"Rocket" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming; Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... knocking some over, when the rest soon jumped off. However, F—- and myself declared we would go right into the quadrangle of the Castle, so we went into the middle of the road and formed a line. Soon a rocket (the signal that the Queen was at Slough) was let off, and then some Life Guards came galloping along, and one of them ran almost over me, and actually trod on F—-'s toe, which put him into dreadful pain for some time. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... went, like Johnny Gilpin. Hunting may be sport, says I, but I'm blest if its pleasure. This infernal horse was always fond of shying, and now he's going to shy me off; and, ecod! no sooner said than done. Over his head I go, like a rocket." ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... bring up their guns by the road without our being able to interfere with them. Mr. Bathurst, will you take down word to Captain Doolan to put his men on the platforms on that side. Tell him that I am going to throw up a rocket, as I believe they are erecting a battery near Hunter's bungalow, and that his men are to be ready to give them a volley if they can make them out. Tell them not to expose themselves too much; for if they really are at work ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... business of the human race—on which its survival or destruction would depend. Other remodeled ships had gone out before the Niccola, and others would follow until the problem was solved. Meanwhile the Niccola's twenty-four rocket tubes and stepped-up drive and computer-type radar system equipped her for Plumie-hunting as well as any human ship could be. Still, if she'd been lured deep into the home system of the Plumies, the ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... chorus which Glck, said the Moniteur, "could not have made more beautiful, even if he had foreseen this occasion." Alas! the same thing had been said, in the same words, for the unhappy Marie Antoinette; but away with these gloomy presentiments! After the concert the discharge of a rocket from the palace gave the signal for the fireworks. These had been arranged for the whole length of the Avenue of the Champs lyses. The illumination brought out the impressiveness of the vast architectural lines of the Tuileries. The main avenues of the gardens were ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... speech, a sound, as of an avalanche and earthquake, all in one, was heard—a shock, as of contending thunderbolts, shook the train, and the last thing I saw was the head and body of Mr Jeeks propelled, with the force and velocity of a rocket, against the expansive countenance of Mr Shookers. My own forehead was dashed against the opposite side, and I was insensible. There had been a collision between two trains. I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... dessert appeared the whiz of a rocket announced the commencement of fire-works. As most of us had seen the splendid bouquet of rockets, which, during the fetes of July, amuse the Parisians, we entertained slender expectations of being pleased with an illumination ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... rocket is fixed, with more allowance for the wind; but the black curve has disappeared, and he must ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... argued McFeeters, all grim and severe, Who the long night before, with a feeling of fear, Had slumbered but fitfully, hearing the swish Of the sky-rocket over his roof, with a wish That the urchin who fired it were fast to the end Of the stick to forever and ever ascend; Or to hopelessly ask why the boy with the horn And its horrible havoc had ever been born! Or to wish, in his wakefulness, staring aghast, That this ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... The cannon pointed upwards—then kerchuck! Fiz! Snap! Ker—boom! Slug 14's grotesque form Sails out to ride a race upon the storm, Up through the roof, and up into the sky— As if he sought for "cases" up on high, Till like a rocket, or like one who's trusted, He fell again to ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... rock lighthouses, where it would be impossible to mount large pieces of apparatus, the use of a gun-cotton rocket has been suggested by Sir Richard Collinson, deputy-master of the Trinity House. A charge of gun-cotton is inclosed in the head of a rocket, which is projected to the height of perhaps 1,000 feet, when the cotton is exploded, and the sound shed in all directions. Comparative experiments ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... hairtrigger of impulse. A wind, a sketch, the perfume of a flower, and he would be off wherever the reminiscence called him. He whistled constantly. That, as Jan pointed out, was always a bad sign with Kenny. It meant that he felt perilously transient and would rocket up in the air when a spark came that pleased him. He had been much the same, Fahr remembered, the summer he embarked for Syria upon a tramp steamer—to the captain's ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... fire a rocket when the launch left the shore, in order that the captain of the yacht might run in closer to pick them up. As he hurried down the beach, he called to his boatswain to give the signal, and the man answered that he understood and stooped to light a match. King had jumped ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... terrible rough," said Wheeler, "when through the darkness we saw the green light of the distress-signals. I shot off a rocket with a rope to the forepart of the vessel. The men, who were clinging to the rigging, paid no attention to it. Then I sent off another rope between the main and the mizzen masts. First, they paid no heed to that; but, finally, one man in oilskins jumped into the sea ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... had followed the flying foe: but could not come up with them: and, as the enemy had prepared for every contingency, the fatal bastion, after first throwing a rocket or two to discover their position, poured showers of grape into them, killed many, and would have killed more but that Captain Neville and his gunners happened by mere accident to dismount one gun and to kill a couple of gunners at the others. This gave the remains of the company time to disperse ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... are we, With our liners of rocket speed, Till the God of Ice, in mist-filled trice, Calls to us harshly to pay his price As we ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... were hardly out of his mouth before there was a loud hissing sound, and right out of the centre of the precipitous slope facing them something like a gigantic rocket shot high into the air and burst into a ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... squad ship. Police ships, naturally, had their special drive, which could lift them off without rocket aid and gave them plenty of speed, but filled up the hull with so much machinery that it was only practical for such ships. Commercial craft were satisfied with low-power drives, which meant that spaceport facilities lifted them to space and pulled them down again. They carried ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... since Christmas last. Two hundred carpenters; and how many painters I cannot say: but they have smeared "six thousand yards of linen canvas;" which is now nailed up; hung with lamps, begirt with fire-works, no end of rocket-serpents, catherine-wheels; with cannon and field-music, near and far, to correspond;—and is now (evening of the 24th June, 1730) shining to men and gods. Pinnacles, turrets, tablatures, tipt with various fires ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... oil—to effluvia that escape from all parts and that exert upon the body whence they emanate a recoiling action exactly like that which manifests itself in an aelopile mounted upon a brasier, or, better yet, in the explosion of a sky-rocket. A portion of these camphory vapors, as well as a small portion of the camphor itself, dissolves in the water and forms upon its surface an oily layer which is at first very slight, but the thickness of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... stupendous waste of gunpowder, and duck- shot, and 'high-wines,' and ham sandwiches, upon the silvonian banks of the ragin' Kankakee, where the 'di-dipper' tips ye good-by wid his tail, and the wild loon skoots like a sky-rocket for his exiled home in the alien dunes of the wild morass—or, as Tommy Moore so illegantly ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... that Mahmoud on a splendid war-horse, and five of his mounted staff, arrived at the head of the oncoming column; and Kagig saw them in a moment when the flare from the castle roared like a rocket hundreds of feet high and scattered all the shadows on that section of the road. Kagig passed the word along, but it was Monty who devised the instant plan, and one of Will's men who came running to ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... Pompadour, without in the least offending his tempestuous friend. That remarkable young lady, then still known as la petite Etoile, had succeeded in catching the King's eye, and was soaring into the political heavens like a rocket, carrying, among other incongruous objects, the genius of Voltaire in her glittering train. Voltaire must have boasted to his young friend that his fortune was made. Vauvenargues surprisingly expresses in his reply the evil which must be done by great authors who flatter vice and think ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... good many of us, who are now certain beyond a doubt that space travel will forever remain in the realm of the impossible, probably would, if a rocket that were shot to the moon, for instance, did arrive, and perhaps return to give proof of its safe arrival on our satellite, accept the phenomenon in a perfectly blase, twentieth century manner. ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... soary (and flighty) as a rocket, to-day, with the unutterable joy of getting that Old Man of the Sea off my back, where he has been roosting for more than a year and a half. Next time I make a contract before writing the book, may I suffer the righteous penalty and be burnt, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... this simple explanation of the famous November meteors Ardan would not listen. He preferred believing that Mother Earth, feeling that her three daring children were still looking at her, though five thousand miles away, shot off her best rocket-signals to show that she still thought of them and would never let them out ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... of rocket, invented by the late Sir William Congreve, R.A., and intended to do the work of artillery without the inconvenience of its weight. In its present form, however, the rocket is so uncertain, that it is in little ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... us witnesses of that time. On every hand we are wrapped in a veil of ignorance, as with a pall of darkness, we no more distinguish the light beyond the cradle than that beyond the tomb. So far as memory is concerned, it would seem that we might be compared with a rocket such as we sometimes see flashing through the sky in the night-time, leaving behind it a line of light, this light never shows anything more than a limited portion of the way. Of like nature is ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... what had been one such; for the bolt had torn the tree like an explosion from within, and the ground was strewed all around the broken stump with flakes of rough bark and strips and chips of shivered wood, into which the old tree had been rent by the bursting rocket from the thunder-cloud. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... redoubling the pressure of Russian diplomacy in Europe, the Minister for War at St. Petersburg had issued orders on April 25, 1878, for the despatch of three columns of troops which were to make a demonstration against India. The chief force, 12,000 strong, with 44 guns and a rocket battery, was to march from Samarcand and Tashkend on Cabul; the second, consisting of only 1700 men, was to stir up the mountain tribes of the Chitral district to raid the north of the Punjab; while the third, of the same strength, moved from the middle part of the Amu Daria (Oxus) towards ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... of bombardment ammunition is hampered by manpower shortages; so is production for its huge rocket program. Labor shortages have also delayed its cruiser and carrier programs, and production of certain ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... what's happened to my practice," he said. "The blamed thing has gone up like a rocket. It seems to me there must be a great wave of sickness passing over New ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... not impressed. He smiled, and continued dreamily: "My word, things have moved with you, Jinny. You're gone up like er rocket in er reg'lar blaze iv glory, but I can still see yeh in the old shop days. You blazed then too, old girl. It wasn't with di'monds, 'twas fish scales, but you blazed. You could alwiz put on dog. You sold flathead, Jinny, but I give the devil his due—you did ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... anent that—zeal catches fire at a slight spark as fast as a brunstane match," observed the secretary. "I hae kend a minister wad be fair gude-day and fair gude-e'en wi' ilka man in the parochine, and hing just as quiet as a rocket on a stick, till ye mentioned the word abjuration-oath, or patronage, or siclike, and then, whiz, he was off, and up in the air an hundred miles beyond common manners, common sense, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... who had thus appropriated me, without more ado, levelled his head like a battering ram, and began to batter in breach all who stood in his way. He first ran a tilt against Pam be Civil, and shot him like a rocket into the sea; the Monkey fared no better; the Ballahoo had to swim for it; and having thus opened a way by main force, I at length got safely moored in the stern sheets; but just as we were shoving off, Mr Callaloo, the clergyman of Port Royal, a tall yellow personage, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... night, down yonder by Lokken, the little fishing village with the red-tiled roofs—we can see it up here from the window—a ship has come ashore. It has struck, and is fast embedded in the sand; but the rocket apparatus has thrown a rope on board, and formed a bridge from the wreck to the mainland; and all on board are saved, and reach the land, and are wrapped in warm blankets; and to-day they are invited to the farm ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... through rips in the plastic siding here and there. I wondered if the thing had any slow leaks and supposed fatalistically that it had. The agent waved at me, stony-faced, the conveyor belt trundled me outside the dome, and I kicked the weary rocket into life. ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake
... out like a rocket tail behind us. The Planetara caught their impetus. In the rarified air, our bow lifted slightly, like a ship riding a gentle ground swell. At a hundred thousand feet we sailed gently forward, hull down to the asteroid's surface, cruising ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... sulphur, two of charcoal, and six of saltpetre. If some of this powder be tightly rammed in a long narrow tube closed at one end, and then set on fire, the tube will fly through the air: this is clearly the rocket. He says that thunder may be imitated by folding some of the powder in a cover and tying it up tightly: this is the cracker. It thus appears that fireworks preceded fire-arms. To the same author we are indebted for prescriptions for making the skin incombustible, so that we may handle fire without ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... the Skylark, and no knowledge of intra-atomic energy. Therefore their space-ships are of the rocket type, and for that reason they can cross only at the exact time of conjunction, or whatever you call it—no, not conjunction, exactly, either, since the two planets do not revolve around the same sun: but when they are closest together. Our solar system is so complex, you know, that ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... Stryker finished in an awed voice. "Primitive isn't the word, Gib—the thing is prehistoric! Rocket propulsion hasn't been used in spacecraft since—how ...
— Control Group • Roger Dee
... rise and fall. From whence comes the vigor with which this law of growth and decay applies itself to all organized things in this lower world? Death itself, in times of scourge, has periods when it advances, slackens, sinks back, and slumbers. Our globe is perhaps only a rocket a little more continuing than the rest. History, recording the causes of the rise and fall of all things here below, could enlighten man as to the moment when he might arrest the play of all his faculties; but neither ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... watched that long stretch of gloom with the greatest anxiety. Suddenly from its mystery a rocket flamed into the sky. Three minutes elapsed and another threw far and wide its ominous light. Again there was an interval of three minutes, when a third rocket confirmed the watcher's fears that these were signals. Four minutes passed, and then, from the vicinity of Union Square, what appeared to ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... lost, but the French made it so hot for them that they abandoned it, and the contested trenches now lie in No Man's Land. All that night the whole Wood was illuminated, trench light after trench light rising over the dark branches. There would be a rocket like the trail of bronze-red powder sparks hanging for an instant in the sky, then a loud Plop! and the French light would spread out its parachute and sail slowly down the sky toward the river. The German lights (fusees ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... a spot where the strain was the greatest. Then the axe cleaved the air, the keen blade bit the wood, and the whirling chips played about his head. Deeper and deeper the steel ate into the side of the giant spruce. Suddenly a report like a cannon split the air, the axe was hurled like a rocket out into midstream to sink with a splash into the foaming eddies. Tony turned, leaped like lightning back upon the main body of logs, and started for the shore. But he was too late. With a roar of pent-up wrath the mighty drive moved forward. Down through the Gorge it surged, ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... increasing in violence and some of the deck fittings had already been swept overboard when the captain decided to send up a signal of distress. But hardly had the rocket burst over the ship when a solemn-faced passenger stepped on to the bridge. "Captain," he said, "I'd be the last man on earth to cast a damper on any man, but it seems to me that this is no time for ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... ocean, Patroon?" muttered the Alderman, in the ear of Oloff Van Staats. "I have no further knowledge of this 'Skimmer of the Seas,' than is decent in the principal of a commercial house,—but reputation is like a sky-rocket, that may be seen from afar! Her Majesty has no ship that can overtake the free-trader, and why fatigue the innocent ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... Navy, Air Forces; Airborne troops, Strategic Rocket Forces, and Military Space Forces are classified as independent combat arms, not subordinate to any of the three ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... hot air from the chest immediately mounted to the upper end of the air chamber, and forced the excess of cold atmosphere out through these lower traps. The effect upon the globe was marvelous. It would bound skyward like a rocket. By a series of experiments Will had ascertained just the amount of pressure per square inch and the temperature that was necessary to send the ship to a given altitude. The rate of ascent was under perfect control by letting off the ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... more or less as the working of nature; the results are therefore less destructive of efficiency than they might be otherwise. It is common to see the boss's nephew or his son get a good spot in the office and then rise like a rocket, even though he is a third-rater. And it is not less common to see a straw boss in a factory favor the man whom he thinks might grease the wheels for him on the outside. But in the armed establishment, favoritism on any grounds, and particularly on such treacherous ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... "Oh, by the way Sergeant Cromwell," he turned to Jed, "we've just learned that our hosts plan to launch their manned Moon rocket within the next hour or so. Isn't ...
— Sonny • Rick Raphael
... star expands down yonder in the uncertain direction that we are taking—a rocket. Widely it lights a part of the sky with its milky nimbus, blots out the stars, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... man that his first act was to wipe the grime of the stoke-hold off his face and hands. Then he drew a chart from the locker in which he had placed it two hours earlier. Mr. Boyle, who had been attending to the signals both by siren and rocket, joined him. Courtenay pointed to a pin-mark ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... that way. One was in Chicago years ago—an uncle of mine, just as good an uncle as I have ever had, and I had lots of them—yes, uncles to burn, uncles to spare. This poor uncle, full of patriotism, opened his mouth to hurrah, and a rocket went down his throat. Before that man could ask for a drink of water to quench that thing, it blew up and scattered him all, over the forty-five States, and—really, now, this is true—I know about it myself—twenty-four hours after that it was raining buttons, recognizable ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... disposition of the guns, their admirable practice, or the activity with which the cannonade was sustained; but notwithstanding the formidable calibre of our iron guns, mortars, and howitzers, and the admirable way in which they were served, and aided by a rocket battery, it would have been visionary to expect that they could, within any limited time, silence the fire of seventy pieces behind well-constructed batteries of earth, plank, and fascines, or dislodge troops covered either by redoubts or epaulements, or within a treble line ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... system. And they deserved that success when one considers the difficulties and discomforts—the months spent in acclimatization chambers back on earth, learning to breathe the air as tenuous as that of Mars, the challenging of the void in the tiny rocket driven by the cranky reaction motors of the twenty-first century, and mostly the facing of ...
— A Martian Odyssey • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... vibrating, and sweet, rent the silence, which immediately closed around it. I leaned out of the window, my heart beating as though it must burst. After a brief space the silence was cloven once more by that note, as the darkness is cloven by a falling star or a firefly rising slowly like a rocket. But this time it was plain that the voice did not come, as I had imagined, from the garden, but from the house itself, from some corner of this rambling old ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... streaks. The burning barrels lighted up their own smoke and the long shadows of men flitting about the fire; but further to one side and behind them from where the velvety chime floated there was still the same unbroken black gloom. All at once, cleaving the darkness, a rocket zigzagged in a golden ribbon up the sky; it described an arc and, as though broken to pieces against the sky, was scattered crackling into sparks. There was a roar from the bank ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... mastered the alphabet, there then appeared a procession of new horrors, called arbitrary characters; the most despotic characters I have ever known; who insisted, for instance, that a thing like the beginning of a cobweb meant expectation, and that a pen-and-ink sky-rocket stood for disadvantageous. When I had fixed these wretches in my mind, I found that they had driven everything else out of it; then, beginning again, I forgot them; while I was picking them up, I dropped the other fragments of the system: in short, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... wood fire to warm the room, he lifted the impostor from the bed, and bearing her across the floor as if to a chair, which had been previously prepared, he threw her on the fire, from which she bounced like a sky-rocket, and went through the ceiling, and out at the roof of the house, leaving a hole among the slates. He then brought in his own wife, a little recovered from her alarm, who said, that sometime after sunset, the nurse having left her for the purpose of preparing a little ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... passes on which one does not receive fresh proof that the world contains foolish people. In the small hours of Sunday morning, when the camp was astir in the darkness, a rifle-shot rang out quite close to me. I could hear the bullet going up like a rocket until the sound was lost. It was the usual thing—some idiot charging his magazine, and forgetting to close the cut-off—with the result that when he snapped his trigger the gun went off. Any good result of our discomfortable regulation as to fires and lights is quite cancelled by such an act, ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... a sudden suck of air, disturbing the papers on the desk. They all turned to see one of the ship's rocket-boat bays open; a young Air Force lieutenant named Seldar Glav, who would be staying on Tareesh with them to pilot their aircraft, ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... 7.0; Oxford, daily, at 7.0 a.m.; Portsmouth and Southampton, every afternoon, at 4.0; Plymouth and Exeter, every morning, at 8; Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, daily, at 6.0 a.m.; Portsmouth and Southampton, by the 'Rocket,' at 7.0 a.m.; Gloster, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and Holyhead leaves Bristol each day at ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... they had (and they had some families then, let me tell you!), and when they all died, and why. I met him one morning in a cemetery. I was hunting for a certain stone and I asked him a question. Heavens! It was like setting a match to one of those Fourth- of-July flower-pot sky-rocket affairs. That question was the match that set him going, and thereafter he was a gushing geyser of names and dates. I never ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... dark and silent as they approached, and as La Belle Jeanne swept past them like a shadow, and all was still, a sigh of relief burst from the marquis and Rupert. Five minutes later the wind brought down the sound of a drum, a rocket soared into the air, and a minute or two later lights appeared in every embrasure of the ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... well as the canyon depths, bowing the forest before it, bending the meagre, crevice-rooted pines on the walls of the gorge, they knew it for what it was. A wind, strong and warm, a balmy gale, drove past them, flinging a rocket-shower of sparks from the fire. The dogs, aroused, sat on their haunches, bleak noses pointed upward, and raised the long ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... banks, and other impediments forbid resort to the overhead cast. The essence and value of the Spey cast lies in this—that his line must never go behind the caster; well done, the cast is like the dart from a howitzer's mouth of a safety rocket to which a line is attached. To watch it performed, strongly yet easily, by a skilled hand is a liberal education in the art of casting; the swiftness, sureness, low trajectory, and lightness of the fall of the line, shot out by a dexterous swish of the lifting and propelling ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... rocket was seen ascending into the air, and tracing its curving course against the still sombre background of the sky. It had evidently been projected from the fort of Roqueta, which in daylight would have ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... once. The old guy is laughing like crazy, an' that half-smart Rubero drills him right through the head. I take one shot at the thing, low so's not to hit Movaine, an' then we're all running, I'm halfway to the hall when Cooms tears past me like a rocket. The Duke an' the others are already piling out through the portal. I get to the hall, and there's this terrific smack of sound in the room. I look back ... an' ... an'—" Baldy paused ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... flights to Venia and Mirla had been primitive affairs in which the dangerous rocket principle was employed, with the terrific effects of acceleration crushing the crews and making landing an even greater hazard than the flight itself. But now, through inconceivable efforts of thought—aye, ...
— Walls of Acid • Henry Hasse
... above my head, then thrown forward to see wreaths of water speeding below like ghosts. The stars jolted back and forth in wide arcs. There were explosions at the bows, and the ship trembled and hesitated. Occasionally the skipper split the darkness with a rocket, and we gazed round the night for an answer. The night had no answer to give. We were probably nearing the North Pole. About midnight, the silent helmsman put away his pipe, as a preliminary to answering a ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... the signal "Stop, or I fire," the Falaba steamed off and sent up rocket signals to summon help, and was only brought to a standstill after a chase of a quarter ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... naughty Pocket! "Look, she drops her head." "She deserved it, Rocket, "And she was nearly dead." "To your hammock—off with you!" "And swing alone." "No one will laugh with you." ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... aren't we?" Ali asked Rip across the mess table. "I saw your two star man sweating it out before he came down to shoot the breeze with us rocket monkeys—" ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... help," he said, in explanation of his order, "send up a rocket. They are made so that they are visible by day as well as night. In the daylight their explosion produces a dense cloud of black smoke visible at several miles. They also make a terrific report that is ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... excellent jest, truly, from one whose hospitality is so famous. Well, to fall in with your wishes, we will come ashore this evening, and if the Captain Delgado chances to sight the Queen's ship Crocodile before he sails, perhaps he will be so good as to signal to us with a rocket." ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... made remarks leading up to it. But she says not a word. It was just that Mrs. Everett said that it was strange that when you had taken so long to consider marriage you should have made up your mind so quickly in the end—'Gone off like a sky-rocket!' was her exact wording, and Mrs. Stopford Brown said, in that frivolous way she has, 'Oh, I suppose he stumbled across a Primitive.' You will notice, Desire, that Mrs. Stopford Brown's name is not upon the ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... Security Forces (internal and border troops); CIS Forces (Ground, Air, Air Defense, Strategic Rocket) Manpower availability: males 15-49, NA; NA fit for military service; NA reach military age (18) annually Defense ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of July Dr. Powell, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and Mr. Anderson, Commissioner for Fisheries, paid us their long -promised visit in H.M.S. Rocket. Though only a portion of our population were at home, our visitors expressed themselves as greatly astonished and delighted at all they saw. Dr. Powell has since written me an official letter, and ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... ten-day stay in Hawaii, flying both ways, with a ten-hour stopover in Los Angeles on the way back. Janet Bagley wanted a long and lazy stay somewhere no closer than fifteen hundred miles to the nearest telephone, newspaper, mailbox, airline, bus stop, or highway. She'd take the 762-day rocket trip to Venus if they had one available. Tim was duly sympathetic to her desire to get away from her daily grind for as long a time as possible, but he also had a garage to run, and he was by no means incapable of pointing out the practical ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... speculation regarding their capabilities for offensive action ran rife. Perhaps they could not move. They appeared to possess but one ray of light-fire; this had an effective radius of ten miles. The only other offensive weapon shown was the rocket, or bomb, that had destroyed the C., B. and Q. train near Garland and the town itself. Reports differed as to what had set fire ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... a single world sovereignty, colonies on Mars and Venus, that sort of thing. Some of these ideas didn't seem quite logical; a number of them were complete reversals of present trends, and a lot seemed to depend on arbitrary and unpredictable factors. Mind, this was before the first rocket landed on the Moon, when the whole moon-rocket and lunar-base project was a triple-top secret. But I knew, in the spring of 1970, that the first unmanned rocket would be called the Kilroy, and that it would be launched some time in 1971. You remember, when the news was released, it was stated ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... insensible puppy, I despise you! When I was of your age, such a description would have made me fly like a rocket! The aunt, indeed! Odds life! when I ran away with your mother, I would not have touched anything old or ugly ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... erect. A shout had arisen over in the corral, and a murmur higher and more sinister than the dominant note of the place grew steadily in intensity. It came to a full stop when a pistol-shot arose above the lesser noises like a sky-rocket. ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... military mobility is the remarkable Kirghiz Horse. The accounts of the strength, speed, endurance, and agility of this little animal are almost incredible, [Footnote: In 1869 a Russian detachment of five hundred men, mounted on Kirghiz horses, with one gun and two rocket-stands, traversed in one month one thousand miles in the Orenburg Steppe, and only lost three horses; half of this march was in deep sand. In October, M. Nogak (a Russian officer) left his detachment en route, and rode one horse into Irgiz, ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... Mexicans at Monterey, and to watch well the shore on their side of the river; for we were to fall upon the enemy during their surprise, occasioned by such an unusual display. All happened as was intended. At the first rocket, the Bonnaxes, Callapoos, and Umbiquas were on the alert; but astonishment and admiration very soon succeeded their fear of surprise, which they knew could not be attempted from their opponents in front. The bombs burst, the wheels threw their ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... returning from a pilgrimage to a far-distant temple of the Goddess of Grace. (Although Madame Prune is a Shintoist, she reveres this deity, who, scandal says, watched over her youth.) A moment after, Mdlle. Oyouki bursts into our room like a rocket, bringing, on a charming little tray, sweetmeats which have been blessed and bought at the gates of the temple yonder, on purpose for us, and which we must positively eat at once, before the virtue is gone out of them. Scarcely rousing ourselves, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... below, only waiting for the signal to move up to destroy the rest of the bridge and carry succour to the city; but the incompetent and cowardly Jacobzoon rowed hastily away after the explosion, and the rocket that should have summoned the Zeelanders was never sent up. Parma moved about among his troops, restoring order and confidence, and as the night went on and no assault took place he set his men to work to collect drifting timbers and spars, and make a hasty and temporary restoration, ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... Love: here therefore may our old doubts whether his heart were of stone or of flesh give way. He loved once; not wisely but too well. And once only: for as your Congreve needs a new case or wrappage for every new rocket, so each human heart can properly exhibit but one Love, if even one; the 'First Love which is infinite' can be followed by no second like unto it. In more recent years, accordingly, the Editor of these Sheets was led to regard Teufelsdroeckh ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... works in Sardis about the year 1946. One of his inventions was an automatic shell. This was an enormous projectile, the peculiarity of which was that its motive power was contained within itself, very much as a rocket contains the explosives which send it upward. The extraordinary piece of mechanism was of [v]cylindrical form, eighteen feet in length and fourteen feet in diameter. The forward end was [v]conical and not solid, ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... confidence, and action. The men pressed eagerly around him, and as eagerly dispersed under his quick command. Galloping at his heels was a team with the whale-boat, brought from the river, miles away. He was here, there, and everywhere; catching the line thrown by the rocket from the ship, marshaling the men to haul it in, answering the hail from those on board above the tempest, pervading everything and everybody with the fury of the storm; loud, imperious, domineering, self-asserting, all-sufficient, and successful! And when the ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... four miles upward in air. The spectacle, one of grandeur, was plainly visible even from the Sacramento Valley. "At night," writes Doctor Diller, "flashes of light from the mountain summit, flying rocket-like bodies and cloud-glows over the crater reflecting the light from incandescent lavas below, were seen by many observers from various points of view, and appear to indicate that much of the material erupted was sufficiently ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... inside a hollow sphere which resembles a huge, floating soap bubble. Before we ripped through it it must have had a plastic surface. But now the tear has apparently healed over, and the shell all around us is as resistant as steel. We're completely bottled up, sir. I shot rocket leads in ...
— The Sky Trap • Frank Belknap Long
... once a bookkeeper like myself; then a young attorney; then a medical student; then a bald-headed old gentleman, who seemed to blow a flageolet for a living; and lately, he has taken the shape of a well-to-do President of 'The Arkansas and Arizona Sky Rocket Transportation Company,' but through all these shifting shapes, I recognize him ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... singing this dolorous ditty As we part at the foot of the stairs; We cannot but think it's a pity, But what matter? there's nobody cares. Our candle burns low in its socket, There is nothing left but the wick; And these Notes, that went up like a rocket, Come ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... itself hung out a string of lights which winked, changed color, vanished, reappeared, and again vanished, leaving only a red light at the masthead. In a moment an answering signal-rocket was thrown up by an invisible war-ship in the direction of Fort Taylor, and instantly two powerful search-lights were focused upon a pale, whitish object, far out at sea, which looked in the bluish, ghostly glare like the mainsail of ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... heaven's name, man, cried Stubb, are you ramming home a cartridge there? —Avast! How will that help him; jamming that iron-bound bucket on top of his head? Avast, will ye! Stand clear of the tackle! cried a voice like the bursting of a rocket. Almost in the same instant, with a thunder-boom, the enormous mass dropped into the sea, like Niagara's Table-Rock into the whirlpool; the suddenly relieved hull rolled away from it, to far down her glittering copper; and all caught their breath, as half swinging —now ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... unmanageable heart sent him headlong to the oasis where he might loiter at the spring of feminine vanity, or truth, or impenitent gaiety, as the case might be. In proportion as his spirits had sunk into sour reflection, they now shot up rocket-high at the sight of a girl's joyous pose of body and the colour and form of the picture she made. In him the shrewdness of a strong intelligence was mingled with wild impulse. In most, rashness would be the outcome of such ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the application of detachable wings to a sky rocket, through the medium of a collar or band, arranged so that the wings may be detached from the collar or band, or the latter detached from the rocket, substantially ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... (SV), Navy (VMF), Air Forces (Voyenno-Vozdushniye Sily, VVS); Airborne Troops (VDV), Strategic Rocket Troops (Raketnyye Voyska Strategicheskogo Naznacheniya, RVSN), and Space Troops (KV) are independent "combat arms," not subordinate to any of the three branches; Russian Ground Forces include the following combat arms: motorized-rifle troops, ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... this he touched a rocket, of which he had several in the boat, with the lighted end of the cigar he had been smoking, and it went hissing up into the air, ascending so high as to be plainly visible from the deck of le Feu-Follet before it exploded. Griffin saw this signal with wonder; the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of those generators in the rocket. They're new." He fumbled in his coat pocket for his pipe and tobacco. "I never thought I'd run another nuclear-bomb test, as long ...
— The Answer • Henry Beam Piper
... woods we could see that we were marching along a high ridge, and on either hand vaporous depths and distances expanded, the darkness broken sometimes by a far light or the momentary glow of a magnesium rocket sent up from the German lines. There is something fascinating if one is stationed on sentry-duty immediately after arrival, in watching the dawn slowly illumine one of these new landscapes, from a position taken up ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... using a fairly strong pitch of voice, even when the machine was running at a good rate, as it now began to do, for John once more gave the engine more gas, and turned the airplane skyward. Up, up they shot like a rocket. The hand on the dial of the altimeter moved along steadily—it reached 2 again, passed to 3, 4, 5, 6; the earth seemed literally to be falling away from them. All at once, when they were between six and seven thousand feet high, and watching ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... a white light and a green light crept out of the dark to seawards, and a faint throbbing grew into the measured beat of a steamer's screw. Then a low, shadowy hull, outlined by a glimmer of phosphorescence, came on towards the harbor mouth, and a rocket swept up in a fiery curve and burst, dropping colored lights. A harsh rattle of running chain broke out, the screw splashed noisily for a few moments and stopped, and a launch came ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... send up a rocket the instant the parapet was gained and the enemy aroused. A few more strokes, and the boats would reach the landing-place. Just then a loud hail came from the walls of the fort. Ronald answered, in French, "People from ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... Forges Mill, through the covered roads in the valley-like depressions in the ground. It was the first wave immediately followed by heavy columns. Our artillery fire from the edge of Corbeaux Wood isolated them.... At times a rocket appeared in the air; the call to the cannons, then the marking of the road. The regular ticktack of the machine guns and the cracking of the shells were distinctly heard even among the terrific ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... before, this habit of digression will be the death of me. Like a rocket, I start off splendidly, but explode and fall to pieces in every direction before I get half way on my journey. If the scintillations are varied and gayly colored, to be sure, the powder is not utterly lost; but the trouble of it is, if one keeps ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... and play golf after luncheon," Lord Carton suggested abruptly from across the table. "I've got my little racing car outside and I'll take you down there like a rocket." ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... made out, and five atomic bombs were checked out of a cache. A patrol rocket was assigned, given orders, and put under General O'Donnell's command. This took a ...
— The Leech • Phillips Barbee
... headway. In vain does Lafayette fret, indignant; and perorate and strive: Patriots in the passion of terror, bellow round the Royal Carriage; it is one bellowing sea of Patriot terror run frantic. Will Royalty fly off towards Austria; like a lit rocket, towards endless Conflagration of Civil War? Stop it, ye Patriots, in the name of Heaven! Rude voices passionately apostrophise Royalty itself. Usher Campan, and other the like official persons, pressing forward with help or ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... for the purpose of throwing such a line. A small light line was attached to the stick of the rocket, and then the rocket itself was fired, being pointed in such a manner as to go directly over the wrecked ship. If it was aimed correctly, it would fall down so as to carry the small line across the ship. Then the sailors on board the wrecked ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... the black ditch, loathing the storm; A rocket fizzed and burned with blanching flare, And lit the face of what had been a form Floundering in mirk. He stood before me there; I say that he was Christ; stiff in the glare, And leaning forward from his burdening task, Both arms ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... time we reached the Old Bell Inn, Holborn, where the coach stopped, and where my trunk and myself were to be handed over to the tender mercies of the coachman of the Rocket, a fast coach (I speak of the slow old days when railroads were unknown) which then ran to Helmstone, the watering-place where my future tutor, the Rev. Dr. Mildman, resided. My first impressions ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... the Janitor's bad kid, Went snooping in the basement, He found a rocket snugly hid ...
— The Rocket Book • Peter Newell
... only one managed to escape the planet. And he did it very simply, merely by walking up to the crowded ticket window at one of the rocket ports and buying passage to Earth. His Army identification papers passed the harassed inspection of the agent, and he gratefully and silently pocketed the small plastic stub that was handed him ...
— The Stutterer • R.R. Merliss
... jar to be awakened so rudely from a trance of love, to turn suddenly from the one you care for most in all the world, and behold the one you have best reason to hate. Nevertheless, it is not in human nature to descend rocket-wise from the ethereal heights of love. I was still in an exalted state of mind when I turned and confronted Locasto. Hate was far from my heart, and when I saw the man himself was regarding me with no ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... said,—"a twin-screw steamer, by the beat. I can't make her out, but she must be standing very close inshore. Ah!" as the red of a rocket streaked the haze, "she's standing in to signal before ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... describes the surprising effects of the fire of the British rocket battery that served in Bernadotte's army. Captain Bogue brought it forward to check the charge of a French column against the Swedes. He was shot down, but Lieutenant Strangways poured in so hot a fire that the column was "blown ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... setter's mouth within, the gun fire having snuffed the old man's candle out. But we had flint and steel and tinder-box, and when the punk was alight, Jennifer found the candle under foot and gave it me. It took fire with a fizzing like a rocket fuse, and was well blackened with gunpowder. When the flint had failed to bring the firing spark, the old man had set his piece ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... resting upon their bayonetless guns; Quite near the bank of the James, Just above where their own fathers' names, Were first enrolled as ignoble slaves. The Second Brigade, valiant men and braves, Saw a meteor like rocket burst high, High up in the dewey morning sky. Then came the summons prepare to away, Butler leads to New Market heights at day. Beat the long roll, sound the alarm, Break the monotone and the dead calm, And the bugle's clarion notes aroused, ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... from her seat like a rocket and cried, "If that is all you have to say about it, why then I will give you a bit of my mind. The child is now eight years old and knows nothing, and you will not let her learn. You will not send her to church or school, ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... a fire at Vienna, if a gendarme is galloping." In fact, he brought tidings of a very deplorable event. While an artillery company had been preparing, in the arsenal of the town, numerous fireworks to celebrate his Majesty's fete, one of them, in preparing a rocket, accidentally set the fuse on fire, and becoming frightened threw it away from him. It fell on the powder which the shop contained, and eighteen cannoneers were killed by the explosion, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... hundred million toises, or thereabout, above the level of the sea. Bless us, what a long bell you must have pulled, to call your top workmen to their nuncheon on the low grounds of Sennaar. Or did you send up your garlick and onions by a rocket? I am a rogue if I am not ashamed to show you our Monument on Fish-street Hill, after your altitudes. Yet we think ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Did you hear that sound, like the whistling of a rocket? See! Something has fallen upon the tree-top, breaking several branches! As I live it is the kite! Dead he is, and the blood is spurting from ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... containing four eggs, slightly glossy, with a salmon-pink tinge throughout, and numerous well-marked brownish-red specks and spots, most numerous towards the large end, looking vastly like Brobdingnagian specimens of the Rocket-bird's eggs. The variation in this bird's eggs is remarkable; out of more than one hundred eggs nearly one third have been pure white, and between the dead glossless purely white egg and a somewhat glossy, warm pinky grounded one, with numerous ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume |
