"Rocket" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it quickly. It was a telegram that his father had taken over the phone. Rick's pulse quickened. Dr. Gordon, who had been at work on a secret rocket project in the far west, ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... became a roar as several of the raiders turned their guns on the incautious Hun. Immediately his voice was stilled, and the flittering light dropping earthward, after the manner of a falling rocket-stick, told what had ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... a rocket, and three more with him. They all yelled as they ran. They were street gamins of the better class, and were both sympathetic and entertained. They lived in a tenement-house near Allbright, and knew ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... showed us an apparatus for sending a line on board a stranded ship, whether invented or improved by him I am not prepared to say, nor whether the projectile was a rocket or a shot, or both, fired from a gun. Hollis, the eldest of our party, who had considerable mechanical talent, seemed clearly to understand its ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... lowered the lights, and they danced in a shadow-land; somebody began to sing, and they all sang in chorus; then somebody began to fling about paper bags full of tiny white wafers, and the bags burst in the air like shells, and their contents fell like stars from a falling rocket, and everybody was covered as with flakes ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... boom, kedge; drift, course, cruise, coast; hug the shore, hug the land; circumnavigate. ply the oar, row, paddle, pull, scull, punt, steam. swim, float; buffet the waves, ride the storm, skim, effleurer[Fr], dive, wade. fly, be wafted, hover, soar, flutter, jet, orbit, rocket; take wing, take a flight, take off, ascend, blast off, land, alight; wing one's flight, wing one's way; aviate; parachute, jump, glide. Adj. sailing &c. v.; volant[obs3], aerostatic[obs3]; seafaring, nautical, maritime, naval; seagoing, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... 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 to gain ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... 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 ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... sailors at the helm, and then turned his eyes towards the battery, astern. He heard shouts, and had no doubt that the sound of the scuffle had been heard. Then lights appeared in several of the casements and, just as the sails were sheeted home, and the polacre began to move through the water, a rocket whizzed up from the battery, and burst overhead. By its light Bob saw the Antelope and the Spanish barque, two or three hundred yards ahead; with their crews ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... a new splendour. He was almost humbly conscious of bigger things than he had ever realised, a nearness to the clouds, a wonderful, thrilling sense of complete and absolute happiness.... Reluctantly he came back to earth. His thoughts became practical. He went to the back of his car, drew out a rocket on a stick and thrust it firmly into the lawn. Then he started his engine and almost immediately afterwards she came. She was wearing a white silk motor-coat and a thick veil. Behind her came a bewildered French maid, ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sentimentality, now to the right, now caressingly to the left, as it ascended. The whole Corso rang again with laughter and clapping. The horse-racing at the end was not of much account. The horses start excited by the rocket let off at their tails, and by all the sharp pellets hanging around about them, to say nothing of the howling of the crowd. At six o'clock I was at home and ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... be dealt with as follows. The rocket-mounts being of peltathene will be destroyed by half an hour's immersion in water. The installations in the nose will be destroyed ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... we shall go ahead at cruising speed and not return opposite the Alvarez mill until called by a rocket, which Lieutenant Cantor will send up as soon as the rescue has been accomplished—-or has failed. But, gentlemen"—-here Captain Gales' voice sank low, yet vibrated with intense earnestness—-"all of you will realize the extreme importance of your ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... were somewhat differently prepared; cinnamon, ginger, and sugar being added to the pulped carrots, besides a handful of currants, vinegar, and butter. A similar plan was adopted with the salads of burrage, chicory, marigold leaves, bugloss, asparagus, rocket, and alexanders, and many other plants discontinued in modern cookery, but then much esteemed; oil and vinegar being used with some, and spices with all; while each dish was garnished with slices of hard-boiled eggs. A jowl of sturgeon was carried to the upper table, where there was ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... Even now, a rocket moves toward Mars. It reminds us that the world will not be the same for our children, or even for ourselves in a short span of years. The next man to stand here will look out on a scene different from our own, because ours is a time of change—rapid and ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... appearances. These are among the bravest and most skilful mariners that exist. Let a gale arise and swell into a storm, let a sea run that might appal the stoutest heart that ever beat, let the Light-boat on these dangerous sands throw up a rocket in the night, or let them hear through the angry roar the signal- guns of a ship in distress, and these men spring up into activity so dauntless, so valiant, and heroic, that the world cannot surpass it. Cavillers may object that they chiefly live upon the salvage of ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... intonation, like a rocket that had never dropped its stick, and started up the steps ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... resembles an ordinary rocket, is fired from a rifle and is designed for short-range use. It consists of a steel cylindrical shell a few inches long fastened to a steel rod. A parachute is attached to the cardboard container in which ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... evenings, on the lineless, level floors; Through the yelling Channel tempest when the siren hoots and roars — By day the dipping house-flag and by night the rocket's trail — As the sheep that graze behind us so we know ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... And as the shark, turning on his back, exposed the white of his belly, they both fired. The brute disappeared, and so did the bait, sinking like a rocket until lost ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... Nicaragua,' 1874, p. 112.), after describing the beauty of the Florisuga mellivora, says, "I have seen the female sitting on a branch, and two males displaying their charms in front of her. One would shoot up like a rocket, then suddenly expanding the snow-white tail, like an inverted parachute, slowly descend in front of her, turning round gradually to shew off back and front...The expanded white tail covered more space than all the rest of the bird, and was ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... fleet were lying 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 ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... headlong. I followed less hastily. It was as black as a 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 off with the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... prodigious circumference; it was not exactly Charybdis, or the Maelstrom, but rather more like the wave occasioned by the sudden turning of a man-of-war's boat. Being hooked, and having by this time set his nose peremptorily down the stream, he flashed and whizzed away like a rocket. My situation partook of the nature of a surprise. Being on a rocky shore, and having had a bad start, I lost ground at first considerably; but the reel sang out joyously, and yielded a liberal length of line, that saved me from the disgrace ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... rockets and bombs and pin-wheels; and the boys had tiny red and blue lights which they held until their fingers were burned, just as boys do in America; and there was a general hush of wonder as a particularly brilliant rocket swished into the dark sky; and when it burst into a rain of serpents, the crowd breathed out its delight in a long-drawn "Ah-h-h-h!" just as the crowd does everywhere. We might easily have imagined ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... in fact, without any parallel or precedent whatsoever. There were four entries but one dropped out, leaving three: The Novelty, John Braithwaite and John Ericsson; The Sanspareil, Timothy Hackworth; The Rocket, George and Robert Stephenson. These were not horses; they were locomotives. The directors of the London and Manchester Railway had offered a prize of five hundred pounds for the best locomotive, and here they were to try ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... two black eight-passenger aircars, of the same model, whizzing after us, making an obvious effort to overtake us. The chauffeur cursed and fired his auxiliary jets, then his rocket-booster. ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... depended now upon the 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 ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... 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 ...
— The Answer • Henry Beam Piper
... earth, Janoah Eldridge is. Him an' me are the greatest chums you ever saw. He mebbe has his peculiarities, like the rest of us. Who ain't? You'll likely find him kinder sharp-tongued at first, but he don't mean nothin' by it; and' he's quick, too—goes up like a rocket at a minute's notice. Folks down in town insist in addition that he's jealous as a girl, but I've yet to see signs of it. Fur all his little crochets you'll like Jan Eldridge. You can't help it. ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... leading to the body of the ship. I could still hear him grumbling as I slid the light chrome-alloy door shut. I chuckled to myself and headed up the aisle to the baggage compartments. Lucky Larson was a legend as space pilots go. An unpredictable, erratic screwball but one of the finest rocket riders who ...
— Larson's Luck • Gerald Vance
... 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 ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... 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 ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... tennis after carrying your right arm in a sling so many years.) What a hard, unjust business this is! On the 28th, if Mataafa had moved, he could have still swept Mulinuu. He waited, and I fear he is now only the stick of a rocket. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me the hundred pounds I will fly like a rocket, captain,' said the young gentleman. 'I keep the appointment ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... what is known as the Middle Drift. A mile or so on the further side of it I was challenged by a young fellow in charge of some mounted natives, and found that I had stumbled into what was known as No. 2 Column, which consisted of a rocket battery, three battalions of the Native Contingent and some troops of mounted natives, all under the command ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... smoke rocket for testing drains, described by Mr. Cosmo Jones in the Journal of the Society of Arts, is deserving of interest. The one fixed upon is 10 in. long, 21/2 in. in diameter, and with the composition "charged rather ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... is of the same habit as the Dutch Rocket, but has longer spikes and larger and more double flowers. The Hyacinth-flowered is an improved strain of the Rocket. Among other of the hardy annual varieties may be mentioned the Candelabrum-formed, the Emperor, and the Ranunculi-flowered. ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... the subject, it might be thought that as the comet was dashing along with enormous velocity the tail was merely streaming out behind, just as the shower of sparks from a rocket are strewn along the path which it follows. This would be an entirely erroneous analogy; the comet is moving not through an atmosphere, but through open space, where there is no medium sufficient to sweep the tail into the line of motion. Another very remarkable ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... 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 a wound in ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... look'd sour, and indeed well she might, For Vinegar Yard was before her; But, spite of her shrieks, the ignipotent knight, Enrobing the maid in a flame of gas light, To the skies in a sky-rocket bore her. ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... the little scout ship he had worked swiftly, fearful that at any minute one of the marauders might come aboard to search it. Tom was no rocket pilot, but he did know that the count-down was automatic, and that every ship could run on an autopilot, as a drone, following a prescribed course until it ran out of fuel. Even the shell-evasion mechanism ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... in a vacuum, where an ordinary propeller could not act, the bullet may become a prime mover, and co-operate with the gun. A rocket can burn without an atmosphere, and the recoil of the rushing fumes will ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... 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
... the mensurate battlements, in blackness beyond night and darkness without stars. Yet Mr. Wordsley, the engineer, who was slight, balding and ingenious, was able to watch the firmament from his engine room as it drifted from bow to beam to rocket's end. This was by virtue of banked rows of photon collectors which he had invented and installed in ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns
... do, darling. It seems but yesterday; and I have a flower now which you gathered for me there. It grew at a very giddy height upon the wall, full of cracks and places where the evening-star came through; but up you went, like a rocket or a race-horse; and what a fright I was in, until you came down safe! I think that must have made up my mind to have nobody ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... no more creative than this? Had the worlds dedicated themselves to the same monotonous pattern? He had caught a glimpse of conventional, rocket-shaped spaceships, plying their courses back and forth among the planets. He saw boats and cars and a few long-nosed airplanes, with the merest trace of vestigial wings far back near the empennage, streaking through the sky in high arcs, leaving curling trails of fog and smoke ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... world she would not do, for people who would consent to be done for, and would allow her to dominate all their thoughts and deeds. But the moment they revolted, or showed the weakest inclination to do things their own way, she blazed up and was off like a rocket. Her taste for governing was little short of a mania, and I could see, in my mind's eye, just how she had essayed to rule Daisy, and how in her failure she had written to me, unconsciously revealing ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... 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 clouds of the 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; O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free, and ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... on she began to shine like a star, shootin' on through the azure heavens for all the world like a sky-rocket. ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... now I am right into the very melee of those old affairs, and the mind carries one on like a rocket. Your health, sir—by the way, I am still ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... course a little to the east of the Narrows, soared over Upper Bay, and came to rest over Jersey City in a position that dominated lower New York. There the monsters hung, large and wonderful in the evening light, serenely regardless of the occasional rocket explosions and flashing shell-bursts in the ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... fireworks, feller-citizens, will be a rocket, which will go up in the air, bust, and assume the ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... 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
... 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 villa ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... 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
... this objective reference of a process of release that is significant. The mere reflex does not refer to anything beyond itself; if it drives an organism in a certain direction, it is only as a rocket ignited at random shoots off in some direction, depending on how it happened to lie. But specific response is not merely in some random direction, it is toward an object, and if this object is moved, the responding organism changes its direction and still moves after it. And the objective ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... 21 a curious report was received from the Netherlands. The day before several persons reported seeing a UFO through high broken clouds over The Hague. The object was rocket-shaped, with two rows of windows along the side. It was a poor report, very sketchy and incomplete, and it probably would have been forgotten except that four nights later a similar UFO almost collided with an Eastern ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... Five men were buried that night in the little cemetery there by the dugout. We stood or sat about for a while! no one had much to say. The grey mist thickened and enveloped us. And we became as very shadows ourselves. Somewhere in the mist up the hill, near where the rocket's red glare flushed on the dim horizon, a man began whistling the intermezzo from "Thais." It fitted the unreality of the scene, and soon two of us were whistling together. He heard me and paused. Then we walked toward one another whistling and met. It ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... were decorated with arches of little lamps, with columns and chains of lights, and the pedestrians passing through them looked strangely black in this great frame of fire. From the Piazza before the Carmine the first rocket rose, and, exploding, showered its golden rain upon ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... rocket," Mr. Jackson said as they left the window. "It means something. It can only be a signal. People don't let off rockets for amusement nowadays. Did you meet anyone on the road?" "No, sir," Harvey said, "not ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... told me, if anyone else had 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 list for ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... for an answer, since she could not describe the subject of the inquiry as all right nor explain their unhappy condition. "Intend to stop in," Jeremy Ammidon continued; "last time I was there I went up like a rocket." Laurel—that was the child's name, she remembered—gazed at her intently. "I was saying to grandfather," she repeated precisely, "that this wasn't really much of a cargo. Nothing like the one Uncle Gerrit brought back in the Nautilus. We were having an argument about Salem too. But, of course, ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... he suddenly heard the bull voice of a Hun officer hic-coughing gutturals, and they were on him. He had no time to send up an S.O.S. rocket, and his machine-gun jammed. In a minute they were all mixed up, at it tooth and claw as merry as a Galway election, the big Bosch officer, throwing off a hymn of hate, the life and soul of the party. He came for Patrick with an automatic, and Patrick ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... At the signal rocket the enemy swept forward toward the canal, with companies of British sappers bearing scaling ladders and fascines of sugar cane. They moved with stolid unconcern, but the American cannon burst forth and slew them until the ditch ran red with blood. With cheers the ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... warlike preparations being made. Secret anti-American meetings were held at places called clubs, where it was agreed to attack simultaneously the Americans inside and outside the capital. General Pio del Pilar slept in the city every night, ready to give the rocket-signal for revolt. Natives between 18 and 40 years of age were being recruited for military service, according to a Malolos Government decree dated September 21, 1898. In every smithy and factory bowie-knives were being forged with all speed, and 10,000 men ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... all parts and that exert upon the body whence they emanate a recoiling action exactly like that which manifests itself in an lopile 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 which may increase in time until it becomes ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... Mutilation of the Hand. Native smokes seen. Move further to the North-East. Point Emeriau. Cape Leveque. Point Swan. Tide-races. Search for water. Encountered by Natives. Return to the Ship. The attempt renewed. Conduct of the Natives. Effect of a Congreve Rocket after dark. A successful haul. More Natives. Miago's Heroism. The plague of Flies. Dampier's description of it. Native Habitations. Underweigh. Wind and weather. Tidal Phenomenon. Natural History. Singular Kangaroo. Bustard. Cinnamon Kangaroo. Quails. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... 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 to seek ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... are independent of influence, and in which it could be of little use to them. Patrons can be of little advantage to a lawyer or a physician. No judge, no attorney, can push a lawyer up, beyond a certain point—he may rise like a rocket, but he will fall like the stick, if he be not supported by his own inherent powers. Where property or life is at stake, men will not compliment or even be influenced by great recommendations—they will consult the best lawyer, and the best physician, whoever he may be. I have endeavoured to give ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... it short. Then you can catch the Terra rocket and take your eight earth-weeks leave. You won't really know what I'm talking about until you've batted around space for a while. All I have to say adds up to one thing. You won't like it, because it doesn't sound scientific. ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... children 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
... carry another and the Coston lights. Now I can see why Uncle Tom always insisted on having a couple of 'em in the cabin. Filippo, you'd better stay here, keep up a good fire, and make plenty of coffee. There goes another rocket! The gun, too! I don't blame 'em. Men couldn't be in ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... at Brou was the last effort of mediaeval times, the last rocket flung up by the flamboyant Gothic style—a Gothic which though fallen from its glory struggled against death, fought against returning paganism and the invading Renaissance. The era of the great cathedrals ended in the production of this exquisite abortion, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Tuesday forenoon, and then applied for his balance-sheet at a higher clearing house! No trace of him or clue to his whereabouts was found, until the Evening Post, on the principle of setting one mystery to solve another, sent its representative to examine a strange steel rocket, discovered half-buried in the sands of Lake Michigan, near Berrien Springs, two days ago. Our reporter investigated this bullet-shaped contrivance and found an opening into it, and within he discovered a scrap of paper on which were ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... freedom of masculinity and ineffables. He was 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 ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... 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' ... ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... engine. Beside him stands George Stephenson, who devised the locomotive which by abridging space has lengthened life and added to its highest pleasures. Our volume closes by narrating the competition which decided that Stephenson's "Rocket" was much superior to its rivals, and thus opened a new chapter in the history ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... took off the top of the stove and put the pot on the fire, much to its delight, for it began to hiss like the rocket sent off from the market-place the day before in honor of the election of a new mayor. Then Nelle wetted her finger and snuffed the candles, and the flame which had been flickering unsteadily at the end of the black wick burned brightly again and lit up the ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... make a strife overwhelming by a thousand fold to the feelings, it must not deal with gross material interests, but with such as rise into the world of dreams, and act upon the nerves through spiritual, and not through fleshly torments. Mine, in the present case, rose suddenly, like a rocket, into their meridian altitude, by means of a hint furnished to my brother from ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... was crowded in the Campo waiting for the fireworks. And, as he thought, he heard a dull thud behind him, and turned; and there, far up, a single shaft of flame shot aloft, and stayed, and burst into a fan of lights; and a puff told him it was the first rocket. "Ecco! Madre di Dio, a sign! a sign! So will I go up; and so shall my enemy come down." And Maso crept up the stairway breathing thick ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... fire in the bloody Iran-Iraq war was quick to follow after the commencement of daily Iraqi long-range rocket bombardments of Tehran that amounted to a reign of terror. Given that both sides were exhausted at that point, a show of force could have been convincing. Strong U.S. action in response to Iran's mining of neutral waters may also have had a sobering effect ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... apertures opened. The 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 hot air ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... birredh?" The lord made no objections, and so the red cap was brought and put on him. Accordingly when Jimmy had got to the gallows and was making his last speech for the edification of the spectators, he unexpectedly and somewhat irrelevantly exclaimed, "By yarrow and rue," etc., and was off like a rocket, shooting through the blue air en ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... of kids; teasing and calling jokes back and forth at one another half the night until daybreak, everything raw and chilly. Busy, and their mechanics busy, and one after another swinging into his car and going off like a rocket. By the time Lestrange went off, I was as much stirred up as anybody. When he made a record circuit at seventy-seven miles an hour average, I was shouting over the rail like a good one. And then, while he was ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... on his arm. He had reached the end of the platform. There he stood, looking up the line which ran dark under a haze of lights. The high red signal-lamps hung aloft in a scarlet swarm; farther off, like spangles shaking downwards from a burst sky-rocket, was a tangle of brilliant red and green signal-lamps settling. A train with the warm flare on its thick column of smoke came thundering upon the lovers. Dazed, they felt the yellow bar of carriage-windows brush in vibration across their faces. The ground and the air rocked. Then Siegmund turned ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... tell East to come and back me," said Tom to a small School-house boy, who was off like a rocket to Harrowell's, just stopping for a moment to poke his head into the School-house hall, where the lower boys were already at tea, and sing out, "Fight! Tom ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... laughed at because he said he thought he could go thirty miles an hour, and was urged before the House of Commons not to say so, as he might be thought to be mad. This I have from person who knew the circumstances. Nevertheless, at the trial, I believe the "Rocket" did go at the rate of thirty miles an hour, to the not small astonishment of the world, and especially to the unbelievers in steam as a land agent. The stipulation made was that trains were to be conveyed at the rate of ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... the distance; voices shouting, but not the voice I loved. We all looked, and a black horse with a man on his back sprang into sight, like a rocket gone wrong. It was Jim, looking more beautiful than any picture of a man ever painted, his face transported with the joy of battle and triumph, and that fiend in horse shape under him doing ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... remain in position, in case of a repulse, to protect the retreating columns. Of these three attacks, one must surely succeed. The first column which gains the ramparts will fire a rocket to let the ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... clear and calm. At noon Gissing blew the syren, fired a rocket from the bridge, and swung the engine telegraph to STOP. The ship's orchestra, by his orders, struck up a rollicking air. Quickly and without confusion, amid cries of Women and children first! the passengers filed to their allotted places. ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... as of an elderly gentleman whooping, and kicking up his legs on loose gravel, with great violence, was heard to proceed from the same direction as the former sounds; and before they had subsided, a large cucumber was seen to shoot up in the air with the velocity of a sky-rocket, whence it descended, tumbling over and over, until it fell at ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... them about a deer-forest they are a still more intolerable nuisance; you are never safe; just as you are getting up to the stag, creeping along the course of a burn, perhaps, bang! goes one of those brutes like a sky-rocket, and the whole herd are instantly on the alert. Oh, that's a job old Waveney likes well enough; and it will give the dogs a ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... heard the gurgle of the stream, the stamp of the horses, the occasional barking of the dog which followed the cook's wagon, the hooting of an owl; and when these failed he saw Jeff, standing on a battlement, mid the rocket's red glare, and heard him sing, "Oh, say, can you see?", It was the first time he had ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... absinthe, the days of rain and sun, the ostrich chases, the watch for the jackal and the races over the plain. All this, helter-skelter, in crowds, crossing, following, multiplying, like the sheaves of sparks which burst forth from a rocket. ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... more general, the Hindus opened a desolating fire from a number of field-pieces and rocket-batteries. The left and right of the Muhammadan line were pressed back after destructive hand-to-hand fighting, many falling on both sides. At this juncture Rama Raya, thinking to encourage his men, descended from his litter and seated himself on a "rich throne set with jewels, ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... gently. She shot suddenly into the air, coming down again on perfectly stiff legs with a springless jolt. This she instantly followed by a succession of other rocket-like propulsions, utterly unlike a leap, all over the inclosure. The movements of the unfortunate Enriquez were equally unlike any equitation I ever saw. He appeared occasionally over Chu Chu's head, astride ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the floor. Quickly, he looked around for a means of doing so. Near him, floating in the air, was the book he had been reading, but it was out of reach. He had taken off his boots when he started to read, so the Fuller rocket method was out. ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... 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 ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... limb to limb, faster and faster, till it shoots from the tree-tops fifty or more feet into the air above them, and bursts into an ecstasy of song, rapid, ringing, lyrical; no more like its habitual performance than a match is like a rocket; brief but thrilling; emphatic but musical. Having reached its climax of flight and song, the bird closes its wings and drops nearly perpendicularly downward like the skylark. If its song were more prolonged, it would rival the ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... warned him when they left Earth; the Martian cargo of k-metal was of enormous value and a direct invitation to piracy. Of course there was the attempt at secrecy and the shippers had sent along those guards. His engineer, Tom Farley, was thoroughly reliable, too. But this failure of the control rocket-tubes, missing their destination as a result—there was ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... has to be repaired every night. The German trenches are about 70 yards away in some places and as much as 400 in others. It is rather exciting wandering about in front of the line, as lights go up every now and then and show a bright white light in the air for a minute or two like a rocket. When one goes up you fall flat and pretend you are a sandbag or a milk-can or a rat. You may meet Fritz on the same job sometimes; I always have a bomb handy to ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... seemed willing to trust the ancient elevators, themselves; it was the next evening before a couple of cars and the necessary machinery could be fabricated in the machine shops aboard the ship and sent down by landing-rocket. By that time, the airsealing was finished, the nuclear-electric energy-converters were in place, and the oxygen generators ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... the return to the Battalion of the Machine Gun Section from the Apex. It was arranged that at 4 a.m. this day an attempt should be made to compel the enemy to disclose his gun and machine gun positions. At that hour a rocket went up from Russell's Top. Immediately our guns, and the machine guns to either flank of the 28th, opened fire. The Battalion had been ordered to man the trenches, show their fixed bayonets over the parapets, and cheer lustily. ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... said Mike the Angel. "A few minutes ago a bomb was set off in my apartment. I think it was a rocket, and I know it was heavily laced with hydrogen cyanide. That's Suite 5000, Timmins Building, up on 112th Street. I called you because I have a hunch it's connected with the incident at ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... 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 of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... became the business of his life; superintended the construction of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (1821-25), the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (1826-29), over which he ran his locomotive the "Rocket" at a maximum rate of 35 m. an hour; in the outburst of railway enterprise which now ensued Stephenson's services were in requisition all over the country; became principal engineer on many of the new railways; bought the country-seat of Tapton, near ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... goes light as a bird and straight as a bullet. There is no Victorian writer before him to whom he even suggests a comparison, technically considered, except perhaps De Quincey; who also employed the long rich rolling sentence that, like a rocket, bursts into stars at the end. But De Quincey's sentences, as I have said, have always a dreamy and insecure sense about them, like the turret on toppling turret of some mad sultan's pagoda. Ruskin's sentence branches into ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... it was the Thames atmosphere that had got into my head, or whether it was SAM WELLER'S unexpected remark, I am unable, to this day, to say. But, somehow or other, my speech had, by this time, gone up. So I went down. If the speech was a rocket, I represented a stick. Perhaps JENKINS may yet wake up to the importance to the civilization of the century of reporting in full CHARLES DICKENS' speech, and BULWER'S, and the rest. If so, I will send them on. PUNCHINELLO, however, was honored as he deserves, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... an 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 ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... their very pulse, could play sacred melodies on them as on his psaltery. Sobs and groans attested his power over the mob already excited by the tragedy before them. Jerome stared like one who goes to light a stick; and fires a rocket. After a while Clement caught his look of astonishment, and seeing no approbation in it, broke suddenly off, and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... drop, and half an hour later 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 swiftly down ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... the colonel said, slamming three bills down on the table. "I'll give that much for it no matter how it works. The boys in the shop will get a kick out of it," he tapped the winged rocket on his chest. ...
— Toy Shop • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... hill in single file, under the winter stars. . . . Through openings in the 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
... collieries of Lord Ravensworth improving the wagon way and railway planes under ground. In 1814 he completed a locomotive steam-engine, which was successfully tried on the Killingworth Railway. The locomotive "Rocket," constructed by Stephenson and his son Robert, which won the premium of five hundred pounds in 1829, offered by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company, ushered in the greatest mechanical revolution since the invention of the steam-engine ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... from behind me, which made me turn back my head; and I did see a sudden fire or light running in the sky, as it were towards Cheapside ward, and it vanished very quick, which did make me bethink myself what holyday it was, and took it for some rocket, though it was much brighter than any rocket, and so thought no more of it, but it seems Mr. Hater and Gibson going home that night did meet with many clusters of people talking of it, and many people of the towns about the city did see it, and the world do ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... reached under the dash and pulled out a gun that was the twin of the monster strapped to his arm. "Use this instead of your own," he said. "Rocket-propelled explosive slugs. Make a great bang. Don't bother shooting at anyone—I'll take care of that. Just stir up a little action and make them keep their ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... the cabin came the rocket bearers, quite over their fright by now, and acting with the nervous steadiness which acute danger brings. One of the sailors from the regular crew of the tug moved along the rail, mounting the fire signals ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... keep events out of reports and databases. A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count. For example, on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace
... sorrel with spreading leaves, and the wild savory, the coriander of the mountains, and the parsley of the marshes, and the rocket of the desert, are free from tithes; and they may be bought from all men in the Sabbatical year, because nothing like them is legally guarded. Rabbi Judah said, "the sprouts of the mustard are allowed, because transgressors are not suspected for taking them from a guarded place." Rabbi Simon ...
— Hebrew Literature
... the return of their annual feast-day would revive their love for heathenish merry-makings with a force too strong for their new convictions. The day came, and we watched the village narrowly. There was no car, no procession, no music: and, when night came, no tom-tom was beaten, no rocket sent up, nor any other sign that it was the day of Runga.' One morning, when preaching in the village, I observed that the old man who used to conduct the services of the temple, was not in the congregation; and feeling, for the moment, a suspicion ...
— Old Daniel • Thomas Hodson
... was his reply. "Stephenson's engine was called the 'Rocket' and was a great improvement over the locomotive he had used at the mines, for this one had not only a steam blast but a multi-tubular boiler, a tremendous advance ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... money to buy land and become a Count," Fritz was just able to gasp out. The unicorn said nothing; he simply lowered his head, and with his golden horn tossed Fritz three hundred and forty-five feet in the air. Up went Fritz like a sky-rocket, and down he came like its stick, turning somersaults all the way. Fortunately for him, his fall was broken by the branches of one of the dead trees. If it had not been for this he would probably have been seriously hurt. Through these branches he crashed until he reached the ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... could find the courage. The fellow isn' without public spirit, if he'd only apply it the right way. Toy tells me that he, for his part, saw it from his bedroom window—the Town Quay wasn't safe, wi' the rocket-sticks fairly rainin'—an' the show wasn' a bad show, if you looked at it horizontal; but the gentry on the yachts derived next to no enjoyment from it, bein' occupied ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... ostentatiously,' as he had at Fort George about Gunpowder (ante, p. 124). In the Gent. Mag. for 1749, p. 55, there is a paper on the Construction of Fireworks, which I have little doubt is his. The following passage is certainly Johnsonian:—'The excellency of a rocket consists in the largeness of the train of fire it emits, the solemnity of its motion (which should be rather slow at first, but augmenting as it rises), the straightness of its flight, and the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... same Fafnir, as showing how necessary it is for the tourist to be careful of his personal safety in Hades, it is related that upon one occasion the keeper of the dragon having taken a grudge against Siegfried for some unintentional slight, fed Fafnir upon Roman-candles and a sky-rocket, with the result that in the fight between the hero and the demon of the wood the Siegfried was seriously injured by the red, white, and blue balls of fire which the dragon breathed out upon him, while the sky-rocket flew out into the audience and struck ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... of driftwood and cautiously threw in, his arm extended, his figure alert. The squint on his face took a firmer grip. Suddenly his pole gave a leap, the water splashed, his line sang in the air and a fish went up like a rocket. As we were looking into the treetops it thumped the shore beside him, quivered a moment and flopped down the bank He scrambled after it and went to his knees in the brook coming up empty-handed. The water was slopping out ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... o'clock were in the roads of Galle and could see the ships at anchor. Tom did not like to venture further in the dark without a pilot, and accordingly told the signal-man to make signals for one, but being impatient he sent up a rocket, besides burning blue lights, a mistake which had the effect of bringing the first officer of the P. and O. steamship 'Poonah' on board, who thought perhaps we had got aground or were in trouble of some sort. He also informed us that pilots ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... the influence of Satan, for instead of plucking off a piece for my experiment, what should I do but walk up to a great pine tree in a portion of the wood which had escaped so much as scorching, strike a match, and apply the flame gingerly to one of the tassels. The tree went off simply like a rocket; in three seconds it was a roaring pillar of fire. Close by I could hear the shouts of those who were at work combating the original conflagration. I could see the waggon that had brought them tied to a live oak in a piece of open; I could even catch the flash of an axe as it ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the crash of the seas on the rocks made speech impossible. He pointed suddenly along the cliff face, and not twenty yards away, with a hiss and a roar, a furious spout of water shot up into the air a rocket of white foam, a hundred feet high, and fell with a crash over the ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... upon a fiery Dragons back, And mounted like a Rocket through the Air, Leaving me ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... pointing at me. As the setting sun was glaring in my eyes, I could not well discern what they were doing, and, thinking that their shouts to me were only by way of joke, I made a step forward, but hardly had I done so when a noise like a rocket going past was heard, and a bunch of arrows became deeply planted in the earth, at a white circular spot marked on it, only about two yards in front of me. I counted them. They were ten in number. My danger, however, was, after all, practically of no account, ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... morning of that day the British advanced in force to the attack; and the peaceful little creek was ablaze with flags and bright uniforms, and the wooded shores echoed back the strains of martial music. Twenty-one barges, one rocket-boat, and two schooners formed the British column of attack, which moved grandly up the creek, with the bands playing patriotic airs, and the sailors, confident of victory, cheering lustily. Eight hundred men followed the British colors. Against this ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... wind, not being able to get at us by a frontal attack, took us on the flank, and up blew one blanket, and the rifles at the ends wavered. Then, with cries of "Close the water-tight compartments," "Man the pumps," "Launch the lifeboat," "Where's the rocket apparatus?" and such-like remarks, as used by those in peril on the sea, we came out and joined in the fun. The horses, seeing us all about, thought it must be reveille, and started neighing and pawing the ground, expecting their grub. We were soon inside again under jury-rigging, and went off ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... of the oldest of these acquaintances was present at blast-off time. He happened to be the grandfather of a certain competent young crewman. The old man was a proud figure during the brief ceremonies and his eyes filled with tears as the mighty rocket climbed straight up on its fiery tail. He remained there gazing up at the sky ...
— It's a Small Solar System • Allan Howard
... the scanner screen on the control deck of the rocket cruiser Polaris, Captain Steve Strong replaced the microphone in its slot and watched a bulky figure in a space suit step out of the air lock and drift away from the side of the ship. Behind him, five boys, all dressed in the vivid blue uniforms of ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... with a royal flourish, sprang in air to seek her; but her outraged mate was ahead of him, and with a scream she fled, leaving a tuft of feathers in her mate's beak. In turn the Cardinal struck him like a flashing rocket, and then red war waged in Rainbow Bottom. The females scattered for cover with all their might. The Cardinal worked in a kiss on one poor little bird, too frightened to escape him; then the males closed in, and serious business began. The ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... fierce humour of Creation. We almost believe that they are toys out of a child's play-box, artificially carved and artificially coloured. So it is with the great convulsion of Nature which was known as Byronism. The volcano is not an extinct volcano now; it is the dead stick of a rocket. It is the remains not of a natural but of an ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... rum for a coach and a crib, at the First Lord's stern decree, And he learns the use of the rocket and squib (which are useful as lights at sea): And they train him in part of the nautical art, as much as a landsman can, For they teach him to paddle the gay canoe, and ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... 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, we absorb these little edibles ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... took a rather abrupt turn, in a style that insured a capsize. In another second the spirited horse turned sharp round, the sleigh turned sharp over, and the occupant was pitched out at full length, while a black object, that might have been mistaken for his hat, rose from his side like a rocket, and, flying over him, landed on the snow several yards beyond. A faint shout was heard to float on the breeze as this catastrophe occurred, and the driver was seen to jump up and readjust himself in the cariole; while the other black object proved itself ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the Kirk to be wad; noow they den't use to wad in Scotchland as they wad in England, for they gang to the Kirk, and they take the Donkin by the Rocket, and say, good morn Sir Donkin, says Sir Donkin, ah Jockey sen ater me, wit ta ha Jenny to thy wadded Wife? ay by her Lady quoth Jockey and thanka twa, we aw my Heart; ah Jenny sen ater me, ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... of watching a display of fireworks on a Fourth of July night. Perhaps the night is clear, the sky full of stars, bright and sparkling. A sky rocket is sent off. It goes up with a rush and a noise. There is a dash of many colored beautiful fire-stars. And a murmur of admiration from the crowd. For a few moments you can see nothing as you look up but this handful of fire-stars. The clear quiet stars beyond are eclipsed for ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... cried the captain, and Josiah felt his last hour had come. He held his breath and stuck to his hat, being under the impression that the whole affair would shoot up into the air like a rocket. He expected to be deafened by the noise of whizzing through the air, and to be half suffocated with the rush of wind. Looking over to get a last look at the nature of the soil on which he would presently fall, Josiah beheld a strange sight. As far as he knew, the balloon was motionless, ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... the direction of William D'A. Ryan, Chief of Illumination. On each occasion a set program is followed consisting of twenty-four numbers. At the opening, a salute of ten detonating bombs and a large rocket announce the event. This is followed by features of the scintillator lights, combinations of these with steam, with smoke bombs and with orange showers and Japanese daylight shells, and by fancy star shells, festoon rockets and candle fountains. The climax ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt
... thought, with a pang of joy, that no longer would she need to nerve herself for the cruel journey to the markets in the morning. Chook would drive down in his own cart, and she would be waiting on his return with a good breakfast. They had gone up in the world like a rocket. ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... go elsewhere. An 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
... on the point of marrying Mrs. Unwin, when an attack of madness prevented him. Later on Lady Austen apparently wished to marry him. He had an extraordinary gift for commanding the affections of those of both sexes who knew him. His friendship with the poet Hayley, then a rocket fallen to earth, towards the close of his life, reveals the lovableness of ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... first time for boring purposes the newly developed atomic disintegrators. Many holes equally spaced over the sphere were the outlets for the dissolving ray—most of them on the bottom and alternating with them on the bottom and sides were the outlets of powerful rocket propulsion tubes, which would enable it to rise easily from the hole it would presently blast into the earth. A small, tight-fitting door gave entrance to the double-walled interior, where, in spite of the space taken up by batteries and mechanisms and an enclosed gyroscope for keeping ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... were shining in his eyes. Tom yawned, stretched, and turned to the viewport to watch the scenery flash past. Looming up over the flat grassy plains ahead, he could see a huge bluish mountain range, its many peaks covered with ever-present snow. In a few moments Tom knew the train would rocket through a tunnel and then on the other side, in the center of a deep, wide valley, he would see Space Academy, the university of the planets and headquarters ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... as he did so, his musket to the present. An instant later he fired, just as the words, "A Russian sentry," broke from the first lieutenant's lips. Almost simultaneously three or four other shots were fired at points along the beach. A rocket whizzed high in the air from each side of the bay, a bugle sounded the alarm, voices of command were heard, and, as if by enchantment, a chaos of sounds followed the deep silence which had before reigned, and from every ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... and a peaceful stillness reigned everywhere. Suddenly, as if a rocket had gone up, the rumor flew from mouth to mouth that the "Pawnee" was steaming up the river to shell the city. The congregations, not waiting to be dismissed, rushed from the churches with a single impulse; the alarm bell in the Square pealed out with a frightened chime. For once, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... of the ridge they had 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 eclairantes), cartridges of magnesium fired from a gun resembling a shotgun, ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... stage ran drew by the rim of the farm; and later David saw the rigid three-seated surrey, the leather mail bags strapped in the rear, trotted by under the swinging whip of his brother. He heard the faint sharp bark of Rocket, Allen's dog, braced at ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... passengers, a loud hissing, shearing sound rent the air, heard distinctly above the now somewhat moderated roar of the escaping steam, and, leaning far out over the rail of the promenade deck, Dick was just in time to mark the heavenward flight of a rocket—the first visible signal of distress which the Everest had thus far made—and to see it burst, high up, into a shower of brilliant red stars. It was the light shed by these stars as they floated downward that first revealed to the young ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... 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 Elysees. The illumination brought out the impressiveness of the vast architectural lines of the Tuileries. The main avenues of the gardens were richly decorated; around the ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... face to the sea, the boys looked off in that direction, and they were quick enough to see a rocket exploding in the air, scattering down a shower of tinted stars. This bright constellation faded away into the night, when suddenly up, up into the darkness, shot two vivid lines of fire, parting as they swept higher and higher, exploding in stars till the whole seemed like ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... Major-General Ross and Rear-Admiral Cockburn, with about 5,000 soldiers and marines, moved on Washington by land; while a squadron, composed of the Seahorse, 38, Euryalus, 36, bombs Devastation, Aetna, and Meteor, and rocket-ship Erebus, under Captain James Alexander Gordon, moved up the Potomac to attack Fort Washington, near Alexandria; and Sir Peter Parker, in the Menelaus, 38, was sent "to create a diversion" above Baltimore. ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt |
