"Spark" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sharply forward. The vast blue-black sky was like an inverted gold-pan and the stars were flake colours adhering to it. The cold snapped at me till my cheeks tingled, and my eyes felt as if they could spark. Oh, life was sweet! ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... hearts of the people. Many a man, cold and unemotional heretofore in his attitude toward the war, was won to a recognition of its menace, its necessities, and his personal duty to his country, by the arguments and example of the Liberty Girls. If there was a spark of manhood in him, he would not allow a young girl ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... by light produced in a vacuum by means of Ruhmkorff's apparatus, which threw an artificial brightness into the depths of the Columbiad. There the cartridges were arranged with the utmost regularity, connected by a metallic thread, destined to communicate to them all simultaneously the electric spark, by which means this mass of gun-cotton was ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... how in me should lurk Thoughts apt to neighbour thine, thou creature sunlit? If through long fret and irk Thine eyes within their browed recesses were Worn caves where thought lay couchant in its lair; Wert thou a spark among dank leaves, ah ruth! With age in all thy veins, while all thy heart was youth; Our contact might run smooth. But life's Eoan dews still moist thy ringed hair; Dian's chill finger-tips Thaw if at night they happen on thy lips; The flying fringes of the sun's cloak frush The fragile ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... chair facing the sofa, her white gloves clasped on her knee, the embroidered bag hanging by its golden cords to the tip of the golden slippers. She fixed her eyes steadily on her companion, and there was in them a spark of anger, before which Cecil had ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... spire across it without spanning the chasm,—that idea, I say, is pretty nearly worn out. Now when a civilization or a civilized custom falls into senile dementia, there is commonly a judgment ripe for it, and it comes as plagues come, from a breath,—as fires come, from a spark. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... valve connected with a galvanized tank, with a pressure gauge on top, and pulled back a lever. Instantly, a hissing sound filled the air. Then, with a dexterous movement, Peggy threw in the spark and turned on the gasoline which the spark would ignite, thereby causing an explosion in the cylinders. But first the compressed air had started the motor turning over. At the right moment Peggy switched on the power and cut off the air. ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... woman, who, to the rest of the world, and in every other part of her life, appeared so cold and inanimate. On a very few occasions her character, before her marriage, had, "when much enforced, given out a hasty spark, and straight was cold again;" but now she permitted the steady flame to burn without restraint. Duty and passion had now the same object. Before marriage, her attachment had been suppressed, even at the hazard of her life; she had no idea that the private demonstrations of unbounded ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... the first spark of spirit from her. The deep eyes flashed. "I'm not in the habit ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... Piazza through the Porta del Popolo, the only way by which strangers used to approach Rome from the north. It was indeed a more suitable entrance into the Eternal City than the present one; for no human being, with a spark of imagination, would care to obtain his first view of the city of his dreams from the outside of a great bustling railway station. But the Porta del Popolo had annoyances of its own that seemed hardly less incongruous. One had to ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... there no romance here? Listen! We came to anchor over night in a quiet nook where the cliffs and the clouds overshadowed us. Everything was of the vaguest description, without form and void. There seemed to be one hut on shore, with the spark of a light in it—a cannery of course. Canoes were drifting to and fro like motes in the darkness, tipped with a phosphorescent rim. Indian voices hailed us out of the ominous silence; Indian dogs muttered under their breath, yelping in a whisper which was mocked by Indian papooses, who ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... of details, and hurries the reader's mind on with his own, through all necessary facts and figures, directly to the object. The present report cannot but shame a mean spirit out of any person with a spark of manliness in him. We wish its accomplished author all success in ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... justice, mercy, and decency, and given himself up to his flesh—his animal nature, till the man in him is dead, and only the brute remains. Mind, I do not say that we are right in calling any human being a brute, for no one, I believe, is sunk so low, but there is some spark of humanity, some spark of what St. Paul calls "the spirit," left in him, which may be fanned into a flame and conquer, and raise and save the man at last—unless he be a mere idiot—or that most unhappy and brutal of ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... throughout Europe, the most noteworthy appearing in England. In 1853 was issued an anonymous work having as its title A Brief and Complete Refutation of the Anti-Scriptural Theory of Geologists: the author having revived an old idea, and put a spark of life into it—this idea being that "all the organisms found in the depths of the earth were made on the first of the six creative days, as models for the plants and animals to be created on the third, fifth, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... range was drawn in elusive snowy suggestions, rather than lines, against a green space of intense yet pale tint. The moon, now nearing the full, hung over the wooded valley, and aided the ice and the crust of snow to show its bleak, wan, wintry aspect; a tiny spark glowed in its depths from some open door of an isolated home. Over it all a mist was rising from the east, drawing its fleecy but opaque curtain. Already it had climbed the mountain-side and advanced, windless, soundless, overwhelming, annihilating ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... going to prevent him," exclaimed Jane bitterly. "Everybody knows what Judson Parker is. He'd do ANYTHING for money. He hasn't a SPARK of public spirit or ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... friendly hands of Miss Ord to the most cordial ones of Mrs. Garrick,(252) who frankly embraced me, saying, "Do I see you, once more, before I die, my tear little spark? for your father is my flame, all my life, and you are a little ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... action; even if they speak freely, they say little which is of value on the printed page. One may live with a regimental mess for months, running into years, as I did with the Leicestershires' subalterns, and hear little that is illuminating, till some electric spark may start a fire of living reminiscence. But from many of my comrades, at one time and another, I have picked up a fact. I am especially indebted to Captain J.O.C. Hasted, D.S.O., for permission to use his lecture on ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... assent by way of emphasizing the subject, when the khan is explaining about the Ameer, or Allah, or kismet. Mahmoud Tusuph Khan himself comes to the garden in the cool of the evening, and for half an hour occupies bungalow No. 2. He betrays a spark of Oriental vanity by having an attendant follow behind, bearing a huge and wonderful sun-shade, into the make-up of which peacock feathers and other gorgeous material largely enters. Noticing ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... variant of Nightingale. The accidental retention of particles and articles is also effective, e.g. Delmar, Delamere, Delapole, impress more than Mears and Pool, and Larpent (Fr. I'arpent), Lemaitre, and Lestrange more than Acres, Masters, and Strange. There are few names of less heroic sound than Spark and Codlin, yet the former is sometimes a contraction of the picturesque Sparrow-hawk, used as a personal name by the Anglo-Saxons, while the latter can be traced back via the earlier forms Quodling (still found), Querdling, Querdelyoun to ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... warriors cut him to bits with the fiendish skill, that mutilated without bringing unconsciousness, had no terrors for him. He was inured to suffering and to the sight of blood and to cruel death; but the desire to live was no less strong within him, and until the last spark of life should flicker and go out, his whole being would remain quick with hope and determination. Let them relax their watchfulness but for an instant, he knew that his cunning mind and giant muscles would find a way to ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Lincoln stayed at half steam. On the offchance that the animal might be found in these waterways, a thousand methods were used to spark its interest or rouse it from its apathy. Enormous sides of bacon were trailed in our wake, to the great satisfaction, I must say, of assorted sharks. While the Abraham Lincoln heaved to, its longboats radiated in every direction around it ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... to God," piously subjoins Al-Makkari, "that the Moslems had then extinguished at once the sparkles of a fire destined to consume their whole dominion in those parts! But they said—'What are thirty barbarians, perched on a rock? they must inevitably die!'" The spark, which contained the germ of the future independence of Spain, was thus suffered to remain and spread, while the swords of the Moslems were occupied in France; and its growth was further favoured by the anarchy and civil dissensions which broke out among the conquerors. While ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... Mrs. Fry succeeded with the women by means of her care for the children. Low as they were in sin, every spark of maternal affection had not fled, and they craved for their little ones a better chance than they had possessed themselves. To a suggestion by Mrs. Fry that a school should be formed for the benefit of their little ones they eagerly acceded. ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... to the point of weakness. He had seen her endure unprovoked anger and undeserved rebuke from her mother, and intolerable slights from Tom, that would surely have aroused retaliation had there been a spark of combativeness in her gentle heart. That she was tender and loving could be seen in every glance of her eyes, in every feature of her face, in every tone of her soft, musical voice. Surely, thought Williams, the girl could not kill a mouse. Where, ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... It is twenty-one feet in length and has a five-and-a-half-foot beam, the design being what is known as a compromise stern. The motor is a double-cylinder two-cycle one, of ten horsepower. It has a float-feed carburetor, mechanical oiler, and the ignition system is the jump-spark—the best for this style of motor. The boat will make ten miles an hour, with twelve in, and, of course, more than that with a lighter load. A good deal will depend on the way the ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... to see his name there on the stone! Yet I did not weep. I was dry-eyed and cold. What a strange thing is life! To think that this man who was so clever, so witty, should die an idiot! He passed his days doing like this with his fingers. Not a spark of reason remained. It is all over. I shall have Rachel at my benefit; I shall play with her that chestnut "Iphigenie". We shall make money, but I don't care. Besides, I'm sure she wouldn't play Rodogune! I will also play, if you will ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... that cut him down from the tree this morning, and if it was not, why do I need you now? Is my shame not enough in your eyes but that you must taunt me further? Do my innocent children want to look upon the faces of those who robbed them of a father? If there is a spark of manhood left in one of you, show it by leaving me alone! And you other scum, never fear but that you will clutter hell in reward for last night's work. Begone, and leave me with ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... tonic," Selingman declared. "It would sweep out your Radical Government. It would bring the classes back to power. It would kindle in the spirits of your coming generation the spark of that patriotism which is, alas! just now a very feeble flame. What do you think? You agree ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... convey in mere words. Soldiers of every nationality are treated by the expert and world famed in medicine. Human wrecks, victims of shot and shell, are repaired and rebuilt. It matters little whether a man is friend or foe, as long as a spark of life is there, he is picked tenderly from the trench and everything known to medical science done to ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... torrent of this battery of malevolence stung to life within me a spark of nobleness, and I said aloud, "Well, if he is a better man, let him ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... last night melted in daylight to an almost ludicrous nothingness and self-confidence reigned; so that he declared the world a super-excellent place, snapping his fingers at problems and mysteries. A spark of curiosity pricked him still, it is true, concerning the origin of certain undeniably queer aural phenomena. He meant to satisfy that curiosity presently; but the subject must be approached with tact. He must wait ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... trace of economic origin while it lasted. Its true quality was moral, devout, ecstatic; it culminated, to change the figure, in a supreme discharge of moral electricity, almost fatal to the nation. The crack of that great spark emptied the jar; the American people forgot all about their pledges and pruderies during the four years of Civil War. The Good Templars, indeed, were never heard of again, and with them into memory went many other singular virtuosi of virtue—for ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... men best qualified to raise the veil under which truth lies concealed from vulgar gaze, are precisely the men who fear to do it. Oh, shame upon ye self-styled philosophers, who in your closets laugh at 'our holy religion,' and in your churches do it reverence. Were your bosoms warmed by one spark of generous wisdom, silence on the question of religion would be broken, the multitude cease to believe, and ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... But before now a spark from Spain had set the Continent ablaze. The past had bequeathed some questions which, awkwardly handled, might cause explosions elsewhere, and it was well to know the character of those who had the key to the powder magazine. More than once Morier was approached on the delicate question of the ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... Instead of arranging the embers in the grate in such a way as to prevent their falling off, and thus allowing the fire to die out in its proper place, they are frequently taken off and laid on the hearth, where, should there be wood-work underneath, it becomes scorched, and the slightest spark falling through a joint in the ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... that he has my pity as one cruelly cozened, and my esteem as a one-time servant of mine, but never my love. Tell him I would willingly save him alive, for the sake of the love he once bore me. But as for any answering love in my bosom, I have not one spark. Tell him to go find a new mistress at St. Denis. He might as well cry for the moon as seek to win ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... observed again, but the weather was cloudy, so that I could make nothing out distinctly. In the afternoon, Wylie shot three teal, of which there were numbers on the lake. At night, our baggage and clothes had nearly all been destroyed by fire, a spark having been carried by the wind to the tarpaulin which covered them, and which, as it had been but newly tarred, was soon in a blaze. I was fortunate enough, however, to observe the accident in time ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... question of superiority has ever risen, or at least has ever been agitated by reflecting men, who for one moment considered the manner in which our race is propagated in the world. Nothing ever rises above its own nature. A spark, however high it may rise, however brilliantly it may shine in the blue ethereal, can never become a star. It ever remains but a spark, and so the offspring of a woman cannot, in its nature, rise above its origin. A man can never become superior in nature to his mother, ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... sadness in its tone which seems to characterise the human voice when heard in the midst of the lonely ocean on a night of darkness and calm. There followed a slight scuffling of feet, another subdued murmur of voices, a pause of a few moments, then the sharp clink of flint and steel, a tiny spark of light, and finally the mellow glow of a ship's ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... that accompanied the act made the color deepen again in Mrs. Snowdon's cheek, and lit a spark in her softened eyes. Her lips curled and her voice was sweetly sarcastic as she answered, "Yes, it is charming to devote one's life to these dear invalids, and find one's reward in their gratitude. Youth, beauty, ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... rays then," continued the hollow droning of the man who had been hanged, "which, as the scientist had explained to me while in prison, acting upon the contents of the syringes, by that time scattered through my whole body, was to renew the spark of life within the dead thing hanging there. Through a tube, and by means of a valve entering the glass vase in the top, the scientist then admitted a dense white gas. So thick was it that in a moment or two my body's transparent ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... when there were again the glow and glare of a moral sense in the first stages of ignition on the enormity of slave institutions. The act of South Carolina in making it illegal to teach a colored person to read and write struck this spark from his pen: "There is something unspeakably pitiable and alarming," he writes in the Philanthropist, "in the state of that society where it is deemed necessary, for self-preservation, to seal up the mind and debase the intellect of man to brutal incapacity.... ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... genuine, must, therefore, be natural. It should be no exotic, no foreign graft, as it is often regarded, but the normal outgrowth of our native instincts. Evolution does not banish revelation from our belief. Recognizing in man's spirit a spark of the divine energy, "individuated to the power of self-consciousness and recognition of God," as Le Conte aptly phrases it; tracing the development of the spirit-embryo through all geologic time till it came to birth and independent life in man, and humanity recognized itself as a child ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... pressure under which the gas is stored exceeds two atmospheres absolute (roughly 30 lb. per square inch). It decomposes, be it carefully understood, in the complete absence of air, directly the smallest spark of red-hot material or of electricity, or directly a gentle shock, such as that of a fall or blow on the vessel holding it, is applied to any volume of acetylene existing at a temperature exceeding 780 deg. or at a gross pressure of 30 lb. per square inch; ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... in the Tank involuntarily applauded: becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... as yet scarcely noticed the room in which she was. At length she surveyed it; its poverty brought tears in her eyes. There had been a fire, but the last spark was dead. ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... his continual conflict. With such rest indulging, he girded his loins with roughest hair-cloth, the which had been dipped in cold water; lest haply the law of the flesh, warring in his members against the law of the Spirit, should excite any spark of the old leaven. Thus did Saint Patrick with spare and meagre food, and with the coarsest clothing, offer himself a holy and living sacrifice, acceptable unto God; nor suffered he the enemy to touch in him the walls of Jerusalem, but he inflicted ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... to plead further! She knew now too well that his love for her was indeed dead and buried. Had a spark of it yet lived in his heart, suspicion could have found no place. Gone now was all pride, all control; at his feet she threw herself, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... heart-whole, I believe, and, though young still for this sort of thing, we can be gently shaping matters for them, since no one knows how soon the moment may come. My faith it is like living in a powder mill to be among a lot of young folks nowadays! All looks as calm as possible till a sudden spark produces an explosion, and heaven only knows where we find ourselves after ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... background Delaine waited, grudgingly expectant, for the turn of Elizabeth's head, and the spark of consciousness passing between the two faces which he had learnt to watch. It came—a flash of some high sympathy—involuntary, lasting but a moment. Then ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... he was disappointed to lose the more important part of his audience—when there was a little scream, and poor Harriet Jameson was all in a blaze. She wore a white muslin dress, and somehow it had caught—I suppose from a spark; she had been sitting near the hearth, though we had thought the fire was out. Harry Liscom made one spring for her when he saw what had happened; but he had not been very near her, and a woman was before him. She caught up the braided ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... little before his death, finding the decays of nature increase every day, and his final dissolution approach, he called together all his children, to the number of eighteen, and summoned as many of his subjects as were within a convenient distance, being willing that the last spark of his life should go out in the service of his people; this summons was obeyed with heavy hearts by his loving subjects, and, at the day and place appointed, a ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... the Princess said, "since fire Leaps into flame when the wind fans the spark, Be this too spoken, that ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... creation, this favourite of heaven, and of allotting to him his interior qualities by means of his exterior appearance. Men of his character so frequently deceive themselves, that it is impossible to say whether some remaining spark of understanding had whispered to him that this new delusion would give a fresh polish to the old one; and that more pious souls would come to him than ever, in order to be told so many wondrous things about their faces. As he had only ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... As Wilder speaks, a spark is seen to shoot out from one of the circling cavaliers, which rising rocket-like into the air, comes in ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... and my silk dress that I have brought to show your parents. Merci!" she retorted, with a dangerous spark in her little eyes. "You think one is made of money, eh? You will soon find yourself mistaken, my friend. I would give you to understand——". She checked herself suddenly. "Monseigneur"—she turned to me with a resumption of the gracious ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... wet as those of the hermit. So were those of the professor. Luckily Moses carried the old-fashioned flint and steel, with which, and a small piece of tinder, a spark was at last kindled, but as they were about to apply it to a handful of dry bamboo scrapings, an extra spirt of rain extinguished it. For an hour and more they made ineffectual attempts to strike a light. Even the cessation of the rain was of ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... humility, shown in the petty matters of everyday home-life; and that he who cannot rule his own household can never rule the Church of God. And so it befell, that amid the little cross-blasts of home squabbles the sacred spark was fast going out. The poems written after he settled at Penalva are marked by a less definite purpose, by a lower tone of feeling: not, perhaps, by a lower moral tone; but simply by less of any moral tone at all. They are more and more full of merely sensuous beauty, mere word-painting, mere ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... may become known. The vast mass of mankind is mere material, and only exists in order by some great effort, by some mysterious process, by means of some crossing of races and stocks, to bring into the world at last perhaps one man out of a thousand with a spark of independence. One in ten thousand perhaps—I speak roughly, approximately—is born with some independence, and with still greater independence one in a hundred thousand. The man of genius is one of millions, and the great geniuses, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and sat back on her heels, breathless with surprise and dismay. Yes! dismay; extraordinary though it might appear, no spark of joy or expectation lightened the shocked confusion of her mind. We can never succeed in turning back the wheels of time so as to take up a position as it would have been if the disturbing element had not occurred. The holiday visit to ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... quick-glancing o'er the park Attracts each light gay meteor of a spark, Agrees as ill with Rufa studying Locke, As Sappho's diamonds with her dirty smock; Or Sappho at her toilet's greasy task, With Sappho fragrant at an evening masque: So morning insects that in muck begun, Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... casting a look of fond affection at the child. The heart of the mutineer was at that moment softened by parental feelings, and he blew the priming off the touch-hole of the gun, lest an accidental spark should risk the life of his child, who was now aft with ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... many a wind had beat upon his heart, Of grief and frustrate hope full many a wind, And rains full many, but no rains could damp The fuel that was stored within; which lay Unlighted, waiting for the tinder-touch, Until a chance spark fall'n from Lucia's eyes Kindled the fuel, and the fire was love: Not such as rises blown upon the wind, Goaded to flame by gusts of phantasy, But still, and needing no replenishment, Unquenchable, that would not be ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... silence. She then began to play with Fernanda's clove, pulling the petals, whilst darting frequent glances at the count, who stood confused, not knowing what to say, nor where to look. At last their eyes met with a smile. There was a spark of malice in hers, and in the sudden scornful gesture with which she threw the flower she held in her ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... was the most miserable of human beings. In old times he would have been exposed as soon as he came into the world; and to expose him would have been a kindness. From his birth a blight was on his body and on his mind. With difficulty his almost imperceptible spark of life had been screened and fanned into a dim and flickering flame. His childhood, except when he could be rocked and sung into sickly sleep, was one long piteous wail. Until he was ten years old his days were passed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... baggy overalls over the blue flannel suit which he still wore when flying, Carl was directing Martin Dockerill in changing his spark-plugs, which were fouled. About him, the aviators were having their machines packed, laughing, playing tricks on one another—boys who were virile men; mechanics in denim who stammered to the reporters, "Oh, well, I don't know——" yet who were for the time more celebrated than Roosevelt ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... slow. When this spirit first dawned, it might probably have been easily checked; but it is scarcely within the reach of human ken, at this moment, to say when, where, or how it will terminate. There are combustibles in every state, to which a spark ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... to be counselled out of his intention. When he was out in the square with Phineas he expressed great anger against Mr. Low. "He don't know what patriotism means," said the law scrivener. "And then he talks to me about notoriety! It has always been the same way with 'em. If a man shows a spark of public feeling, it's all hambition. I don't want no notoriety. I wants to earn my bread peaceable, and to be let alone when I'm about my own business. I pays rates for the police to look after rogues, not to haul folks about and lock 'em up for days ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... folks'll come to see the grave of old Swift, the great man's schoolmaster. Ye'll be an inventor yet, lad, a benefactor to your kind, and an honor to your country. I'm not raising false hopes in ye, without observing your qualities. You've the quick eye, the slow patience, and the inventive spark. You can find your own tools and all, and don't stop where other folk leaves off: witness yon bluebells ye took to make skies with! But, bless the lad, he's not heeding me! Is it the bit of garden you're looking at? Come out then." And, putting the ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... in a temper to-night!" said the spark in a low voice. "Been drinking, I reckon! But it's time for ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... once to affirm. And friend, the very devils, both for the knowledge of sin, and also for the knowledge of God's eternal power and Godhead, have more experience than all the unregenerate men in the world; and yet have not the least spark of the Spirit of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... for revolution. The social discontent resulting from the war has reached an acute stage. Only a spark is needed. It remains for us to decide whether to permit Russia to bring about the explosion or—bring it about ourselves. The soviet movement is irresistible, it will sweep England eventually as it has swept Russia, ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... Pepper, affecting a nonchalant tone, and arranging his cravat before the glass,—"nay, as you will. Ned Pepper requires no man's companionship against his liking; and if the noble spark of ambition be not in your bosom, 't is no use spending my breath in blowing at what only existed in my too flattering opinion of your qualities. So then, you propose to return to MacGrawler (the scurvy old cheat!), and pass the inglorious remainder ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... know Lucretia. There are many girls, indeed, who might not be trusted near any handsome flute-playing spark, with black eyes and white teeth; but Lucretia is not one of those; she has spirit and ambition that would never stoop to a mesalliance; she has the mind and will of a queen,—old Queen ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... itself, Gorgonius like a he-goat. There is no mean. There are some who would not keep company with a lady, unless her modest garment perfectly conceal her feet. Another, again, will only have such as take their station in a filthy brothel. When a certain noted spark came out of a stew, the divine Cato [greeted] him with this sentence: "Proceed (says he) in your virtuous course. For, when once foul lust has inflamed the veins, it is right for young fellows to ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... was as a spark that fired a train. Instantly the hardy hillmen of Urbino were in arms to reconquer Guidobaldo's duchy for him. Stronghold after stronghold fell into their hands, until they were in Urbino itself. They made short work of the capital's scanty defenders, flung Cesare's governor into prison, ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... desire of a young man for a young woman, as well as of the reverse instance, I am not now speaking, for of such tendresses I am wary, seeing that I have been too unhappy in my life to have been able ever to see in such affection a single spark of truth, but rather a lying pretence in which sensuality, connubial relations, money, and the wish to bind hands or to unloose them have rendered feeling such a complex affair as to defy analysis. Rather am I speaking ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... of all his tale of ships AEneas gained, 170 And there, by mighty love of land the Trojans sore constrained, Leap off-board straight, and gain the gift of that so longed-for sand, And lay their limbs with salt sea fouled adown upon the strand: And first Achates smote alive the spark from out the flint, And caught the fire in tinder-leaves, and never gift did stint Of feeding dry; and flame enow in kindled stuff he woke; Then Ceres' body spoilt with sea, and Ceres' arms they took, And sped the matter ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... his prayer he strove to comfort Agnes. The moment he did so the cold magistracy of the prayer ceased, and his voice began to tremble, and there ran between the ecclesiastic and his parishioner the electric spark of mutual grief ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... make her jump,' he says, you press down on that with your foot, and you shove the spark back.' ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... exclaimed, "she won't go! The batteries are off and there's something wrong with the carbureter, and the spark-plug is twisted, and the delivery is all to the bad. Perhaps Major Ross can bring new parts ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... critic-folk, deep read in books, might scoff at the very suggestion of a ploughman turning poet, but he recognised also that they might be wrong. It was not by dint of Greek that Parnassus was to be climbed. 'Ae spark o' Nature's fire' was the one thing needful for poetry that was to ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... questions, she only smiled, and took obediently the remainder of the potion that Pete poured from his flask and heated in the tin-cup among the embers. On her wakening again it was seen that the fever was broken. But life in her was only a tiny flame, at times the merest spark that every gust of wind through the cavern threatened to extinguish. Hour after hour Haig and the Indian watched it, the one in such anguish as the repentant murderer suffers as he kneels over the poor victim of his rage, ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... de Vega; and it was Shakespeare who created the English drama. He possessed a fertile and powerful genius, that had within its scope both the normal and the sublime; but he ignored rules entirely, and had not the smallest spark of good taste. It is a risky thing to say, but true nevertheless—this author has ruined the English drama. In these monstrous farces of his, called tragedies, there are scenes so beautiful, fragments so impressive and terrible, that the pieces have always been played with immense success. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... it is or used to be customary to kindle bonfires on high places on the evening of the first Sunday in Lent, and the day is therefore popularly known as Spark Sunday. The custom prevailed, for example, throughout the canton of Lucerne. Boys went about from house to house begging for wood and straw, then piled the fuel on a conspicuous mountain or hill round about a pole, which bore a straw effigy called ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... of my mouth when Mr. Perryman rose from his chair like a man in wrath. Inadvertently I had used an expression which acted like a spark upon gunpowder. Intending to praise his idol, I had for some obscure reason wounded the passionate old man in the most sensitive nerve of his being. I sat amazed, not understanding what I had done, and even now I do not pretend to understand it wholly. But this is what happened. ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... We went every morning to some church rich in pictures, returning at noon for breakfast. After breakfast, we went into the country, or to sit and read under the trees near San Pietro. Thus I read Nicolo di' Lapi, a book unenlivened by a spark of genius, but interesting, to ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... murderers—devout Pharisee and conservative Sadducee, Roman politician and false friend, bawling rabble and undiscriminating soldiery, the host of indifferent or approving faces of the public behind them—they seem strangely familiar to us. They have been, they are still, alive by turns in us. The harmless spark of electricity that greets the touch of one's hand on a metal knob on a winter's day is one with the bolt of lightning that wrecks a giant oak. The selfish impulse, the narrow prejudice, the ignorant suspicion, the callous ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... reacted within the limits of a sister State. Already nullification calls upon its twelve thousand bayonets; friend is rising against friend, and brother against brother, under the banner of Carolina on the one side, of the Union on the other; the inflammable materials are ready, the spark approaches, the explosion may soon take place, and the genius of liberty, rising in anguish from the bloodstained fields of Carolina, spread her pinions, and wing her way forever from a world, on one side of whose waters despotism reigns triumphant, and, upon the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the municipal officers, in their arm-chairs at the town-hall, sit over a mine which may explode at any time. To-morrow, perhaps, some resolution passed at a tavern in the suburbs, or some incendiary newspaper just received from Paris, will furnish the spark.—No other defense against the populace is at hand than the sentimental proclamations of the National Assembly, the useless presence of troops who stand by and look on, and the uncertain help of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... to them as energy from the cables was transformed to a tangible thing—a vast bulk of gas, of hydrogen and oxygen that had once been water, and the pressure of the gas made a roaring inferno of the exhausts. A spark plug ignited it, and the heat of combustion added pressure to pressure, while the quivering, invisible live steam poured forth to change to vaporous clouds that filled ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... in her eyes to all the treasures of the world, was not taken in her trap, but continued to ride the high horse with his hand on his hips. This disdain of her passion irritated Madame to the heart, which by this spark was set in flame. If you doubt this, it is because you know nothing of the profession of the Madame Imperia, who by reason of it might be compared to a chimney, in which a great number of fires have been lighted, which had filled it with soot; in this state a match was sufficient ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... too slow. When this spirit first dawned it might probably have been easily checked, but it is scarcely within the reach of human ken, at this moment, to say when, where, or how it will terminate. There are combustibles in every State to which a spark might set fire. In bewailing, which I have often done with the keenest sorrow, the death of our much-lamented friend, General Greene, I have accompanied my regrets of late with a query, whether he would not have preferred such an exit ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... laughter. At last, sobering up somewhat as he realized that his behavior was rude, to put it mildly, Chris stopped and caught his breath, shaken only now and again by a diminishing paroxysm. Seeing the spark of bad temper in the red face of the enormous woman, Chris decided to pour oil on the ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... tinder box I had, but no wood. Then it occurred to me that I had stuck a needle in my clothes, so I took the needle and split it in pieces, and lit it, then laid myself down by the fire and went to sleep. But ill-luck still pursued me. While I was sleeping a spark from the fire lighted on the hair, which was burnt up in a moment. In despair I threw myself on the ground, and instantly sank in it as far as my waist. I struggled to get out, but only fell in further; so I ran to the house, seized a spade, dug myself out, and took home the holy water. ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... Hull, we couldn't," said Captain Al-Amin with restrained patience. "That would strip the threads. If the electrical contact were made at the same time, the high-pressure oxygen-hydrogen flow would spark off, and we'd get a big explosion that would wreck everything—including us." Then he muttered to himself: "I still don't see ...
— Hanging by a Thread • Gordon Randall Garrett
... food and ask no questions about the universe in which it is served to them. We want to know about life's origin and meaning and destiny. We cannot keep our questions at home. We cannot stop thinking. If this universe is fundamentally physical, if the only spark of spiritual life which it ever knew is the fitful flame of our own unsteady souls, if it came from dust and to dust will return, leaving behind no recollection of the human labour, sacrifice and aspiration which for a little time it unconsciously enshrined, ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... on, and dwelt upon all this, and there was not as much as a spark of bitterness or malice ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... His Terran mind strove to give name to that which was nameless. Perhaps it was that spark of memory and consciousness which gave him that instant of "Seeing." Was it a throne? And on it a shimmering figure? He was ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... himself with that, and Agatha grew more resolute. There was not a spark of imagination in him, scarcely even a spark of the passion which, if it had been strong enough, might have swept her away in spite of her shrinking. He was a man of comely presence, whimsical, and quick, as she remembered, ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... only too clearly that, in the present temper of men's minds, the faintest spark could light fires of riot and murder that might leave but a heap of ashes and corpses for the Carthaginian to gain. Taking advantage of the momentary lull, he said in ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... the apartment. His fancy immediately pictured to itself, a person bearing a lamp. It seemed to come from behind. He was in the act of turning to examine the visitant, when his right arm received a blow from a heavy club. At the same instant, a very bright spark was seen to light upon his clothes. In a moment, the whole was reduced to ashes. This was the sum of the information which he chose to give. There was somewhat in his manner that indicated an imperfect tale. My uncle was inclined ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... violence of his behaviour seemed to kindle for the moment a spark of manly feeling, if such there were, in the breasts ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... cheerful sound: no flowers of love, of hope, or joy spring up near it, or they bloom only to wither in a moment. Our poet's verse does not put a spirit of youth in every thing, but a spirit of fear, despondency, and decay: it is not an electric spark to kindle or expand, but acts like the torpedo's touch to deaden or contract. It lends no dazzling tints to fancy, it aids no soothing feelings in the heart, it gladdens no prospect, it stirs no wish; in its view the current ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... the same enlightening and invigorating quality. He did not fumble among dreary details, but saw swiftly into the essence of things, so that he smiled as he sate. A book would, on such occasions, touch into life a whole train of pretty thoughts, as a spark leaps along a scattered line of gunpowder. A few remembered lines of poetry, a few notes played by unseen hands on a musical instrument, from a window that he passed in the street, would give a sense of ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... 200—hot as h-ll! I have seen four thousand men at a time cooking for the whole army as much as twenty or thirty thousand pounds of steaks at a time, all hissing and frying at a time—just about noon, of course, you know—not a spark of fire! Some of the soldiers who had been brought up as glass-blowers at Leith swore they never saw such heat. I used to go to leeward of them for a whiff, and think of old England! Ay! that's the country, after all, where a man may ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... precipitated?—my plans. We were saved, the two of us together. And then was started that scandalous report of the woman on the yacht." Again the laughter sounded in his voice. "You see, mon ami, how small a spark can start a conflagration. In self-defence I had to invent something, and I invented it quickly. I said she was Larpent's daughter. I wonder if you would have thought of that. You'd have done it ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... delivered his Catholic Majesty, King Philip the Fourth, in a condition utterly deplored by most, though with a little spark of hope in some, even physicians, upon a lightening that showed itself before death as it proved, his Majesty giving up the ghost this morning between four and five of the clock, witnessed immediately by all the bells in the town; this being somewhat ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... once to show him to his room. He looked round the vast hall, which, when he had before known it, was ever filled with signs of life, and felt at once that it was empty and deserted. It struck him as intolerably cold, and he saw that the huge fireplace was without a spark of fire. Dinner, the servant said, was prepared for half-past seven. Would Mr. Finn wish to dress? Of course he wished to dress. And as it was already past seven he hurried up stairs to his room. Here again everything was cold and wretched. There was no ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... fire has dropped its spark In Hafiz' heart before: The wild-grown tulip's mark Branded of old ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... who first applied the spark that fired Carlyle's ambition; it was from her that he got the germ of those talents which have ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... writer says, "Shakspeare had not a single spark of good taste, or knew one rule of the drama. In one of his monstrous farces, to which he has given the name of Tragedies, we find the jokes of the Roman shoemakers and cobblers introduced in the same scene with the orations of Brutus and Antony." (See Voltaire's Essays on Tragedy ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... well-disciplined Gertrude! But had her heart really felt a spark of love for the man of whom she spoke, how much would prudent, sensible, high-minded considerations have weighed with her? ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... number of persons of intelligence and cultivation, one of whom had but recently witnessed in Paris some highly interesting experiments with the electro-magnet, the object of which was to prove how readily the electric spark could be obtained from the magnet, and the rapidity with which it could be disseminated. To most of the passengers this relation was deeply interesting, but to all save one it was merely the recital of a curious experiment. ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... drops were seen to stand upon the bark, As juice is sweated by the sapling-spray, New-severed, when it yields to flame and spark, Sometime in vain kept back and held at bay. And next the voice began: "My story dark, Forced by thy courteous deed, I shall display; — What once I was — by whom, through magic lore, Changed to a myrtle on ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... for Clarissa Lovel had been interested in Geraldine Challoner, and she was not in the faintest degree interested in Miss Granger. The cold and shining surface of that young lady's character emitted no galvanic spark. It was impossible to deny that she was wise and accomplished; that she did everything well that she attempted; that, although obviously conscious of her own supreme advantages as the heiress to a great fortune, she was benignly indulgent to the less blessed among her sex,—it ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... she told herself that she had been—and as a consequence, she was wretchedly ill at ease. Her distress was in marked contrast with the man's self-possession, which amounted almost to indifference. There was no spark visible of the fire which had flashed earlier in the day. It was as though he had steeled himself to ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... think that young spark will be coming after City maidens again. Well, it has been a narrow escape for her. It would have broken the Captain's heart if she had gone in that way. What strange things women are! I have always thought Mistress Nellie as sensible a girl as one would want to see. Given a little over-much, ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... star. It was truly, as Dean Stanley called it, "the Gospel of the age." Its story spread, and with it spread renewed patience and hope. It doubtless fed the forces of that glorious revolt that shortly thereafter burst forth under the heroic Maccabees. Thus it kept alive the vital spark in the nation, through a crucial hour, that else might have gone out before it had given birth to Christianity. Noble as the book of Daniel is in many ways, especially as the real father of "the philosophy of history," ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... a strong man might have brained an ox. Every evil passion which curses the race of men had left its imprint upon his lowering countenance. Yet for a moment, when his gaze rested upon the girl, it was as though some spark of her loveliness drove the villainy from his face. He was hardly so tall as she who stood beside him watching me, the semblance of a mocking sneer about her lips. Looking past them both I could see what manner of place it was. A smoky oil-lamp sputtered in ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... "Wasp," with her ill-fated crew thus re-enforced, passed forever from the sight of man. What was her course after leaving the "Adonis," none may ever know. Whether some chance spark, touching the deadly stores of her magazine, sent vessel and crew to a sudden but merciful death; or whether, after gallantly battling with some fierce tropical hurricane, she drifted about the trackless ocean a helpless hulk, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the aspiration valves, ignited the divine spark plugs, and whiz! went their motor-meters in a whirring, ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... Stanza della Segnatura. But, fool that I was, I fancied my luck could not desert me, and painted only when it pleased me, ran my horses at all the races in Italy, and played the dandy, the spendthrift, and the roistering spark, until his Holiness in disgust turned me from the Vatican, and called Raphael to take my place, bidding him erase the little work I had done ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... his way? he wondered. Which direction ought he to take? He was still hesitating when some twenty paces away he suddenly saw a bright spark, the gleam of a lucifer. Guillaume was lighting a candle. Pierre recognised his broad shoulders, and from that moment he simply had to follow the flickering light along a walled and vaulted subterranean gallery. It seemed to be interminable ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... A gun flew to pieces with a thunderous detonation. The truck crashed. It was interesting to Lockley that automobile engines invariably went dead at about the time that explosives went off. The fact was, of course, that ionized air is more or less conductive. In an ion cloud the spark plugs shorted and did not fire ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... accustomed to severe restraints; they walked hither and thither, with pallid faces, groaning and searching everywhere for somewhat to eat; and they in whom the pangs of hunger had not extinguished every spark of modesty went and hid themselves in the most secret places, and gnawed their hearts in silence, preferring to die of want rather than beg in public. Children still in the cradle, unable to get milk, were exposed at the cross-roads, crying in vain ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... influencing the latter powerfully enough in this way to divide it, and since his time Messrs. Grove and Quet have studied the effect under different conditions. In 1859, I myself undertook numerous researches on this subject, and experimented on the induction spark of the Ruhmkorff coil, the results of these researches having been published in the last two editions of my notes on the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... old gentleman, I must own," replied M'Intyre, "and I am enraged at myself when I chance to offend him; but then his eternal harangues upon topics not worth the spark of a flinthis investigations about invalided pots and pans and tobacco-stoppers past serviceall these things put me out of patience. I have something of Hotspur in ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... yet not meaningless, defiance of a softer mood, and of his power to induce it in her, acted as a spark to Quisante's ardour. It was just the opposition that he had wanted to rescue him from awkwardness. He recovered the splendid intensity which had marked his declaration on Duty Hill. If he did not succeed in changing her feelings, at least he set her wondering why they did not ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... in this wise: The shell, S, is removed. Then a disk of steatite affixed to an insulating handle is rubbed for a few instants with a fox's "brush," and held near J until a spark occurs. Then the apparatus is grasped by the support, F, and an elder-pith ball suspended by a flaxen thread from a good conducting support is brought near J. The ball will be quickly repelled, and care must be taken that it does not come into contact ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... your mother, if she was a fool when she married him, was a wise woman when she died. Parson or not, he will never go where she is. Well, it's sad, but you'll be well out of this cold house, where there's so much praying but not a spark ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... with flowers her cork-tree bark, And lighted its helm with a glow-worm's spark; Then Love, when he saw his bark fly past, Said, 'Lingering Time will soon ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat |
