisdom. This was one of those transient nightmares that one may have in a doze of twenty seconds. He thought a certain imaginary Committee of Safety of a certain imaginary Legislature was proceeding to burn down his haystack, in accordance with an Act, entitled an Act to make the Poor Richer by making the Rich Poorer. And the chairman of the committee was instituting a forcible exchange of hats with him, to his manifest disadvantage, for ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... unfortunate. There is no remedy and the owner must move elsewhere; the house is demolished, the wooden material carried away and erected in another kampong. Should he remain at the same place there would be much strife between him and his neighbours. If a wah-wah climbs on a roof the house will burn down. There is no remedy for this either; the incumbent leaves and makes a ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... rush off and burn down Newgate, if necessary, and say that such a thing was without ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... kaze dat wuz de Mason's lodge hall up over de mill. De sojer boss, he meks de udder sojers put out de fire. He say him er Mason hisself en he ain' gwine see nobuddy burn up er Masonic Hall. Dey kinder tears up some uv de fixin's er de Mill wuks, but dey dassent burn down de mill house kaze he ain't let 'em do nuthin' ter de Masonic Hall. Yar knows, Miss Sarah, Ah wuz jes' 'bout two years ole when dat happen, but I ain't heered nuffin' 'bout no time when dey didden' take cotton ter Jools ever year twel de railroad ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... the back streets. I tried to get her to stay here, but she was frantic about you, and nothing I could say would keep her. Is the riot almost over, Dr. Miller? Do you think they will murder us all, and burn down our houses?" ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... to their own colleges at Santa Barbara and Santa Inez. When something to this effect was one day said in the Senora Moreno's presence, two scarlet spots sprang on her cheeks, and before she bethought herself, she exclaimed, "That day, I burn down my chapel!" ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... protection. The Alcalde was not, strictly speaking, his uncle but was his mother's first cousin. It was an awful moment: the nine armed ruffians were already standing outside, shouting to the owner of the place to give them up their prisoner, and threatening to burn down the house and kill all the inmates if he refused. The old Alcalde stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by a crowd of women and children, his own two handsome daughters, aged about twenty and twenty-two respectively, among them, fainting with terror and crying for him to save them, while the ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... many things—some of them facts and some of them "higher truth," Georgia holding that things which ought to be true were higher truth. She told him how Karl had tried to burn down his father's house, when a very small boy, to see if something somebody had said about fire was true, how he dissected a strange and wonderful bird which came to the house on a visitor's hat, how he inspired a whole crew of small boys to run away from home as explorers, how ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... lecture here last night, but the train walked all the way through the ice, sixty miles, from six in the morning, and arrived here at ten at night. I hope still that Albany will entreat me on its knees to read to-night. One other piece of bad news if you have not already learned it. Can you not burn down the Boston Athenaeum to-night? for I learned by chance that they have a duplicate of the "Liber Amoris." I hope for great prosperity on my journey as the necessary recoil of such adversities, and specially to pay my debts in twenty days. Yours, with ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... as the liver cannot burn down so that the kidneys and skin can handle them, it pours out through its duct into the intestine as the bile. The bile is a yellowish-brown fluid, which assists the pancreatic juice in the digestion of the food, and helps to dissolve the fats eaten, but is chiefly a waste product. It turns ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... that," agreed Douglas. "You don't get the idea, Scott. You can't run the preacher out of the Valley, because I shall keep bringing him back. You can't burn down my chapel, because I shall keep building it up. Now, you tell me what you know about this man, because I don't calculate to let you eat, drink, or sleep ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... Mills are like the fruit of my own body to me. I love them! I love every stone and brick of them, that I've put in place, as it were, with my own hands. I've often thought that if they should burn down it would come close to killing me. And yet I could watch them go with a lighter heart, God knows, than that with which I foresee the misery that's coming to these people of mine, who are going ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... will not set fire to the woods, and burn down the nice trees after we are gone. Always put out your camp fire when you leave it," said the rabbit, as he threw water on the blaze, making clouds ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... case of the thirty-six who presented no literal death ideas, the psychosis was characterized essentially by apathy and mild confusion, a larval stupor reaction. It began with a fear of fire, smelling smoke and a conviction that her house would burn down. It is surely not straining interpretation to suggest that this phobia was analogous to a death fear. When one considers the incompleteness of anamneses not taken ad hoc (for these are largely old cases) and that the rule in stupor is ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... both interred, he cried out that he was well rid of such good-for-nothing children, but that he should be perfectly happy only when the remaining five were buried with the first two, and that when he had got rid of the last he himself would burn down his palace as a bonfire to celebrate ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... no! He works in the woods sometimes. But since the tavern's been open he's been drinkin' more. Ma says she hopes it'll burn down," added Sophie, with ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... have thought you'd rather have let the house burn down than scutter away in this profane fashion. All right, I won't ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... exhausted. We must never forget that, if we would shine, we must burn. Too many of us want to shine, but are not prepared to pay the cost that must be faced by every true man that wants to illuminate his time. We must burn down until there is but an eighth of an inch left in the candlestick, till the light flickers a little and drops, makes one more eager effort, and then ceases to shine—"a ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... wipe away the tears of the people whose houses have been burnt, but they will burn down the town. It's all the work of four scoundrels, four and a half! Arrest the scoundrel! He worms himself into the honour of families. They made use of the governesses to burn down the houses. It's vile, vile! Aie, what's he about?" ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... men are carrying faggots and fire to burn down the gates of the Acropolis, and supply comic material by their panting and wheezing as they climb the steep approaches to the fortress and puff and blow at their fires. Aristophanes gives them names, purely fancy ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... the character of the men hereabout, or you would not say so," observed Lord Reginald. "That fellow Hargrave is a desperate young villain, and they are all smugglers and poachers, who would not scruple to burn down the hall if they had an opportunity. My father is determined to put a stop to their poaching and smuggling, but he has not as yet had much success, I believe. The smugglers, somehow or other, manage ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... one in sanitary reform. In the days of Nero Rome was in the same predicament as London to-day. If some one would burn down London, and it were rebuilt, as it would now have to be, subject to the sanitary by-laws and Building Act provisions enforced by the London County Council, it would be enormously improved; and the average lifetime of Londoners would be considerably prolonged. Nero argued in the same ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... understandings between railroad magnates and beef kings and biscuit makers—and even the ministers had a scale of wedding fees. But competition had a happy home on our campus. About the best we had been able to do had been to agree not to burn down each other's frat houses while we were haltering the Freshmen. I've seen nine frats, with a total of one hundred and fifty members, sitting up nights for a week at a time working out plans to despoil each other of a runty little fellow in a pancake hat, whose ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... year old when de Yankee come—fifteen de sixth of June. I saw 'em burn down me Massa's home, an' everythin'. I 'members dat. Ole man Joe Bostick was me Massa. An' I knows de Missus an' de Massa used to work us. Had de overseer to drive us! Work us till de Yankees come! When Yankee come dey had ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... notes continuously repeated by a bugle. It was the alarm for a fire at a farmhouse about half a mile from town. Our men from the hospital helped to get most of the furniture out, and were standing around watching the farmhouse and barns burn down, when the 17 Brigade Lancers appeared with the hand hose-reel, which, however, proved to be useless. The Lancers had broken into the fire hall and stolen ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... "He hath poured out upon us the fury of His wrath, and it hath burned us; and the strength of battle, and it hath set on fire round about?" Should we not lay it to heart, and use all means to pacify the fierceness of His anger, lest it burn down to the very foundations of the land, and none be able to ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... here, I reckon, has had his share of fun, for while he was at Hennicker's trying to get some facts from Hennicker's pretty daughter, Stanner tried to get up some sort of vigilance committee of the stage passengers to burn down Hennicker's ranch out of spite, but the Judge here ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... he set the town on fire at several points simultaneously. At the same time, while his men were plundering the suburbs, he fastened a paper to the door-post of a church to the effect that "he, Kohlhaas, had set the city on fire, and if the Squire were not delivered to him he would burn down the city so completely that," as he expressed it, "he would not need to look behind any wall to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... legal matters, immediately after the fires he gave orders to find and execute the incendiaries. And the scoundrel Rostopchin was punished by an order to burn down his houses. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... of the risks of the game, I guess. But I know you too well to think that you'd burn down an unarmed man, and John didn't intend to stab you. Besides, I ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... like a puppet whose controlling strings had been cut. Stan's blazing fury started to burn down. ...
— Alarm Clock • Everett B. Cole
... and in other plantations of America, e. g. in Virginia, the natives did burn down great woods, to cultivate the soil with maiz and potato-rootes, which plaines were there made by firing the woods to sowe corne. They doe call these plaines Savannas. Who knowes but Salisbury plaines, &c. might be made long time ago, after this ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... ship. A nervous voice essayed to give Hoddan directions for getting the spaceboat inside what was plainly an enormous hold now pumped empty of air. He grunted and made the attempt. It was tricky. He sweated when he cut off his power. But he felt fairly safe. Rocket flames would burn down such a door, if necessary. He could work ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... entrance-hall, in which I now found myself, was of a good size and good proportions; potted plants occupied the corners; the paved floor was soiled with muddy footprints and encumbered with straw; on a mahogany hall-table, which was the only furniture, a candle had been stuck and suffered to burn down—plainly a long while ago, for the gutterings were green with mould. My mind, under these new impressions, worked with unusual vivacity. I was here shut off with Fenn and his hireling in a deserted house, a ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said they. "It is a very deadly spear belonging to the King of Persia, the Luin it is called, and every choice thing is done by it, and its head is kept steeped in a vessel of water, the way it will not burn down the place where it is, and it will be hard to get it. And do you know what two horses and what chariot I am asking of you? They are the chariot and the two wonderful horses of Dobar, King of Siogair, and the sea is the same as land to them, and there are no faster horses than themselves, ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... Andrew Jackson did. The reason was that no other British officer was so cruel as "Butcher Tarleton," as he was called. Once, however, his men met their match. They were robbing a farm of its pigs and chickens and corn and hay. When they got through carrying things off, they were going to burn down the farm-house; but one of the "red-coats," in his haste, ran against a big hive of bees and upset it. The bees were mad enough. They swarmed down on the soldiers, got into their ears and eyes, and stung them so terribly that at last the robbers were ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... I ever get over this one, it's the last for Joe. I hope every still house in Fayette County will burn down afore night and all the whiskey ever ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... Aidan, wishing, it may be supposed, for greater solitude, went away and lived on the rocky isle of Farne, some two miles out at sea, off Bamborough Castle; and how, when he saw Penda and his Mercians, in a second invasion of Northumbria, trying to burn down the walls of Bamborough—which were probably mere stockades of timber—he cried to God, from off his rock, to "behold the mischief:" whereon the wind changed suddenly, and blew the flames back on the besiegers, discomfiting ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... boy in a loud, clear voice. "My name is Dick Mason, and I live at Pendleton in Kentucky. I saw you more than once before the war, and I know that you tried to burn down the house of Colonel Kenton there, and kill him and his friends. I'm on the other side, but I'm not for ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of Carrier's trial (Moniteur, December 30, 1794) it was proved that he "had given orders to drown and shoot women and children, and had ordered General Haxo to exterminate all the inhabitants of La Vendee and to burn down their dwellings.'' ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... to state the notion by saying that a man can believe that he is always in a dream. Now, obviously there can be no positive proof given to him that he is not in a dream, for the simple reason that no proof can be offered that might not be offered in a dream. But if the man began to burn down London and say that his housekeeper would soon call him to breakfast, we should take him and put him with other logicians in a place which has often been alluded to in the course of this chapter. The man who cannot believe his senses, and the man ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... no wisdom in the grave, and it is nothing to them now that I remember them so kindly. Some of them went to the making of boxes, I suppose, some to the kindling of kitchen fires. In like noble spirit did the illustrious Bobo, for the love of roast pig, burn down ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... with fervent heat' (2 Peter 3:11,12). When the bride hath made herself ready, 'the marriage of the Lamb is come' (Rev 19:7). That is, the Lord will then wait upon the world no longer, when his saints are fit to receive him. As he said to Lot when he came to burn down Sodom, 'Haste thee' to Zoar, 'for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither' (Gen 19:20-22). So concerning the great day of judgment to the world, which shall be also the day of blessedness and rest to the people of God, it cannot come until ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... as if it were painted. Note, that the kermes tree does not always produce the coccum, but near the sea, and where it is very hot; nor indeed when once it comes to bear acorns; and therefore the people do often burn down the old trees, that they may put forth fresh branches, upon which they find them: This, (as well as the oak, cork, beech, and corylus) is numbred amongst the felices, and lucky-trees: But for what reason, the alaternus (which I am ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... Farmer Goggins, near whom the speaker had been standing. "The fire department's broken down. Then I am a ruined man. The barns that are burned I used for hay and though my loss is heavy I can stand it, but if the fire spreads it will burn down my dairy plant ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... hour of the revolutionary war has struck." This was the placard posted throughout Paris on the 22nd, by order of the Communist chief, Delescluze. And again, "After the barricades, our houses; after our houses, our ruins." Preparations were made to burn down a part of Central Paris to delay the progress of the Versaillese. Rumour magnified this into a plan of wholesale incendiarism, and wild stories were told of petroleuses flinging oil over buildings, and ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... in fight, when mounted on a car? As a mortal coming under the clutches of death can never escape; so who is there that once coming under his clutches in the field of battle, is able to return with his life? The son of Vasudeva will burn down by the volleys of his fiery shafts all the hostile troops, and those two warriors, Bhishma and Drona,—who are great on a car, and Somadatta surrounded by all his sons. What is there in all the world including the gods, which Krishna cannot ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Adam, "I did not burn down the wheat, and I did not pour the water out of the bucket, and I did not send My ...
— First Book of Adam and Eve • Rutherford Platt
... happened to them for no other reason than that they did not have Augustus for consul this time also. They accordingly wished to elect him as dictator, and shutting the senate up within its halls they forced it to vote this measure by threatening to burn down the building. Next they took the twenty-four rods and accosted Augustus, begging him both to be named dictator and to become commissioner of grain, as Pompey had once been. He accepted the latter duty ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... as the locusts. Poor monks, strong in the protection of the holy Bertin, sallied out and smote them hip and thigh, singing their psalms the while. The ditches of the fortress were filled with unbaptized corpses; the piles of vine-twigs which they lighted to burn down the gates turned their flames into the Norsemen's faces at the bidding of St. Bertin; and they fled from that temporal fire to descend into that which is eternal, while the gates of the pit were too narrow for the multitude of ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... about A.D. 547, and suffered considerably at the hands of the Danes in 933. Earlier than this, however, in the seventh century, Bamborough was besieged by Penda, the pagan king of Mercia, who, although having recently gained several victories, made great efforts to burn down the castle. Having set his men to work to accumulate a great mass of brushwood, Penda had huge piles heaped up beneath the walls. As soon as the wind was in the right quarter he set alight the brushwood. Shortly afterwards, however, the wind veered round until it blew in ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... far are cases where the proximate cause of the loss was intended to be produced by the defendant. But it will be seen that the same result may be caused by a choice at different points. For instance, a man is sued for having caused his neighbor's house to burn down. The simplest case is, that he actually intended to burn it down. If so, the length of the chain of physical causes intervening is of no importance, and has no bearing ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... his lighter on and off as he listened to Neel, staring at the flame. He closed it and held it up. "I believe in accidents. I believe that even in our fireproof age, fires still occur. Buildings still burn down. And if a burnt building just happened to be occupied by the S.P.N.B.—just one tenant of many—and their offices and records were destroyed; that would be of very little interest to ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... other. "It won't do any particular harm, it is true; but still, I think it was a pity to burn down our little home. We have passed many pleasant as well as sad hours there, you know, during ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... also talks with a crooked tongue; and if he does not give what the Indians ask for, they will burn down the fort, and murder himself and his followers, not sparing either the women or ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... the hole, and well he did, for in a moment more, she had crawled in just as the hunters came to the foot of the tree. They were foiled of their game, and after consulting for a moment whether it was best to cut or burn down the tree, they concluded to burn it, as the less laborious way to dislodge the old bear. Accordingly, they dispersed in search of fire, leaving half their number to guard the tree while away. I saw at once that ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... literature. Douglas, when he hurled the heart of Bruce in front of him in his last battle, cried out, 'Pass first, great heart, as thou wert ever wont.' A Spanish nobleman, when commanded by the King to receive a high-placed and notorious traitor, said: 'I will receive him in all obedience, and burn down my house afterwards.' This is literature without culture; it is the speech of men convinced that they have to assert proudly ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... as he reached the threshold. "I'll begin by stirring him up. I shall move heaven and earth! What! Burle, Colonel Burle's son, condemned for theft! That cannot be! I would sooner burn down the town. Now, thunder and lightning, don't worry; it is far more annoying ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... enclosed pasturage at some little distance from the house, "Jimmie Starkweather says there is a big ship off Race Point, and that it is coming into harbor here. He says 'tis a British ship, and that like as not the men will land and burn down the houses and kill all the cows." Anne ...
— A Little Maid of Province Town • Alice Turner Curtis
... art fallen man's best friend! With thee he speeds In frigid apathy along his way. And never does the tear of agony Burn down his scorching cheek; or the keen steel Of ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... rabble marched to Lambeth. Laud, however, had been warned in time, and had made good his escape across the river to Whitehall. The rioters finding themselves baulked of their prey retired with threats of returning to burn down the palace. For the next few days the city was under martial law. A double watch was kept in its streets. The companies looked to their store of powder and match. A strict guard was kept over servants and apprentices, and ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... winter the community center did in fact burn down. A young Indian in a rage after having an argument with his father hurled a bottle of kerosene against a wood stove. The resulting fire could not be extinguished because the Dresslerville pump was not working. Whether the dream was really a prophecy after the fact I do not know. It is significant ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... on one more attack on the Germans, as a reprisal for the burning of the village. Well, we cannot do anything in Belgium, for it would only mean another village burned. If we make the attack in Germany it will be different. They can hardly burn down their ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... history, revives in the shape of a romance—an old legend changes into a modern play—and a sober philosophical treatise furnishes the body for a whole series of bouncing and sparkling essays. Thus it is in the clearing of our American woodlands; where we burn down a forest of stately pines, a progeny of dwarf oaks start up in their place; and we never see the prostrate trunk of a tree mouldering into soil, but it gives birth to a ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... they work us poor devils," Joe was remarking. "If I didn't bowl up, I'd break loose an' burn down the shebang. My bowlin' up is all that saves 'em, I ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... but the enamel is likely to chip off, and, too, if the dish "boils dry," the food in it and the dish itself are spoiled. Aluminum never chips, and it holds the heat in such a manner as to make all parts of the dish equally hot. Food, then, is not so likely to "burn down," but if it does, only the part that sticks will taste scorched; and no matter how many times a dish "boils dry," it will never break. If you make a dent in it, you can easily pound it back into shape again. It is said that an ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... the other she put on at bed time. She presumed the owners would have a secret search for them; and in the morning hid them in the stove, after the fire had gone out, which was kindled a little before the hour of rising, and then suffered to burn down. ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... though, as he said, he was very desirous to have searched into the thing, yet he would not insist upon it; so we resolved to quit it and come away, which we did. However, William said before we went he would have this satisfaction of them, viz., to burn down the tree and stop up the entrance into the cave. And while doing this the gunner told him he would have one satisfaction of the rogues; and this was, that he would make a mine of it, and see which way it had vent. Upon this he fetched ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... so ancient that it had fortunately been forgotten, and remained unfinished and beautiful. Did Roche, Breton that he was—half the love-ladies in Paris, they say—falsely, no doubt—are Bretonnes—ever enter the church in passing? Some rascal had tried to burn down its beautiful old door from the inside, and the flames had left on all that high western wall smears like the fingermarks of hell, or the background of a Velasquez Crucifixion. Did he ever enter and stand, knotting ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... wish to injure, thus causing chills, fevers, ugly pustules and other diseases; or they introduce into the body by such arts toads, frogs, snakes, centipedes, etc,[TN-2] causing great torments. And by these same breathings and magic words they can burn down houses, destroy the growing crops and induce sickness. No one of the three disciples is permitted to practice any of these arts without previously informing the other two, and also the Master, by whom the three ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton
... been a difficult shot. The lion's head made an easier mark than a tomato-can swinging at the end of a string. There was a provoking, teasing, maddening smile upon her mouth and in her dark eyes. The would-be-rescuing knight felt the fire of his fiasco burn down to his soul. Here had been his chance, the chance that he had dreamed of; and Momus, and not Cupid, had presided over it. The satyrs in the wood were, no doubt, holding their sides in hilarious, silent laughter. There had been something ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... paper! Oh, that the print shop would burn down or that the editor were taken ill, or something—No, no. I mustn't say that. I mustn't. Do you know, Benjamin, I was with my ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... dryly. "He's fool enough for anything. The place runs him into eight thousand a year as it is—not including Ada Lester, the lady manager—so he might just as well hand it over to her altogether. I wish to goodness the wretched building would burn down! 'Pon my word, I shall set it alight myself one ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... and shave them up into kindling. Dig a trench in the ground, laid with the wind, about a foot long, 4 inches wide, and 6 inches deep. Start the fire in this trench gradually, piling on the heavier wood as the fire grows. When the trench is full of burning wood, allow it a few minutes to burn down to the coals and stop blazing high. Then rest the meat can and cup over the trench and start cooking. Either may be supported, if necessary, with green sticks. If you can not scrape a trench in the soil, build one up out of rocks or with ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... moored a great black barge, its stem and stern showing on either side of the bridge. Boats were being swiftly pulled forth from it into the stream, and as I gazed, there leaped up through the dark one long tongue of fire. Then I saw the skill of it, namely, to burn down the drawbridge, and so cut the English off from all succour. Fed with pitch and pine the flame soared lustily, and now it shone between the planks of the drawbridge. On the stone platform of the boulevard, wherein the drawbridge was laid, stood a few English, and above ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... sit down to render the whole Jewish history into madrigals, than undertake to fuse into unanimity the conflicting interests of three sovereigns, when two out of the three are women! But I will do my best. When your neighbor's house is on fire, help to put it out, or it may communicate and burn down your own." [Footnote: The king's own words. "Ceuvres Posthumes," vol. ii., ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... poor answer to my statement; you had enough of that woeful business yesterday; they hold me in such hatred that they would burn down your place, if they could reach me in ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... morning we proceeded, by order of Colonel Grant, to burn down the Indian cabins. Some of our men seemed to enjoy this cruel work, laughing very heartily at the curling flames as they mounted, loud-crackling, over the tops of the huts. But to me it appeared a shocking sight. "Poor creatures!" thought I, "we surely ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... to assassinate him? Lesseps told him his name, and a long conversation followed. One thing, at least, that Lesseps said in this interview was strictly true, namely, that Mazzini must not count on the French republican soldiers objecting to fire on republicans: 'The French soldier would burn down the cottage of his mother if ordered by his superiors to do so.' The discipline of a great army is proof ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... monk, and Waltheof was not slow in following his example. Both entered the Cistercian order, and led holy lives, avoiding all preferment—a difficult matter for Waltheof, stepson to one king and cousin to another. His brother Simon took such offence at his lowliness, that he actually threatened to burn down the convent of Waldon, where Waltheof was living, because he thought it shame to see a descendant of Siward a common ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... said Aileen anxiously. "I've heard dad talk about her ground rents. She'll get those again soon enough. I fancy the old tradition survives in this town and they'll begin to draw the plans for the new city before the fire is out. It used to burn down regularly in the ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton |
