"Torch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lapsed into a puzzled silence when they saw their belongings cast upon a common heap. Their great white eyes grew bigger and bigger, and their repulsive lips wider and wider apart, until, when the last bag had been ransacked, the torch was applied to the pile of clothing. Then they realised the blasting of all their hopes, and with one accord they gave vent to the despairing yell which had attracted the attention of the camp. They became like men ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... thought of that safe, chock full of money, and the combination ready set. I heard Katharine moving about in her room, and I knew that she was waiting for me to go and say good night. I wouldn't. I put on a short jacket instead of my dress coat, and I took an electric torch out of my dressing case and I went down-stairs. I'd made up my mind, Nora. I meant to ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Melchior had finished his round his basket was emptied upon a table at the church door, and then all the poor people of the parish were free to come there and receive portions of those good things—while the church bells rang, and while there blazed beside the table a torch in representation of the Star which guided Melchior and his ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... as Costal perceived the approach of this new party—once more interrupting his designs—his fury became uncontrollable; and, making towards it on horseback, he snatched a torch from the hands of one of the Indians who were in advance, and then rode straight up to the litera. The apparition of a gaunt horseman with a torch in one hand, and a bloody sword in the other, his countenance expressing extreme rage, produced an instantaneous effect on the bearers of the litera. ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... the navigation opened in spring. The vessel, which was to be set adrift upon the ocean freighted with the offering, was splendidly decorated and covered with hieroglyphics, and after having been "purified with a lighted torch, an egg, and sulphur," was allowed to sail away into the unknown as a sacrifice to procure the safety of the convoy of ships which would soon after start upon their voyage. These ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear
... carnage was too great to be estimated. Attila was worsted. He encircled his camp with a rampart of wagons; and in the morning the victors saw him standing on the top of a mound composed of the trappings of horsemen, which was to serve as his funeral-pile, with torch-bearers at hand ready to light it in case of defeat. Aetius was weakened by the withdrawal of the Visigoths: the allies did not venture to attack the lion standing thus at bay, but suffered him ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... natives were bringing yams to the white men with timid gestures. After a brief rest Trent called them to follow him. He walked across to the dwelling of the fetish man and tore down the curtain of dried grass which hung before the opening. Even then it was so dark inside that they had to light a torch before they could see the walls, ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of his manner acted like a lighted torch to gunpowder. Roger swung round upon him furiously, his hands clenched, his forehead ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... crowned king in his room, and by his name. He, with the powerful aid of the Queen Dowager Kaahumanu, abolished tabu, and his subjects cast away their idols, and fell into indifferent scepticism, the high priest Hewahewa being the first to light the iconoclastic torch, having previously given his opinion that there was only one great akua or spirit in lani, the heavens. This Kamehameha II. was the king who with his queen, died of measles in London in 1824, after which the Blonde ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... from the day of flight to the ships quiet was restored, and a meeting of planters was adopting rules and rates for the employment of the freed slaves. Some estates resumed work at once; on others the ravages of the torch had first to be repaired. Some negroes would not work, and it was months before all the windmills on the hills were once more whirling. The Spaniards lingered long, but were finally relieved by a Danish regiment. Captain Erminger was commended by his home government. The governor ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... coloured chandeliers and cut-glass shades for our English Bedouins in the gin-palace; the flaring jet of the open butchers' shops; the paper-lantern of the street-stalls; the consumptive dip of the slop-worker; the glimmering rush-light for the sick-room; the resin torch for the midnight funeral: these, and countless other inventions—not to mention the universal gas—assert man's disinclination to transact his life in the dark, or to bound his powers by the simple arrangements of nature. There are better lights, though, than any of these, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... What dreams did he seek to incarnate on this strand, in this queer tower, locked away from the world with a charming princess—a fairy princess whose heart beat with love for the oppressed, in whose hand he might some time see the blazing torch of freedom? He, himself, was enveloped by the hypnotism ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... find Something above a man to equal me; Put all your brave Heroes into one, Your Kings and Emperours, and let him come In person of a man, and I should scorn him: Must, and will scorn him. The god of love himself hath lost his eyes, His Bow and Torch extinguish'd, and the Poets That made him first a god, have lost their fire 253] Since I appear'd, and from my eyes must steal it. This I dare speak; and let me see the man, Now I have spoke it, that doth, dare deny; ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... until the sulphur had burned off and the wood blazed bright and clear. Then she pushed through the broken wall and showed the way to their destination by the light of the small torch. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... with pleased approval on its wide expanse of green campus, for that stretch of ground has a history that makes it worthy of the noble building which it supports. It spread its greenery to the view of those window-eyes decades before the Revolution, and when that fiery torch flamed upon the country's record the college green furnished a camping place for the freedom-loving Frenchmen who came over the sea to help set our stars permanently into the blue of our national sky. In 1812 American troops pitched ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... discharged itself upon their own habitations. But this, as cutting off all infirm looking backward from the hardships of their march, had been thought so necessary a measure by all 30 the chieftains that even Oubacha himself was the first to authorize the act by his own example. He seized a torch previously prepared with materials the most durable as well as combustible, and steadily applied it to the timbers of his own palace. Nothing was saved from the general wreck except the portable part of the domestic utensils ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... At his feet knelt the Malay, also wrapt in a red shawl. He was holding in his left hand a branch of some unknown plant, like a fern, and bending slightly forward, was gazing fixedly at his master. A small torch fixed on the floor burnt with a greenish flame, and was the only light in the room. The flame did not flicker nor smoke. The Malay did not stir at Fabio's entry, he merely turned his eyes upon him, and again bent them upon Muzzio. From ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... between one another, even if it were day, except by recognizing their chieftains alone. The two persons aforesaid proceeded from one fire to another, until they came to the great central fire, which was at the entrance of the son of O'Neill's tent; and a huge torch, thicker than a man's body, was continually flaming at a short distance from the fire, and sixty grim and redoubtable warriors with sharp, keen axes, terrible and ready for action, and sixty stern and terrific Scots, with massive, broad and heavy striking ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... she paused. On ahead the road was broad and empty save for a car coming towards them. Off to the right was a desolate way leading to a little cemetery. Down to the left a smooth wooded road wound into the darkness. There were sign boards up. Ruth leaned out and flashed a pocket torch on the board. "TO PINE TREE INN, 7 Miles" it read. Did she fancy it or was it really true that she could hear the distant sound of a car among ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... strength up to the last hour, for the preservation of peace. To the misfortune of the peoples, the Socialists in all countries were not yet strong enough to hold back the terrible fate which has come upon Europe. The torch of war flared up sharply and set the ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... Although Sidi carried a torch, it took them upwards of an hour to get to the foot of the hills. When on the level ground Ayala was assisted to mount Ali's horse, and they went more briskly along. There was, however, no occasion for haste, for the ferry was but four miles away, and ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... a different sentiment prevailed among the motley group there assembled. There were twenty men, including Hatchie, all armed with rifle and bowie-knife, and every one anxious for the fight to commence. Besides their arms, each man was provided with a small cord, and a torch of pitch-wood, the end of which had been plentifully ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... the wall torches here and there appeared to burn in mid-air, showing beneath them the heads and the hoods of their bearers hurrying home, and, where they turned to the right along a narrow lane, a torch showed far ahead above a crowd packed thick between dark house-fronts and gables. They glistened with wet and sent down from their gutters spouts of water that gleamed, catching the light of the torch, like threads ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... in conceits, he stumbled home, In the darke couerture of shady night, Cal'd for a torch, the which his chamber groome, With more then speedy haste did present light: To bed he went, as heauy in his spright, As loue, that's full of anguish makes the minde: Faine would he sleepe away this martirdome, But loues eyes open, when all else ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... although useless and indeed injurious for general wear, are ideal for traversing bramble-land—took my thick stick, and further looked to the condition and readiness of my pistol. Finally, slipping an electric torch into ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... gold or silver or bronze, an armlet, a woman's earring, a purse, perhaps, with something in it. And the fitful night-breeze blew now and then and made them shade their lights with their dark hands. By the 'door of the dead' a torch was burning down in its socket, its glare falling upon a heap of armour, mostly somewhat battered, and all of it blood-stained; a score of black-browed smiths were picking it over and distributing it in heaps, according to its condition. Now and then, from the deep vaults below ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... touching faith in the combined protective powers of twelve inches of mattress and nine inches of dog, had been reading a little paper book called Love in Society by the light of an electric torch. ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... While the altar of freedom was reared in its stead. And a spark from that shrine in the free-roving breeze, Had crossed from fair France to that isle of the seas; And a flame was there kindled which fitfully shone Mid the shout of the free, and the dark captive's groan; As, mid contrary breezes, a torch-light will play, Now streaming up ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... fiercely hurled Their solid ranks with Nin-rad's flag unfurled, The charging lines meet with a fearful sound, As tempests' waves from rocks in rage rebound; The foe thus meet the men of Izdubar, While o'er the field fly the fierce gods of war. Dark Nin-a-zu[7] her torch holds in her hand. With her fierce screams directs the gory brand; And Mam-mit[8] urges her with furious hand, And coiling dragons[9] poison all the land With their black folds and pestilential breath, In fierce delight thus ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... his bravery, he recoiled a little when he first caught sight of the extraordinary being that emerged from the darkness—a wild, distorted figure that ran towards him with its head downwards, bearing aloft in one skinny hand a smoking pine-torch, from which the sparks flew like so many fireflies. This uncanny personage, wearing the semblance of man, came within two paces of Errington before perceiving him; then, stopping short in his headlong career, the creature flourished his torch ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... in silence, and all eyes watched the man put his torch in the fire, and then carry it blazing ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... the expense of Apollo, the great sun god. Apollo was himself a mighty archer, and had slain with his arrows the python of Delphi. Proud of his victory, he mocked at the little god of love, advising him to leave his arrows for the warlike, and content himself with the torch of love. Cupid, vexed at the taunt, replied threateningly, "Thine arrows may strike all things else, Apollo, but mine shall strike thee." So saying he drew from his quiver two arrows, one of gold, to excite love, and one of lead, to repel it. With the golden one he ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... succeeded in reaching his canoe, and fixing the burning brand in one end of the boat he was soon rapidly paddling over the waters toward his distant home. The flying sparks of the torch burnt him badly in several places, but he did not much mind this, and he dared not stop to dress his wounds for fear that his pursuers would ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... Temple of Fortuna, with the Appollo Belvidere on a pedestal in the foreground, flanked with two standing vases with burning incense. Above the painting was the motto "Gaudeamus Igitur," resting on a gilt lyre and torch. Medallions representing Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter surmounted the draperies on this ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... put his designs into execution. While the others had been sleeping, he had prepared a large torch, out of dry splinters of the stone pine; and now quietly igniting this, set it in the ground near the base of the cliff. The moment the bright flame illuminated the entrance to the cave, all stood with their guns in hand ready to fire. ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... to earth sent Paul out over the earth. He was not even content to work on old foundations, but regarding himself as under sentence of death he longed to make the most of his votive life, to bear the torch of the truth into all realms of darkness. He was none the less a philosopher because he preferred the simple logic of God's love, nor did he hesitate to confront the philosophy of Athens or the threatenings of Roman tyrants. He was ready for chains and imprisonment, for perils of tempests or ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... these torch-bearers, human candlesticks, and valets de chambre, and I'll get me to bed," commanded the duke, standing in the center of his room, and the trooper with the fierce red mustaches waved a swarm of pages, cup-bearers ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... and lifting up my Eyes, I saw two Figures, in human Shape, coming into the Valley. Upon a nearer Survey, I found them to be YOUTH and LOVE. The first was encircled with a kind of Purple Light, that spread a Glory over all the Place; the other held a flaming Torch in his Hand. I could observe, that all the way as they came towards us, the Colours of the Flowers appeared more lively, the Trees shot out in Blossoms, the Birds threw themselves into Pairs, and Serenaded ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... "destroy nations, and with them all their monuments, their discoveries, and their vanities. The torch of science has more than once been extinguished and rekindled—a few individuals, who have escaped by accident, reunite the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... great torch lifted in one hand, The dawn in her proud eyes, Silent, for all the shouts that vex her ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... at the car, a hopeless torch now suffusing the lonely road with light. There was a certain suggestion of racial subtlety in the careful immobility of his face, but his dark, inscrutable eyes were ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... small, and in a few minutes Charley was close to the scene of the cries with the captain right at his heels. Suddenly they broke out of the underbrush into a small open space perhaps forty feet across. Near the center of this place was Walter, waving his torch frantically back and forth. He ceased his cries as their lights flashed into view. "Stop, stop!" he shouted, "don't come a step further. I am sinking a foot a minute. The ground is rotten here. I guess it's up to me to say good-bye, chums," he continued in a voice he ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... pillaged the Roman people, and left the world the Gothic arch; the Vikings came over the sea, roaring their sagas of rapine and slaughter; the conquerors came to Europe with spear and sword and torch and left the outlines of the map, the boundaries of states. Luther married his nun, and set Christendom to fighting over it for a hundred years, but he left a free conscience. Cromwell thrust his pikes into the ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... Slade came with a blazing stick for torch to wish him a mocking good night. Lennon smiled back at him with a show of confidence. The trader cursed but soon went off to roll in his blankets. This proved Lennon's surmise that the real test ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... through a line of foot-guards, every seventh man bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their officers with drawn sabres and crape sashes on horse-back, the drums muffled, the fifes, bells tolling, and minute guns,—all this was very solemn. But the charm was the entrance of the abbey, where we were received by the dean and ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... among these credulous people, who saw not the wily traitor behind the rich, eloquent voice, quivering with indignation, was similar to that which would follow were you to fling a flaming torch upon the prairie in midsummer after a month of drought. Then the cunning deceiver went secretly to several of the leading half-breeds in Red River, and whispered certain proposals in ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... produced only at the time of the festivals of the god, but then they continued for several days in succession. They began in the morning at sunrise and occupied all the time till torch-light with the production of a series of three tragedies (a trilogy) followed by a satirical drama. Each trilogy was the work of one author. Other trilogies were presented on succeeding days, so that the spectacle was a competition between poets, the public determining the ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... roofs and gables of the town, and making the castle appear like a huge and magnificent lantern. The ravine was lighted up as though by enchantment, and the unexpected illumination caused an alarm among the group of pirates, not unlike that of an owl into whose gloomy roosting-place a torch is suddenly intruded. Terror was depicted upon their countenances as they gazed up at the castle. For a moment all was still and hushed as the grave, and the Uzcoques scarcely seemed to breathe as they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... lizards glided away from my feet as I descended the steps, and when the flare of my torch penetrated the darkness I heard a scurrying of wings mingled with various hissing sounds and wild cries. I knew now—none better—what weird and abominable things had habitation in this storehouse of the dead, but I felt I could defy them all, armed with the light I carried. The way that ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... lights. Elektra taking up a torch, bows low to him, and motions him to go on. When he recognizes her, he asks where the men are, who brought the news of Orestes' death.—Elektra, silently advancing with the torch, opens the door and lets him pass into the house. Then she stands like one transfixed, ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... house. To this we came Lighted by love with torch aflame, And in this chamber, door locked fast, I held you to my ...
— Many Voices • E. Nesbit
... burning sky With ruby decks her place, The other when Eve's chariot glideth by Lifts her dim torch to light ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... breath. After a time, however, the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the blood produces its merciful narcotic effect, and the struggles cease. The breathing becomes shallower and shallower, the lips become first blue, then ashy pale, and the little torch of life goes out with a flicker. This was what we had to expect, in spite of our utmost effort, in from seventy to ninety per cent of these laryngeal cases, before the days of the blessed antitoxin. Now we actually reverse these percentages, prevent the ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... court are bronze torch-holders as high as turrets. Here too stand, and have stood for centuries, cyca palms with fresh green plumes, their numerous stalks curving with a heavy symmetry, like the branches of massive candelabra. The temple, which is open along its ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... outhouse; and so piercing, that he determined to see what was going on. On looking in he perceived a young female tied up to a beam by her wrists; entirely naked; and in the act of involuntary writhing and swinging; while the author of her torture was standing below her with a lighted torch in his hand, which he applied to all the parts of her body as it approached him. What crime this miserable woman had perpetrated he knew not; but the human mind could not conceive a crime warranting ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... now appeared with the keys of these buildings in his hands, and every heart thrilled with wild expectation. He ordered Robert to precede him with a torch, and the rest of the servants following, he passed on. A pair of iron gates were unlocked, and they proceeded through a court, whose pavement was wildly overgrown with long grass, to the great door of the south fabric. Here they met with some difficulty, for the lock, which had not been turned ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... and had I not recovered my ring? Not far did we go till we came on something. There was but little water, and the bottom of the drain was raised with brick, rubbish, and much matter of the kind. He had made a fight for it, even when his torch had gone out. But they were too many for him! They had not been long about it! The bones were still warm; but they were picked clean. They had even eaten their own dead ones and there were bones of rats as well as of the man. They took it cool enough those other—the human ones—and ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... stood on this very spot more than once," mused Abby. "It was Mother Ann's vision that brought them to this land, a vision of a large tree with outstretching branches, every leaf of which shone with the brightness of a burning torch! Oh! if the vision would only come true! If Believers would only come to us as many as the leaves on the tree," she sighed, as she and Susanna moved away from the group of chattering children, all as eager to play the history ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... scraping upon the wall, the candle was suddenly blown out. Then his nerve began to return and with it his control over his limbs. He crawled to the side of the bed remote from the curtains, stole to the little table on which he had left his revolver and an electric torch, snatched at them, and, with the former in his right hand, flashed a little orb of light into the shadows of the great apartment. Once more something like terror seized him. The figure which had been standing by the side of his bed had vanished. There was no hiding ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... strode a shadowy Form; Her limbs like mist, her torch like meteor showed, With which she beckoned him through fight and storm, And all he crushed that crossed his desperate road, Nor thought, nor feared, nor looked on what he trode. Realms could not glut his pride, blood could not slake, So oft as e'er she shook her ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... Hymen had, with his lighted torch, driven the boy Cupid out of doors, that is to say, in common phrase, when the violence of Mr. Wild's passion (or rather appetite) for the chaste Laetitia began to abate, he returned to visit his friend Heartfree, who was now in the liberties of the Fleet, and appeared to the commission ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... Chester no longer could trust his own memory of that pattern. He went to the bottom of a deep shell crater, and, lying upon his stomach, he took a scrap of map from under his shirt and spread it below him. He took a tiny electric torch from his pocket and illumined the sheet dimly. A series of squares, into which that sector was divided, marked his path for the front — each square of the series numbered in ink and designated by a time, such as 32, 24, 19, 16, 10 and so, forth. They told the ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... raiding the pig-pen again! Can't you hear 'em squealing? Come on at once! Bring the eight-bore, Joe; and you, Phil, get the torch and the revolver. Quick; or he'll kill every hog in ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... accounts for its introduction there. The Greeks are said to have used it first in the Trojan war, when it took the place of the rough conch shells, which had in their turn replaced the ancient battle signal of the flaming torch. One of the coveted prizes of the Olympic games was awarded for the best trumpet solo, and we hear of one fortunate person, Herodotus of Megara, who gained this honour more than ten times. It must have taken real genius to have roused melody from the primitive trumpets of ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... the itinerant tailor, once a familiar figure, has almost vanished. Their great place of congregating is still some country smiddy, which is also their frequent meeting-place when bent on black-fishing. The flare of the black-fisher's torch still attracts salmon to their death in the rivers near Thrums; and you may hear in the glens on a dark night the rattle of the spears on the wet stones. Twenty or thirty years ago, however, the sport was much more common. After the farmer had gone to bed, some half-dozen ploughmen ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... Dinnies Kleist, for he thought the miller had played a trick on them, who, however, swore he was innocent; and as the knight threatened to give him something fresh to drink in the castle well, he offered to light a pine torch and descend into the cave. Hardly was he down, however, when they heard him screaming—"The robbers have murdered the women—they are all lying here stone dead, but not a ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... deep excavation, down which they looked, and when the man held the torch beneath its surface, they could dimly see the bottom of it, where there was a number of large pieces of flint stone, and, apparently, likewise, the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... indispensable to the security of a dwelling. The summons was answered by a bond-servant, a coarse-clad and dull-featured piece of humanity, who, after ascertaining that his master was the applicant, undid the door, and held a flaring pine-knot torch to light him in. Further back in the passageway, the red blaze discovered a matronly woman, but no little crowd of children came bounding forth to greet their father's return. As the Puritan entered, he thrust aside his cloak, ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... the front rank of men whom rebels delight to honour. If there was a traitor in New York City on that day he was in the company of Horatio Seymour. Finally, he pronounced as 'friends' the men, who, stirred to action by his incendiary words, applied the torch and the bludgeon in the draft riot of July 13, 14, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... in unity, and for unity you must have discipline, and for discipline, for the present, at least, you must accept authority. Much, incalculably much, depends upon the young. The generation to which I belong is passing, we have to hand on to you who are younger the torch of life. ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... is over, dearest," whispered Ellen Estabrook to Lee Bentley as their liner came crawling up through the Narrows and the Statue of Liberty greeted the two with uplifted torch beyond Staten Island. New York's skyline was beautiful through the mist and smoke which always seemed to mask it. It was good ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... they had become involved. He would go, he said, as cautiously as possible, avoiding all parties of the enemy, and being favored by the darkness of the night, he hoped to find some way of retreat. If he succeeded, he would display a torch on a distant elevation which he designated, so that the party in the glen, on seeing the light, might be assured of his safety. He would then return and guide them all through the danger, by the way which he ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... of good repute, named Meton, who, on the day when the final decision was to be made, when the people were all assembled, took a withered garland and a torch, and like a drunkard, reeled into the assembly with a girl playing the flute before him. At this, as one may expect in a disorderly popular meeting, some applauded and some laughed, but no one ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... writings of Rousseau, a hatred of everything above them; others had taken from Mably his admiration of the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, and would reproduce them in France; others had borrowed from Raynal the revolutionary torch which he had lighted for the destruction of all institutions; others, educated in the atheistic fanaticism of Diderot, trembled with rage at the very name of a priest or religion; and thus the Revolution was gradually handed over to the guidance of ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... night on the Yaquina Bay by the coast Indians was a very picturesque scene. It was mostly done by the squaws and children, each equipped with a torch in one hand, and a sharp-pointed stick in the other to take and lift the fish into baskets slung on the back to receive them. I have seen at times hundreds of squaws and children wading about in Yaquina ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... dreary cavern, without wealth, or ornament, or order. But light up within it the torch of knowledge, and how wondrous the transition! The seasons change, the atmosphere breathes, the landscape lives, earth unfolds its fruits, ocean rolls in its magnificence, the heavens display their constellated canopy, and the grand animated spectacle of nature ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... bosom of the deep have been opened to endow it with more light, to fill it with more power. The divine ascetics stand with torches lit before the temple of wisdom. Those who are nigh them have caught the fire and offer to us in turn to light the torch, the blazing torch of soul. Let us accept the gift and pass it on, pointing out the prime givers. We shall see in time the eager races of men starting on their pilgrimage of return and facing the light. So in the mystical past the call of light was seen on the sacred hills; the ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... enchanted. When she goes outside without a hat her hair looks like a burning torch against the snow. She does not speak, but hums to herself, and walks more lightly and softly than ever, as though she feared to ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... Maimunists and the anti-Maimunists; and the polemic and the struggle between them was long and bitter. Anathema and counter anathema, excommunication and counter excommunication was the least of the matter. The arm of the Church Inquisition was invoked, and the altar of a Parisian Church furnished the torch which set on flame the pages of Maimonides's "Guide" in the French capital. More tragic even was the punishment meted out to the Jewish informers who betrayed their people to the enemy. The men responsible had their tongues ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... in La Vendee before the Revolution, and one of those priests who lighted the torch of civil war in that unfortunate country, under pretence of defending the throne of his King and the altars of his God. He not only possessed great popularity among the lower classes, but acquired so far the confidence of the Vendean chiefs ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... very good to think of that. Ah! There's a bonfire: and here comes a torch. I must go and quench my fires. Good-by, Miss Carden. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... of the tongue. For so have I heard, that all the noises and prating of the pool, the croaking of frogs and toads, is hushed and appeased upon the instant of bringing upon them the light of a candle or torch. Every beam of reason, and ray of knowledge, checks the dissolutions of ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... been gilding everything from masthead to floating spar gathered in its forces, and for one moment seemed to rest upon Liberty's torch, throwing the statue into clear relief, and then dropped rapidly behind the river's night-cloud bank, and presently lights began to glimmer far and near, the night breath rose from the water, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Mollie Able's bow touched the bank and a line had been thrown out, a gang-plank was shoved ashore, and the skipper came down from the hurricane deck to give his passenger a "send-off." The blazing torch, which one of the deck-hands had placed in the steamer's bow, threw a flickering light upon half a dozen long-haired, roughly dressed men who had been brought to the bank by the sound of the whistle, and who gazed in surprise when they saw a ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... few years ago. We know that for some people gold and lilies are not properly honoured until they are gilded and painted. Rupert Brooke was far from being either a plaster saint or a vivid public witness. He was neither a trumpet nor a torch. He lives in the memory of those who knew him as a smiling and attentive spectator, eager to watch every flourish of the pageantry of life. Existence was a wonderful harmony to Rupert Brooke, who was determined to lose no tone of it by making too much noise himself. ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... of the sad youth leaning upon an inverted torch, in which the Greeks embodied their idea of Death, is familiar to all who have examined ancient Art. The Etruscan Death was a female, with wings upon the shoulders, head, and feet, hideous countenance, terrible ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... stay to war with beasts who bring disgrace upon our noble cause. The torch of liberty, which should light mankind to progress, when left in madmen's hands, kindles that blaze of anarchy whose only ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Paul Kauvar; or, Anarchy • Steele Mackaye
... negroes there had rushed down to hear what had taken place, and to inquire after friends. Above the yells and shouts of the frenzied negroes sounded the deep roar of the horns, and the angry beating of the Obi drums. Numbers of torch bearers were among the crowd, and although nearly half a mile away, the scene could be perfectly ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... the wind? It was insured for a large sum in a bureau in Paris. But there were suspicions raised and questions asked. Our sacristan, Jean, who was then a young boy, affirmed that he had seen some one carrying a lighted torch around the building, after the work-people had all fled to see after their own houses. The bureau refused to pay, except by a process of law; and the Pineaux never began their process. They worked the factory a few years on borrowed money; but they became poor, very poor. Mademoiselle ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... something tremendous. He came from Russian Poland—and the first American word he learned over there was 'freedom.' So in New York he changed his name to that—very solemnly, by due process of law. It cost him seven dollars. He had nine dollars at the time. Isadore is a flame, a kind of a torch ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... orison, the stoney matter broke off short, and fell like a flint against the wall of the privy, making a croc, croc, crooc, paf! You can easily understand, my sisters, that she had no need of a torch-cul, and ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... went scurrying to the big swamp, and the man and the negro followed as fast as they could. The dogs treed right at the edge of the swamp, and when the man and the negro got there, they were barking up a big poplar. The negro held his torch behind him so as to 'shine' in the raccoon's eyes,—if it was a raccoon,—but he could ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... belly of the devout in their long pilgrimages, sign manual of the pious intent of the bearer. He had taken a candle from his pocket, and, with small respect to the "six worlds" of its rings, used the spiked end to improvise a torch. Then an unexpected voice caught his ear; a sad, wailing cry which chilled the heart. Then followed low, rapid, disorderly speech, the meaning of which rendered indistinct by distance could not be made out. Then came the ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... the Wyandots ceased to burn prisoners. But now they heaped the fagots around Captain Brady, and applied the torch ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... cause. On reaching the place, I was welcomed by a dozen tall, stout men, who told me they were exercising for the purpose of enabling them to shoot in the night at the reflected light from the eyes of a deer, or wolf, by torch-light. ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... aid of his electric torch, Ambrose found the belt to run the flour mill in a corner of the engine room. So far so good. His ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... journey she tried all she could to swallow pins, bits of glass, and earth; that she had proposed that he should cut Desgrais' throat, and kill the commissary's valet; that she had bidden him get the box and burn it, and bring a lighted torch to burn everything; that she had written to Penautier from the Conciergerie; that she gave him, the letter, and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... could be heard in talk,—such village gossip as farmers might exchange when the way was tiresome. The horses plodded on till they were abreast of the house, when there was a whistle; the crack of light widened, suddenly there was a rush of feet, a torch was brandished, and brown hands ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... ox!" the French oath rang out, "We're in their very nest. Quick, you loafers, the torch, the torch!" ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... was really between Mr. Breckinridge and Mr. Lincoln; between minority rule and rule by the majority. I wanted, as between these candidates, to see Mr. Lincoln elected. Excitement ran high during the canvass, and torch-light processions enlivened the scene in the generally quiet streets of Galena many nights during the campaign. I did not parade with either party, but occasionally met with the "wide awakes" —Republicans—in ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the Frenchmen were as busy as bees. We could hear the crackle and snap of wood as they seemed to be tearing it out of the counting-house; and then it was evident what they had been doing, for a torch danced here and there, and stopped in one place and seemed to double in size, to quadruple, and at last there was a leaping flame running up and a pile of wood began ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... sky were one blaze of light given out by the torch-like resinous trees as they burned from the top downwards. By that intense light the three watchers could see hundreds of the People of the Dwarfs flitting about between the trunks. Waving their arms and gibbering, they rushed this way and that, to the north to be met by fire, to the ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... boy better. He sprang to his feet and took the gun from Mickey, so as to leave him free to carry the torch. One end of the latter was thrust into the fire, and it caught as readily as if it were smeared with alcohol. It was a bit of pine, as fat as it could be, and, as a torch, could not have ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... transfigures daily life and takes suffering and disgrace for honour. His spirit will have been illumined by a hope and an indignation that make the usual aims and satisfactions of the world appear trivial and fond. To him it has been granted to hand on the torch of that impassioned movement and change by which the soul of man appears slowly to be working out its transfiguration. And if he dies in the race, he may still hope that some glimmer of freedom will shine ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... had dressed his wounds as best we could, we took a torch and went to the foot of the pine tree, and there lay the panther, dead. He had stabbed ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... Magwire, who, remembering how Idyl had often stolen out and hung a lantern at this dark turn of the "road bend," began thrusting a pine torch into the cannon's mouth on dark nights as a slight memorial of her. And those who noticed said she took her rosary there and ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... youths of Troy, the Tyrian train, Cytherea's grandson, scatter'd o'er the plain, All fly the storm, and in one dark retreat 210 The Tyrian Queen and Trojan Hero meet. Strait nuptial Juno, gives the fatal sign; Pale flames the torch, and trembling Earth the shrine: Night spread the veil;—and to the vow they swore The murmuring air, ill omen'd witness bore. 215 The frighted Nymphs along the mountain height, In doleful cries proclaim the genial rite. That ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... stupidity? Will he appeal to the cowardly man? Will he play upon his fears—fear, the capital stock of imposture, the lever and fulcrum of hypocrisy? Will he appeal to the selfishness and all the slimy serpents that crawl in the den of savagery? Or will he appeal to reason, the torch of the mind? Will he appeal to justice? Will he appeal to charity, which is justice in blossom? Will he appeal to liberty and love? These are the questions. What will he do? What did our God do? Let us see. The first thing we know of Him is in the Garden of Eden. ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... impatient heart-beats, love's ungovernable eagerness for the beloved's presence, love listening for the footsteps of the beloved. The curtain rises upon a garden under a cloudless summer night. Beside the door of Isolde's apartment a torch is burning. The sound is heard of hunting-horns gradually retreating. Brangaene stands on the castle-steps, listening to these. Isolde, all in a happy agitation, hurries forth to ask if they still be audible. She herself cannot hear ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... said Margery Burton, one of the other members of the Camp Fire. She was a Fire-Maker, the second rank of the Camp Fire. First are the Wood-Gatherers, to which Bessie and Dolly belonged; then the Fire-Makers, and finally, and next to the Guardian, whom they serve as assistants, the Torch-Bearers. Margery hoped soon to be made a Torch-Bearer, and had an ambition to become a Guardian herself as soon as Miss Eleanor and the local council of the National Camp Fire decided that she was ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... since the death of his master had attached himself to the service of Monteblanco, took a torch, and accompanied the old cavalier to the garden. Don Manuel called aloud upon his daughter, but his voice was only answered by the sad echoes of the place. He became alarmed, and hastily proceeded to the bower: there he descried Theodora lying on the marble seat, apparently asleep. He approached ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... became visible on the warship's deck and then vanished. Still the man stood there watching, a puzzled, anxious look coming into his face. Quickly the light reappeared—two flashes, a pause, two flashes, a pause, and then a single flash. It was such a light as might have been made by a pocket torch, a feeble ray barely strong enough to carry to the adjacent shore, a light that if it had been flashed from some sheltered nook by the boat davits might not even have attracted the attention of the officer on the bridge nor of ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston |
