"Torchlight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the ancient castle, to protect it from those who threatened to carry it away by the pocketful. A wall has also been put around the present "castle" (more properly, house). This was done some years ago, I was told by the butler, after a torchlight procession of a thousand enthusiastic admirers had come down from Liverpool and trampled ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... parents to send him to the University of Erfurt that he might study law. He took his degree as Doctor of Philosophy in 1505—the event {53} was celebrated by a torchlight procession and rejoicing, after the student-custom of ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... reflected, 'if this is your Duke, why, egad! for figure and style my friend Harrington beats him hollow.' And Raikes thought he knew who could conduct a conversation with superior dignity and neatness. The torchlight of a delusion was extinguished in him, but he did not wander long in that gloomy cavernous darkness of the disenchanted, as many of us do, and as Evan had done, when after a week at Beckley Court he began to examine of what stuff his brilliant father, the great ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Torchlight and Igniter, coupled should prove a red hot combination, but with Extinguisher in the race might not bring in any money ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... antagonisms that had been slumbering started to their feet. Torrini fell out of favor, and in the midst of one of his finest perorations uncomplimentary missiles, selected from the animal kingdom, had been thrown at him. The grand torchlight procession on the night of the ninth culminated in a disturbance, in which many men got injured, several badly, and the windows of Brackett's bakery were stove in. A point of light had pierced the darkness,—the trades were quarreling ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... lady; the Canadian wolf is a great coward. I have heard the hunters say, that they never attack any one, unless there is a great flock together and the man is alone and unarmed. My uncle used to go out a great deal hunting, sometimes by torchlight, and sometimes on the lake in a canoe, with the Indians; and he shot and trapped a great many wolves and foxes and racoons. He has a great many heads of wild animals nailed up on the stoup in front ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... impressive in ceremonial details. After the chase the "quarry" was usually held by torchlight at Versailles, in one of the inner courts, and the ceremony of the quarry was as follows: "When His Majesty had made known his intentions on the subject, all the huntsmen with their horns and in hunting-dress came to the place where the quarry was to be made. On ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... place which he held, and the proud steed which he bestrode; for no man in England, or perhaps in Europe, was more perfect than Dudley in horsemanship, and all other exercises belonging to his quality. He was bareheaded as were all the courtiers in the train; and the red torchlight shone upon his long, curled tresses of dark hair, and on his noble features, to the beauty of which even the severest criticism could only object the lordly fault, as it may be termed, of a forehead somewhat too high. ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... observed, however, amidst the growing darkness; and no sooner was the word amnesty read than a cry of enthusiasm was heard. People hastened from their houses in all directions, the passers-by stopped in crowds to read, by torchlight, the cabalistic words. Among the fast-assembling masses there was but one feeling. They embraced and even wept for joy. In the depth of their emotion, and whilst yet, as may be said, intoxicated with delight, they sought how to express their ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... irregular walls, pierced by numberless richly ornamented windows, and surmounted by small turrets, form a beautiful boundary on the right; while a third party are planted on the left, in the open space, beneath the dormitory, the torchlight flashing ruddily upon the hoary pillars and groined arches sustaining ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... encamped beside a wild rice lake, where two months before we had harvested our watery fields of grain, and where we had now returned for the duck-hunting. All was well with us. Ducks were killed in countless numbers, and in the evenings the men hunted deer in canoes by torchlight along the shores of the lake. But alas! life is made up of good times and bad times, and it is when we are perfectly happy that we ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... heard the laughter in mirthful repetition, like the ripple of the water-brook upon the shining pebbles of the stream. Peering out as far as the line of the torchlight pierced into the darkness, he beheld two beautiful young females smiling on him. Their countenances appeared to be perfectly white, like the ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... Munegoo, the lord of men and beasts was entertained by Kitpooseagunow. And when the night came, he who was born after his mother's death said to his guest, "Let us go on the sea in a canoe and catch whales by torchlight;" to which Glooskap, nothing loath, consented, for he was a mighty fisherman, as are all the Wabanaki of the seacoast. [Footnote: Glooskap would seem to have been the prototype of the giant fisher so well known ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... Maurice, at the head of a large army, advanced rapidly into Upper Germany. Castles and cities surrendered as he advanced, and so rapid was his progress, that he came near taking the emperor captive. Charles was obliged to fly, in the middle of the night, and to travel on a litter by torchlight, amid the passes of the Alps. He scarcely left Innspruck before Maurice entered it—but too late to gain the prize he sought. The emperor rallied his armies, and a vigorous war was carried on between the contending parties, to the ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... gold rim vanished also; still there appeared to be no disposition among the party to leave the scene. Twilight began to shimmer, and now the stars trembled forth from the dusky sky. At last night settled on the landscape, and the girls expressed a wish to see the hollow lighted up with torchlight. Scattering ourselves amongst the trees of the bank, some splinters of the pitch pine were procured, and matches kindled each splinter into thick crimson flame. I clambered up as far as the basin of the first "bound" of the "Deer," and looked down ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... "and found foot marks in the snow, which, from the previous fall, lay lightly on the ground, for the storm of tonight had hardly set in. There were marks of one of our parties, and we saw by torchlight strange footprints, as if they had been tracked by two or three daring foes—we thought we distinguished ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... during the last seventeen years by Irish speeches, we have heard so little Irish humour, whether conscious or unconscious—whether jokes or "bulls." An admirably vigorous simile was used by the late Mr. O'Sullivan, when he complained that the whisky supplied at the bar was like "a torchlight procession marching down your throat;" but of Irish bulls in Parliament I have only heard one—proceeding, if my memory serves me, from Mr. T. Healy: "As long as the voice of Irish suffering is dumb, the ear of ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... for the second time I remembered that they were having "torchlight tattoo" at the barracks, and we decided to stop for ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... in his left hand and in his right took the old fish-spear, meaning to fight, but he was so weak he had to use the fish-spear as a crutch. The great Beast stood on the table still, but was crouching a little as though for a spring. Its eyes glowed red in the torchlight. Its short tail was switching from side to side and its growling took a higher pitch. Thor's knees were smiting together, but he levelled the spear and made a feeble lunge toward the brute. It sprang at ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... He took with him a hazy impression of a vast, vaulted hall filled with a ruddy glare of torchlight, a raving rabble of gorgeously attired natives in its centre. Then the opening received him and he found himself in a black hole of an underground gallery—a place that reeked with the dank odours ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... company, and a greater liberty of manners than in London; for, indeed, as Rochester assured Lady Fareham, "the freedom of Epsom allowed almost nothing to be scandalous." And at Tunbridge there were dances by torchlight on the common. "And at the worst," Lady Fareham told her friends, "a fortnight or so at the Wells helps to shorten ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... were rude, assuredly it was a hearty one. Kind wishes and blessings poured in on every side, and even our own happiness took a brighter coloring from the beaming looks around us. The scene was wild; the lurid glare of the red torchlight, the frantic gestures, the maddening shouts, the forked flames rising amidst the dark shadows of the little hamlet, had something strange and almost unearthly in their effect; but Lucy showed no touch of fear. It is true she grasped my hand a little ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... recall, and the father of Mrs. Adams, Peter C. Brooks, of Boston, another of whose daughters was the wife of Edward Everett. Upon their arrival in Utica, the greatest enthusiasm prevailed, and the elderly ex-President was welcomed by an old-fashioned torchlight procession. In response to many urgent requests, Mr. Adams made an impromptu speech from the steps of the Johnson house, and proved himself to be indeed "the old man eloquent." Although he was not far from eighty years old, he was by no means lacking in either mental or physical vitality. Mrs. Charles ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... was a wedding of peasants across the river. In order to celebrate it particularly, the guests went to the house where it was given, by torchlight. The night was quite dark, and the bright red torches glowed on the surface of the Neckar, as the two couriers galloped along the banks to the bridegroom's house. Here, after much shouting and confusion, the procession was arranged, the two riders started back again with their torches, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... Marcellus followed after. The torch but faintly illumined the intense darkness. No beam of day, no ray however weak, could ever enter here to relieve the thickness of the oppressive gloom. It was literally darkness that might be felt. The torchlight shone out but a few paces and then died in ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... voice near them. "Women have their own ways of tormenting themselves." Giorgio Viola had come out of the house. He threw a heavy black shadow in the torchlight, and the glare fell on his big face, on the great bushy head of white hair. He motioned the Capataz indoors with his ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... ladies, who smiled on their champions from a wooden tower erected across the street. Afterwards a stone shed was raised for the same sights, and there Henry VIII., disguised as a yeoman, with a halbert on his shoulder, came on one occasion to see the great City procession of the night watch by torchlight on St. John's Eve. Wren afterwards, when he rebuilt Bow Church, provided a balcony in the tower for the Royal Family to witness similar pageants. Old Bow Church, we must not forget to record, was seized in the reign of Richard I. by Longbeard, the desperate ringleader of a ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... tumbling away into the farther darkness. Nearer and nearer the thing came, till its long sides began to glow with spots of light which mirrored themselves in the river and attended the monster like a torchlight procession. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... tin into her wardrobe, blew out the candle, and hopped into bed post-haste, an example which was followed by the others with equal dispatch. They were only just in time, for a moment later the door opened, and Miss Norton, clad in a blue dressing-gown, flashed her torchlight into the room. Seeing the girls all in bed, and apparently fast asleep, she did not enter, but closed the door softly, and they heard her footsteps walking away down ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... witness a new religious function: how they will do it. As in modern times, it would be a pleasant occasion also for meeting the acquaintance one likes best— Synesometha pollois [128] ton neon autothi. "We shall meet a number of our youth there: we shall have a dialogue: there will be a torchlight procession in honour of the goddess, an equestrian procession: a novel feature!—What? Torches in their hands, passed on as they race? Aye, and an illumination, through the entire night. It will be worth seeing!"— that old midnight hour, as Carlyle says of another vivid scene, "shining ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... by the azure depths 140 Of Indian seas; some like the new-born moon; And some like cars in which the Romans climbed (Canopied by Victory's eagle-wings outspread) The Capitolian—See how gloriously The mettled horses in the torchlight stir 145 Their gallant riders, while they check their pride, Like shapes of some diviner element Than English air, and beings nobler than The ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... of battle being brought to him, he received it with an air of discontent, saying it was the first that had ever been sent to him in that manner. The proper dispositions being made, William rode quite through the army by torchlight, and then retired to his tent after having given orders to his soldiers to distinguish themselves from the enemy by wearing green boughs in their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... the fishermen, who were fishing by torchlight, talking over the good deeds of the young prince; and she was happy to think that she had saved his life when he was drifting about on the waves, half dead, and she could not forget how closely his head had pressed her breast, and how passionately she had kissed him; but he knew nothing of all ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... duskily, that I understood why these conspirators desired a torch. About half-way down the slope to the stockade they were collected in a group; one held the light; another was on his knees in their midst, and I saw the blade of an open knife shine in his hand with varying colours, in the moon and torchlight. The rest were all somewhat stooping, as though watching the manoeuvres of this last. I could just make out that he had a book as well as a knife in his hand; and was still wondering how anything so incongruous had come in their possession, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the mob, the shouts of the sailors, the grating of oars, and the creaking of cables, rang the voice of Demetrius; and at his word a dozen ready hands put each command into action. The narrow, easy-moving yacht caught the current; a long tier of white oars glinted in the torchlight, smote the water, and the yacht bounded away, while a parting flight of arrows left misery and ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... the sublime spectacle of a Christian yielding up his soul to God in the most admirable sentiments of faith and resignation, was not laid in unconsecrated ground. No burial rite could be more solemn than that hurried evening service performed by torchlight under the dilapidated roof of a sacred asylum, where the soil had been first laid bare by one of the rude engines of war—a bombshell. The grave tones of the priests murmuring the Libera me, Domine were ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... travelled to London to fetch the remains of his father. He brought them by boat down the Elbe, and finally arrived at the Dresden landing-stage, from whence they were to be conducted to German soil. This last journey of the remains was to take place at night. A solemn torchlight procession was to be formed, and I had undertaken to see ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... contain flowers and ferns of the choicest; and you presently emerge on the shores of a lake of considerable size. Here boating in the summer and skating in the winter may be indulged in, the latter, especially by torchlight, being a most attractive sight. The illuminations in the trees around, the flaring torches, the lights fixed to the chairs as they glide about like will o' the wisps, and the villagers (who are always invited) standing around, make ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... advanced steadily; there was a suggestion of terrific irresistibility in the very slowness of its progress; to the eager fancy it might have been the veritable recreation of some prehistoric monster, the illusion being heightened by the torchlight that flickered uncertainly over the rounded bellies of the shields of greenish leather and was reflected redly from ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... immediate but criminal ruler they contemplated no infraction of loyalty to the suzerain from whom he held his power. Roger Mastrangelo, Henry Barresi, and Niccoloso of Ortoleva (knights), and Niccolo of Ebdemonia were proclaimed captains of the people with five counsellors. By the glare of torchlight on the bloody ground, amid the noise and throng of the armed multitude, and with all the sublime pomp of tumult, the republican magistrates were inaugurated. Trumpets and Moorish kettle-drums sounded, and thousands upon thousands of voices uttered ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... such grand clothes and can make such a noise without anybody telling them to shut up," answered Bert, whose knowledge of firemen was based upon a torchlight procession of them he had seen one night, and their management of a fire that had not long before taken place in the near neighbourhood, and of which ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... fair to see and busy with the hum of men. In the one were weddings and wedding-feasts, and they were going about the city with brides whom they were escorting by torchlight from their chambers. Loud rose the cry of Hymen, and the youths danced to the music of flute and lyre, while the women stood each at her ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... horrid figures—the skeletons, lizards, snakes, tartan shawls, and whitened fiends, the whole lot blazing at the eyes and mouth like white budelights, come bounding one after another out of the black night into the red torchlight, and then go striding and jumping and glaring and raging and bucking and prancing, and scattering battle and song and joy and rage and inspiration and stark-staring ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... polite English society, the society that flocks to see the Colosseum lighted up with blue fire, that flocks to the Vatican to behold the statues by torchlight, that hustles into the churches on public festivals in black veils and deputy-lieutenants' uniforms, and stares, and talks, and uses opera-glasses while the pontiffs of the Roman Church are performing its ancient rites, and the crowds of faithful are kneeling round the altars; the society which ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... into the room the sights revealed by the flickering torchlight convinced me that our sufferings were almost light in comparison with those of others. I saw one man, a few paces behind me, turn purple in the face, as if some one were strangling him. Two or three others had already fainted from ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... had seen by torchlight that the pinnace was clear of the ship and that the men with their guns and spikes were holding off the natives. I had seen, too, a spear flash across the space of open water and cut down one of the men. But already ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... the minister by the shoulders and drew him, still crying out to Sir Nicholas, outside the group; and he stood there dazed and groping with his hands. There was a word of command; and the guard moved off at a sharp walk, with the horses in the centre, and as they turned, the lad saw in the torchlight the old man's face drawn and wrinkled with sorrow, and ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... quick to follow his example, and in a minute more a torchlight procession was in progress, winding along over the campus, around the school, and through the edge of the woods beyond. Then the boys came back by way of the barns and sheds in ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... high at Bath, and frequently led to disputes and resort to the sword, then generally worn by well-dressed men. Swords were, therefore, prohibited by Nash in the public rooms; still they were worn in the streets, when Nash, in consequence of a duel fought by torchlight, by two notorious gamesters, made the law absolute, "That no swords should, on any account, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... present from the first! Ye know what things I saw; then came a test, My first, befitting me who so had seen: 'Forsake the Christ thou sawest transfigured, Him Who trod the sea and brought the dead to life? {305} What should wring this from thee?'—ye laugh and ask. What wrung it? Even a torchlight and a noise, The sudden Roman faces, violent hands, And fear of what the Jews might do! Just that, And it is written, 'I forsook and fled': {310} There was my trial, and it ended thus. Ay, but my soul had gained ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... beer, and while he and his younger companion were drinking it I learnt from their conversation what business had taken them out of doors that night. Their object was to surprise the fish-poachers at the illegal, but very exciting and picturesque, sport of spearing by torchlight. Now, as I had already seen these night-poachers at work on the Tarn, I may as well describe their ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... house and sit down to smoke and talk, while Sipi the Fat pounds more kava for them to drink. Then mats are unrolled and every one lies down; and as they sleep the sun touches the sea-rim, swarms of snowy gulls and sooty terns fly shoreward with lazily flapping wing to roost, a gleam of torchlight shows here and there along the village paths, and the ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... Capitol steps, and laid his wreath of bay on Jupiter's knees, the white oxen were sacrificed, and the feast began by torchlight. Where was the vanquished? He was led to the dark prison vault in the side of Capitoline hill, and there one sharp sword-thrust ended the gallant life ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... managers, were ever on the lookout for plays to suit cash customers, and of course, the Bard of Avon had first call, because his plays went on the various stages like a torchlight procession, while those of his so-called compeers, struggled through the acts and scenes with only the flicker and sputter of tallow dips of ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... enough as his own by right of conquest; but, lo and behold! as she was overwhelming him with thanks, a fresh mob poured into the street from the upper end, and were close on them before they were aware .... A flush of terror and despair,.... and then a burst of joy, as, by mingled moonlight and torchlight, Philammon descried priestly robes, and in the forefront of the battle—there being no apparent danger—Peter the Reader, who seemed to be anxious to prevent inquiry, by beginning to ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... wronged you, Simon," I answered very softly; for the sweat upon his forehead shone in the smoky torchlight; "if I have, I crave your pardon. But did you not bring up from Cornwall a little maid named 'Gwenny,' and supposed ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... their white teeth and eyeballs glistening in the surrounding darkness to which their faces formed no relief; the white officers in brown linen, shouting, swearing, and gesticulating; the yellow, flickering torchlight over all,—made up a scene of which the weird interest would have appealed to a more blase traveler than this girl upon ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... sign-board led "to Hainingham," followed a tortuous course through the valley, and when at last I came to what I assumed to be the gate-lodge, a thunderous ebony cloud crested the hill-top above, and its edge, catching the burning rays of the sun, glowed fiercely like the pall of Avalon in the torchlight. Through the dense ranks of firs cloaking the slopes a breeze presaging the coming storm whispered evilly, and here in the hollow the birds ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... countenance had changed with each passing emotion, until it settled into a look of deadly malice. As Magua ended he arose and, uttering the yell of a demon, his polished little axe was seen glancing in the torchlight as he whirled it above his head. The motion and the cry were too sudden for words to interrupt his bloody intention. It appeared as if a bright gleam shot from his hand, which was crossed at the same moment by a dark and powerful line. The former ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... Club gave an entertainment in the Grand Hotel under the presidency of Admiral Lagercrantz. Among those who were present may be mentioned his Majesty the King, the Crown Prince, Prince Oscar, Oscar Dickson, and Baron von Otter, Minister of Marine. On the evening of the same day there was a torchlight procession by pupils of the Technical High School. On the 27th there was a gala-play, to which all the Vega men were invited. On the 28th at a festive meeting of the Academy of the Sciences, a medal struck ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... features of one or other of the candidates, made driving difficult; and, to add to the confusion, the schoolchildren were let loose, to overrun the place and fly advertisement balloons round every corner.—And so it went on till far into the night, the dark hours being varied by torchlight processions, fireworks, free fights ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... sarcophagus is opened, the coffin taken out and examined and then carried down to the vault, the newly dead is raised to his temporary resting-place, and amid a silence seldom broken by lamentation the apostolic notary writes by flickering torchlight that once more the successor of the throne has become the ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... where he would have her buried, and the other replied that she had desired to be buried in the cemetery, and that it would be well to bring her there at night. So the poor unfortunate was shrouded by a serving-woman, who was careful not to hurt her, and then by brave torchlight she was carried to the grave that the chanter had caused to ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... you, look not in such wonderment: Such notions oft go flitting through my head, Nor dream nor yet reality. Ye know, As child I was much worse. And then the dance Which I invented, is't not such a thing: Wherein from torchlight and the black of night I made myself a shifting, drifting palace, From which I then emerged, as do the queens Of fire and ocean in the fairy-tales. [The MOTHER has meanwhile thrown the FATHER a glance and has noiselessly ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... away, and Dantes sank again into his seat. At last, about ten o'clock, and just as Dantes began to despair, steps were heard in the corridor, a key turned in the lock, the bolts creaked, the massy oaken door flew open, and a flood of light from two torches pervaded the apartment. By the torchlight Dantes saw the glittering sabres and carbines of four gendarmes. He had advanced at first, but stopped at the sight ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... president was prolonged during the evening. A veritable torchlight procession—Irish, Germans, Frenchmen, Scotchmen—all the heterogeneous individuals that compose the population of Maryland—shouted in their maternal tongue, and the ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... the flame, and saw it light? That first long whiff was like the indrawn breath of the cold, starved hunter, when, stepping into his house, he sees food, fire, and wife on his hearthstone. Presently I put out the torchlight, and then went back to my couch and sat down, the bowl shining like ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... place, till one hour, two, or three within night; insomuch that, after sitting all day in the summer-time stifled with heat and choked with dust, or in the winter-time starving and freezing with cold or choked with filthy fogs, they are often brought into their inns by torchlight, when it is too late to sit up to get a supper; and next morning they are forced into the coach so early that they can get no breakfast? What addition is this to men's health or business to ride all day with strangers, oftentimes sick, antient, diseased persons, or young children ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... said: "I am nought but a woman, a maid of the earl-folk's kin: And I went by the skirts of the woodland to the house of my sister to win, And have strayed from the way benighted: and I fear the wolves and the wild By the glimmering of thy torchlight from afar was I beguiled. Ah, slay me not on thy threshold, nor send me back again Through the rattling waves of thy ford, that I crossed in terror and pain; Drive me not to the night and the darkness, for the wolves of the wood to devour. I am weak and thou art mighty: ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... hand on the young man's shoulder and looked into his eyes by the torchlight, without power to speak a word, but Nazarius divined the question which was dying on his lips, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... pause. About six feet from him—glowing like molten gold in the gusty glow of the burning tree—a round sleek stream of water slipped from the rock into the darkness, like a serpent from its hole. Above this stream a dark spot defied the torchlight, and John Rex felt his heart leap with one last desperate hope as he comprehended that close to him was one of those tortuous drives which the worm-like action of the sea bores in such caverns as that in which he found himself. The drive, opened first to the light of the day by the natural ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... said Mrs O'Rorke, "an we'll not be forgettin' it the night. It's tar bar'ls we'll be burnin'—they'll be expectin' it, to be sure—an' a torchlight procession out to ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... companionship on equal terms with his fellows. Now, however, he could enter with zest in their sports and societies. At the very beginning of his Freshman year he showed his classmates his mettle. During the presidential torchlight parade when the jubilant Freshmen were marching for Hayes, some Tilden man shouted derisively at them from a second-story window and pelted them with potatoes. It was impossible for them to get at him, but Theodore, who was always stung at any display of meanness— and ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... origin of particular rites which we have good reason to believe formed essential features of the festival. Amongst the rites as to which the poet thus drops significant hints are the preliminary fast of the candidates for initiation, the torchlight procession, the all-night vigil, the sitting of the candidates, veiled and in silence, on stools covered with sheepskins, the use of scurrilous language, the breaking of ribald jests, and the solemn communion with the divinity by participation ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... began to revolve, and her head swung round to the north-east. So began, as all the world now knows, the most extraordinary electioneering trip that ever was known. First Baltimore, then Philadelphia, and then New York saw the flashes in the sky. There were illuminations, torchlight processions, and all the machinery of American electioneering going at full blast. But when people saw, far away up in the starlit night, those swiftly-changing beams glittering down, as it were, out of infinite Space, and when the telegraph operators caught on to ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... before any one could stop him, Barry shot back the bolt, opened the door, and with his torchlight flashing ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... touching the sea-rim, I was so close to the south-end of Tog, that I could see the spars of a ship lying at anchor in the bay called Pio. And then when the sun had set I could see the lights of many canoes catching flying-fish by torchlight. ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... sprinkled with Nafanua's cocoa-nut water before going to battle. If well done, they conquered; if not, they were driven before the enemy. Confession of offences sometimes preceded the sprinkling, as it was a sign of pardon and purification. Occasional torchlight processions through the village were held in honour of Nafanua. Cases of sickness were also brought and laid before the priest. Those who took fine mats were cured, but shabby offerings of native cloth only prolonged ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... do an honest action; as well have expected charity from two angry litigants. They left the fair, not fatigued, but tired of ill-doing, and spent the remainder of their time over dinner until the evening when they recommenced their pranks by torchlight. After the peddlers, they commenced operations on the ladies of the town, to whom, by a thousand dodges, they gave only that which they received, according to the axiom of Justinian: Cuiqum jus tribuere. "To every one his own juice;" and afterwards ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... After the torchlight red on sweaty faces After the frosty silence in the gardens After the agony in stony places The shouting and the crying Prison and palace and reverberation Of thunder of spring over distant mountains He who was ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... a terrible voice from beneath the archway, at the sound of which Hillner's arm seemed involuntarily to lose its power. Immediately afterwards a Swede made his appearance, whose murderous eyes and bushy red beard were plainly visible in the torchlight. ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... were the disciples in a group; they were excited, but no man was ever calmer than he. The torchlight beat redly upon him, giving his hair a tint ruddier than was natural to it; yet the expression of the countenance was as usual all ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... brilliancy, though less pompous, was presented by the grand torchlight procession which formed one evening in the square of Lourdes, where all were provided with candles. Thirty thousand persons were in this procession. They marched to the grotto of Massabielle and to the church ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... to Pavia did his errand to the lady, who, with no womanly, but with a royal spirit, let call in haste a great number of the friends and servants of Messer Torello and made ready all that behoved unto a magnificent banquet. Moreover, she let bid by torchlight many of the noblest of the townfolk to the banquet and bringing out cloths and silks and furs, caused throughly order that which her husband had sent to bid her do. The day come, Saladin and his companions arose, whereupon Messer Torello took horse with them and sending for his falcons, carried ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... grille. His large hat with its tall wings sticking from the peak was green in the daytime. But now, illuminated only by a far off torchlight and by a glowworm coiled around the band, it ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... which he was hastening. In the cemetery which Philip the Second had formed beneath the pavement of the church of St. Lawrence, reposed three generations of Castilian princes. Into these dark vaults the unhappy monarch descended by torchlight, and penetrated to that superb and gloomy chamber where, round the great black crucifix, were ranged the coffins of the kings and queens of Spain. There he commanded his attendants to open the massy chests of bronze in which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... intercepted by a large lumbering carriage, bringing friends of the deceased, some really anxious to pay the last tribute of regard, but the majority attracted by the anticipated spectacle of a funeral by torchlight. There were others, indeed, to whom it was not matter of choice; who were compelled, by a vassal tenure of their lands, held of the house of Rookwood, to lend a shoulder to the coffin, and a hand to the torch, on the burial of its lord. Of these there ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... visit—stay to dinner and supper, and all night if he will, and travel round through Jonesville the next day. I would enjoy it, and so would Josiah. Of course, we couldn't show off in fireworks anything to what he does, havin' nothin' but a lantern and a torchlight left over from Cleveland's campain. No; we shouldn't try to have no such doin's. I know ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... The dusky mass of slaves had swayed forward with one low, deep, bestial growl. Crouched for the spring, they were yet held in leash by the menace of the pistols, leveled upon them and gleaming in the torchlight, and by the restraining gesture and voice of Luiz Sebastian. In the crowd of servants, now quite separated from the slaves, was noise and confusion, and behind the Turk, standing midway between the parties, was forming a phalanx of villainous white faces—the dissolute, ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... neck or cheek of one of the poor women who stumbled with her load or who hesitated for a moment to indulge in abuse of a comrade. As the boat moved away these people, dancing about the heaps of coal in the torchlight, looked not unlike demons disporting in some gruesome nook of Enchanted Land. When they were gypsies they did not need the aid of the torches: they were sufficiently demoniacal ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... it. "Almost every field had its walnut tree, melons were planted among the corn, and the meadow which lay between never exhausted its store of wonders. Besides, there were eggs to hide at Easter; cherries and strawberries in May; fruit all summer; fishing parties by torchlight; lobelia and sumac to be gathered, dried and sold for pocket money; and in the fall, chestnuts, persimmons, wild grapes, cider, and the grand butchering after frost came, so that all the pleasures I knew were incidental to a farmer's life. The books ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... other is a sergeant, I believe; some sergeant of the same regiment. They are to be married to-morrow evening; and it is to be by moonlight and torchlight, and everything odd; up on that beautiful hill where we were the other day, where the trees and the tents make such a pretty mingling with red caps ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... more heed to the queen than to us. For a long moment she stood and glared at Erling, and I think that she remembered his face in some dim way, so that the old days came back to her, and with that remembrance the terror that had been in them. And as she stood there in the torchlight she seemed to have grown old of a sudden, and her face was gray and lined, while her long white hands worked as they ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... a still wider circle, which seemed to me recruited from all the jails of Paris, surrounded the carriages, which I at length understood to be those of the royal family. They had attempted to escape to the frontier, had been arrested, and were now returning as prisoners. I caught a glimpse, by the torchlight, of the illustrious sufferers, as they passed the spot where I stood. The Queen was pale, but exhibited that stateliness of countenance for which she was memorable to the last; she sat with the Dauphiness pressed in her arms. The King looked overcome ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... minute, Sir Reginald," said the squire, holding up his hand; "of course your impatience is very natural, but it would only defeat itself. To drag the river by torchlight would be equally difficult and vain. It shall be done as soon as ever there is light. Till then, there is nothing for any of us to do but to wait. And first, let us get poor ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... people have acted very well, and we at Weymar have taken cordial interest in your serenade and the torchlight procession. What a pity "Double Peps" was there no longer! He would have drummed ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... day, the chief portion of the troops had retired to rest, and a few groups of the guard alone were to be seen walking up and down in front of their post, apparently with a view to check the influence of midnight drowsiness, but, in reality, to witness the result of certain preparations going on by torchlight in the centre of the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... present. A petition in favour of the charter was adopted, and in a few days received nearly 95,000 signatures. The former political leaders—G.F. Muntz, George Edmonds, and Clutton Salt—became all at once exceedingly unpopular, as they declined to join in the agitation. Torchlight meetings were held almost nightly in various parts of the country, and a Government proclamation was issued prohibiting them. Some of the leaders of the movement were arrested. There was evidently some central organisation ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... as crystal in the torchlight, sparkling on the poet's page; Virgin honey of Hymettus, distilled from the lips of the orator; A savor of sweet spikenard, anointing the hands of liberality; A feast of angel's-food set upon the tables of religion. ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... 26th falling upon Sunday, the schools throughout the length and breadth of Germany were closed on the previous Saturday to enable the scholars to add their quota to the general rejoicing. In Berlin a torchlight procession of vast extent, composed of 20,000 students, artists, members of trades and guilds, marched with banners and groups of historically dressed personages and impersonifications, from the old gray Schloss down the Linden, through the Brandenburg ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... off on his Indian campaign, leaving behind him a mighty tumult. The new world had defied the old. At midnight by torchlight, the grim-faced pioneers of Virginia had sworn to be free. Everywhere men and women ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... Secret of the Creation in full will follow this little book which is but a touch of heaven's torchlight ...
— The Secret of the Creation • Howard D. Pollyen
... to improvise. He was given three, and, instead of making a selection, he took all three and interwove them in so brilliant a manner that he carried the audience by storm. He was at once engaged for the next concert, and made such success that he was accompanied to his hotel by a torchlight procession, and his carriage drawn ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... desire to see such a visit renewed! It was touching and pleasing in the extreme to see the alliance sealed so completely, and without lowering either Country's pride, and to see old enmities and rivalries wiped out over the tomb of Napoleon I., before whose coffin I stood (by torchlight) at the arm of Napoleon III., now my nearest and dearest ally! We have come back with feelings of real affection for and interest in France—and indeed how could it be otherwise when one saw how much was done to please and delight us? The Army too (such a fine one!) I feel a real ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... Julien were preparing to leave, M. de Fourville kept them a little longer to look at some fishing by torchlight. When they finally set out, wrapped up in their cloaks and some rugs they had borrowed, Jeanne said almost involuntarily: "What a fine man that giant is!" Julien, who was driving, replied: "Yes, but he does not ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... produced by the Irish shots on the English regiments which had never been in action, and declared himself satisfied with the result. "All is right," he said; "they stand fire well." Long after sunset he made a final inspection of his forces by torchlight, and gave orders that every thing should be ready for forcing a passage across the river on the morrow. Every soldier was to put a green bough in his hat. The baggage and great coats were to be left under a guard. The ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... corridor window. The torchlight fell full upon their faces. Monsieur Maurice looked pale and composed; perhaps just a shade haughtier than usual. My father had his drawn ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... with the fragrant oil, And plait our garlands gathered from the grave, And wear the wreaths that sprung from out the brave. But lo! night comes, the Mooa[371] woos us back, The sound of mats[372] are heard along our track; 30 Anon the torchlight dance shall fling its sheen In flashing mazes o'er the Marly's[373] green; And we too will be there; we too recall The memory bright with many a festival, Ere Fiji blew the shell of war, when foes For the first time were wafted in canoes.[fg] Alas! for them the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... progress of the president continued throughout the evening. It was a regular torchlight procession. Irish, Germans, French, Scotch, all the heterogeneous units which make up the population of Maryland shouted in their respective vernaculars; and the "vivas," "hurrahs," and "bravos" were intermingled in ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... The torchlight gleamed on flashing swords and glittering points of spears, but chief sight of all was the Margrave Hermann von Katznellenbogenstahleck, a giant in stature, mounted on a magnificent stallion, as black as the night, and of a size that corresponded with its ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... supposed to be "up"—the youths of Lerwick, attired in fantastic dresses, go "guising" about the town in bands, visiting their friends and acquaintances and reproducing in miniature the carnival of more southern climes. On one or other of these occasions a torchlight procession forms part of the revelry. Formerly blazing tar barrels were dragged about the town, and afterwards, with the first break of morning, dashed over the Knab into the sea. But this ancient and dangerous custom has very properly been discontinued. The dresses of the guisers are often of the ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... beneath, and soon after it sunk into a low murmur, as if some matter of importance was in agitation. For some moments she sat in lingering terror, when she heard footsteps advancing towards the chamber, and a sudden gleam of torchlight flashed upon the walls. 'Wretched girl! I have at least secured you!' said a cavalier, who now entered the room. He stopped as he perceived Julia; and turning to the men who stood without, 'Are these,' said he, 'the fugitives you have taken?'—'Yes, my lord.'—'Then ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... the door, snapped back the lock, and threw the door open. The torchlight flooded the interior of the place and revealed Russ and Rose Bunker, still fearful, clinging to each other as they crouched in a corner ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... to act as interpreter, we carried with us the leopard skin, some venison, and three strings of beads of various colours. His majesty was a tall, ungainly looking man, with as hideous a countenance as can well be imagined. His appearance was not improved by the glare of the torchlight and the terror under which he was suffering. Having presented the leopard skin and venison, Charley, who acted as spokesman, threw the string of ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... at Apaiang had been as follows:—It chanced we were benighted at the house of Captain Tierney. My wife and I lodged with a Chinaman some half a mile away; and thither Captain Reid and a native boy escorted us by torchlight. On the way the torch went out, and we took shelter in a small and lonely Christian chapel to rekindle it. Stuck in the rafters of the chapel was a branch of knotted palm. "What is that?" I asked. "O, that's Devil-work," said the Captain. "And what is Devil-work?" I inquired. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... see again the hall; The stairway leading to that room.—Then all The terror of that night of blood and crime Passes before me.— It is Catherine's time: The house De Herancour's. On floors, splashed red, Torchlight of Medicean wrath is shed. Down carven corridors and rooms,—where couch And chairs lie shattered and black shadows crouch Torch-pierced with fear,—a sound of swords draws near— The stir of searching steel. What find they here, Torch-bearer, swordsman, ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... Abbot and two men with naked weapons rushed into the room. Even as they came, the outer door was hammered fiercely, and the Abbot's comrades hearing it, and seeing the torchlight, turned and fled. Not so the terrible Abbot: wild with rage and pain, he spurned his dead comrade, chair and all, across the room, then, as the men faced him on each side with kindling eyeballs, he waved his tremendous ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... and to conceal a movement of furious annoyance, he yawned. I rose. Then I noticed a small sketch in oils, on a panel, representing a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. The background was somber—almost black. The movement of the woman was stately, and the effect of the torchlight ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... exist for the Little Woman. Presidents come and go, torchlight processions bloom and fade and leave not so much as a wind-riffle on the sands of memory. The stock market, too, was at this time but a name to her. Both of us have acquired knowledge since in this direction, ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the woods to the point of the river at which he designed to cross. The night [Footnote: It is an interesting circumstance in the habits of the ancient Romans, that their journeys were pursued very much in the night-time, and by torchlight. Cicero, in one of his letters, speaks of passing through the towns of Italy by night, as a serviceable scheme for some political purpose, either of avoiding too much to publish his motions, or of evading the necessity ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... subtle or thoroughly natural... Velasquez ripened with age and practice; Greco was rather inclined to get rotten with facility." Mr. Ricketts says that "his pictures might at times have been painted by torchlight in a cell of the Inquisition." Richard Ford in his handbook of Spain does not mince words: "Greco was very unequal... He was often more lengthy and extravagant than Fuseli, and as leaden as cholera morbus." Ritter speaks of his "symphonies in blue minor" (evidently ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... to see a great torchlight procession, and many of the men who carried torches remembered afterward a stout man who stood near a lamp-post and held on his shoulder a handsome little shouting boy, who waved ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was really dead, beyond all help of art or medicine. Nothing remained but to carry her to church for burial instead of marriage. Therefore, that very evening, a funeral procession was formed, which moved by torchlight up the Grand Canal, along the Riva, past the blank walls of the Arsenal, to the Campo before San Pietro in Castello. Elena lay beneath the black felze in one gondola, with a priest beside her praying, and other boats followed bearing mourners. Then they laid her in a marble chest ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... sovereign. Madame de Guercheville came forth, followed by the women of her household; and when the King, unprepared for so benign a welcome, giddy with love and hope, saw her radiant in pearls and more radiant yet in a beauty enhanced by the wavy torchlight and the surrounding shadows, he scarcely ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... of evening in the latter summer of this year, and from the windows at the back of the stage, which are still uncurtained, can be seen the EMPRESS with NAPOLEON and some ladies and officers of the Court playing Catch-me-if-you-can by torchlight on the lawn. The moving torches throw bizarre lights and shadows into the apartment, where only a remote candle or two ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... and flames, and thunder." So the mission goeth forthwith O'er the still and tranquil waters; And they waken slumbering Neptune, Who advanceth storms and tempests; And the waves rise up in anger, Foam and hiss in reckless fury; Thunders bellow martial music; Lightnings flash their vivid torchlight. Grand and mighty the procession! Neptune, in majestic pomp, came In his chariot, attended By a myriad mystic beings, To direct the storms and thunders, And to rule the foaming billows. Spake he thus unto the waters: "Ope your gates, ye billows, open, That ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... near they were, he and his companions would have rushed down upon them; but they must have thought they had fled much further. It was impossible to trail them by torchlight as fast as they could travel, and the Indians did not waste time in the effort. The one with the torch ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... speeches and transparencies emphasized the fact that woman's evolution from the campfire of the savage into a new era was commemorated. Twenty-eight parades were a feature of the open air demonstrations. There were besides numbers of torchlight rallies; street dances on the lower East Side; Irish, Syrian, Italian and Polish block parties; outdoor concerts, among them a big one in Madison Square, where a full orchestra played, opera singers sang and eminent orators spoke; open air religious services with the moral and religious aspects ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... relieved the monotony of our stay at this place, the presentation of an elegant sword to Colonel French, by the line officers of the Seventy-seventh, was the first. The presentation was followed by festivity and merriment, and in the evening our friends of the Seventh Maine, forming a torchlight procession, marched to the camp of the Seventy-seventh to congratulate the colonel and line officers upon the mutual trust and confidence existing between them. The next was the return of the Vermont brigade ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... with a dump on the stone floor of some room beyond, the children heard a door shut and a key turned, and then the men came back all together along the passage, and the children followed them. Presently torchlight gave way to daylight as they came out into the open air. But they had to come on hands and knees, for the path sloped steeply up and the opening was very low. The chests must have been pushed or pulled through. They could never ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... with a boom-bang-swish an' hiss o' drippin' thunder. By day 'twas haul the traps—pull an oar an' fork the catch with a back on fire, cracked hands, salt-water sores t' the elbow, soggy clothes, an' an empty belly; an' by night 'twas split the fish—slash an' gut an' stow away, in the torchlight, with sticky eyelids, hands an' feet o' lead, an' a neck as limp as death. I learned a deal about life—an' about the worth of a dollar in labor. 'Take that!' says Skipper Davy, with the toe of his boot, 'an' I'm sorry t' have to do it, but you can't fall ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... saw no safer refuge than to make forthwith for the cellar where the treasures of the Bracciano fam- ily no doubt lay hid. As light of foot as Camilla sung by the Latin poet, he flew to the entrance to the Baths of Vespasian. The torchlight already flickered on the walls when Rinaldo, with the readiness be- stowed on him by nature, discovered the door concealed in the stone- work, and suddenly vanished. A hideous thought then flashed on Rinaldo's brain like ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... a Flemish painter, born at Utrecht, painted night and torchlight scenes; "Christ before Pilate" ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... dared not raise weapon on her behalf against so powerful an over-lord as the warlike Archbishop. The scarlet cross of the Crusader on his broad breast seemed to her swimming eyes to blaze with lambent flame in the yellow torchlight. She dared not trust her voice to answer him, fearing its faintness might disown the courage with which she had held her castle for so long, and he, seeing that she struggled to hold control of herself, standing there like a superb Goddess of the Rhine, pretended ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... enter the hospital, so we brought out a couple of trestles, laid the litter upon them, and the surgeon set his arm and dressed his wounds by torchlight, when he was lifted into a dhoolie, and his bearers again prepared to start ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... declaration, then came more egg-nog, handshakes, embraces and torchlight serenades until midnight before the little house ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... said, striding forward. His almost human face was stern under the torchlight. "You have seen our warriors. You know now that you cannot stand against them. The word has spread to all our lands. My entire people are prepared ...
— Warrior Race • Robert Sheckley
... milk, or any article of food or nourishment, than what is expended to the best advantage amongst my family and slaves." At another place Bartram noted the arrival at a plantation of horse loads of wild pigeons taken by torchlight from their ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... accompanied by torch-bearers; that they came under the Queen's windows, wakened her out of her first sleep, and almost drove her wild with fright. With those tremendous trumpetings and drum-beatings, "making night hideous" with their storm of menacing, barbaric sound, and with the fierce glare of the torchlight, it might have seemed to her that Doomsday had burst on the world, and that the savage old Huns of Attila were up first, ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... and mistook it for distaste of his theme. "Pardon me, ladies," said he, "for introducing a subject tabooed in polite society. I called for a very different purpose. One novelty remains for me in Rome. I have never seen the statues of the Vatican by torchlight. Some Americans are forming a party for that purpose to-morrow evening, and if you would like to join them, it will give me great pleasure to be ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... snubbing in a corner. Mrs. McSimpkins had just concluded a battle-piece of great length and power, when the rehearsal of our shuddering comments was suddenly banished by the deafening roll of a drum. I rushed to the window, and, to my horror, discovered a torchlight procession halted immediately in front of the house. Perhaps a hundred men, in all stages of political enthusiasm and intoxication, surrounded by a crowd of wretched women and girls, waved their lights with ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... the fish in the lakes and rivers he used to fish in, that they could be taken by the hand with a crooked pin and coarse thread, or wooden spear; but that was in the Lower Province. And oh, what glorious tales I have heard him tell of spearing fish by torchlight!" ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill |
