"Wick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to fade out of my sight. I started and looked round. The candle, which I had placed at the opposite end of the room, had burnt down without my noticing it, and was now expiring in the socket. I ran to light the fresh candle which lay on the table by its side, but was too late. The wick flickered its last; the room ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... disappeared, a candle which Victoria had placed near Nevill's couch on the floor, flickered and dropped its wick in a pool of grease. There was only one other left, and the lamp had been forgotten in the kitchen: but already the early dawn was drinking the starlight. It was three o'clock, and soon it would ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... alive, and only after a weary interval leaps out, for a moment, from the one narrow chink, and then goes on with the blind wall between it and you; and, no doubt, then, precisely, does the poor drudge that carries the cresset set himself most busily to trim the wick—for don't think I want to say I have not worked hard—(this head of mine knows better)—but the work has been inside, and not when at stated times I held up my light to you—and, that there is no self-delusion here, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... water are elements at war with each other, but in the hailstones that smote the land of Egypt they were reconciled. A fire rested in the hailstones as the burning wick swims in the oil of a lamp; the surrounding fluid cannot extinguish the flame. The Egyptians were smitten either by the hail or by the fire. In the one case as the other their flesh was seared, and the bodies of the many that were slain by the hail were consumed by the fire. The hailstones heaped ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... way we learn our lessons," said Caroline, in a low voice, still unseen, as Bobus wiped, sheathed, and pocketed his favourite pen, then proceeded to turn down the lamp, but allowed the others to relight their candle at the expiring wick. ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... CANDLE. Part of the wick or snuff, which falling on the tallow, burns and melts it, and causing it to ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... pleasure to revert to the era of the tinder-box, the flint and steel, and the brimstone match. It gives me an almost proud satisfaction to tell how we used, when those implements were not at hand or not employed, to light our whale-oil lamp by blowing a live coal held against the wick, often swelling our cheeks and reddening our faces until we were on the verge of apoplexy. I love to tell of our stage-coach experiences, of our sailing-packet voyages, of the semi-barbarous destitution of all modern comforts ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... lighted at sunset, and burnt all night, to guide the ships into the harbor. To Dan it was only a lamp; but to the boy it seemed a living thing, and he loved and tended it faithfully. Every day he helped Dan clear the big wick, polish the brass work, and wash the glass lantern which protected the flame. Every evening he went up to see it lighted, and always fell asleep, thinking, "No matter how dark or wild the night, my good Shine will save the ships that pass, and burn ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... opinion that the general practice is founded, of making noises at that time, to fright away the monster, who would otherwise devour the two great luminaries." [306] Of the Germans, Grimm says:—"In a lighted candle, if a piece of the wick gets half detached and makes it burn away too fast, they say 'a wolf (as well as a thief) is in the candle'; this too is like the wolf devouring the sun or moon. Eclipses of sun or moon have been a terror to many heathen nations; the incipient and increasing obscuration of the luminous orb marks ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... about such things, and some boys turn their dreams into facts, as architects build their imaginations and make money. But the fifteenth child of a tallow chandler, who was the son of a blacksmith and of a woman whose mother was bought and sold, a boy whose wits are off kite-flyin' instead of wick-cuttin' and tallow-moldin', has no great chance in the future, so it looks to me. But one can't always tell. I don't think that you'll never get to be an Archimedes and cry out 'Eureka!' But you've got imagination ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... The wick of the lamp was turned down and blown out by Alvin, after glancing around and noting that his companions were ready. Through the raised window, opening over a broad alley, the cool wind stole. It so came about that for several days and nights, including the one of ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... in one flick, and fast asleep! Something must have broken in the machine and missed out a chunk. There! she's asleep all right—looks as if she was dreaming. Now it's sort of fading. I wonder how they make it do that? I guess they turn the wick of the lamp down low: that was the way in Robinson ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... excited, Sandford. Best to keep temper. Guess you and Fayerweather will raise the money. Pity Stearine hadn't wick enough in him to stand alone. Rather a poor candle, he ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... to the Bootlair Sahib that the daylight was yet strong and lusty enough to shame and smother any lamp, complied with deliberation and care, polishing the chimney, trimming the wick, pouring in oil and generally making a satisfactory and commendable job ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... cylindrical wick lamps are employed for illuminating lighthouses. For reflectors the wick is nearly an inch in diameter. For the lens-light a more powerful and complicated lamp is used. The oil is made to flow ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Sabbath fires, though not for the Sabbath lamps. Why are wicks made of the above materials prohibited? Because they give but a flickering light. The oily substances mentioned are forbidden because they do not adhere to the wick. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... wick of the spirit-lamp, and the peaceful music of the samovar was still. In her clever eyes there was a little air of sidelong indecision. She could not make up her mind how to take him. Her chiefest method was so old as to be biblical. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... his. In a moment I could see a new light flash out from the boy's eyes, and knew that he, too, had a vision of Shakti manifest, that my creative force had begun its work in his blood. "What sorcery is this of yours!" exclaimed Sandip next day. "Amulya is a boy no longer, the wick of his life is all ablaze. Who can hide your fire under your home-roof? Every one of them must be touched up by it, sooner or later, and when every lamp is alight what a grand carnival of a Dewali we shall have in ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... and lighted the wick. She had turned, and was facing me even as she had faced me the night before. The night before! The greatest part of my life seemed to have passed since then. I remember wondering that she did not look tired. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... requiring reflection," observed Dupin, as he forbore to enkindle the wick, "we shall examine it to better purpose in ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... wax tapers, terebene, pine-knots, were all represented in the Peloponnesian war by oil. Oil, one of the great staples of Attica, became scarcer as the war went on. "A bibulous wick" was a sinner against domestic economy; to trim a lamp and hasten combustion was little short of a crime. Management in the use of oil—otherwise considered the height of niggardliness—was the rule, and could be all the more readily understood by the Confederate ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... obliged to go to bed. I remember the lump of bees-wax with which I made candles in my African adventure; but I had none of that now; the only remedy I had was, that when I had killed a goat, I saved the tallow; and with a little dish made of clay, which I baked in the sun, to which I added a wick of some oakum, I made me a lamp; and this gave me light, though not a clear steady light like a candle. In the middle of all my labours it happened, that in rummaging my things, I found a little bag; which, as I hinted before, had been ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... I meanwhile from my post on high Ne'er from my master turn an eye, Look at him now, with far-off gaze Pondering, testing every phrase; The snuffer once he seizes quick And cleans of soot the flaming wick; Then oft in deep abstraction, he Murmurs a sentence audibly, Which I with outstretched bill peck up And fill with lore my eager crop. So do we come by smooth gradation To where begins the "Application." "Eleven!" ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... buggy with the sheriff and carrying poised on his knees a lighted lantern. Afterwards it was to be recalled that when, alongside the sheriff, he came out of his mill technically a prisoner he carried in his hand this lantern, all trimmed of wick and burning, and that he held fast to it through the six-mile ride to town. Afterwards, too, the circumstance was to be coupled with multiplying circumstances to establish a state of facts; but at the moment, in the excited state ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... is burnin' with a clear and steady light, An' it never seems ter flicker, but it's allers shinin' bright; Tho' it sheds its rays unbroken for a thousand happy days— Father Time is ever turnin' down the wick that feeds yer blaze. So it clearly is yer duty ef you've got a thing to do Ter put yer shoulder to ther wheel an' try to push her through; Ef yer upon a wayward track you better turn about— You've lost ther chance to do it When the Light ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... in connection with the harbour tempted me, and that was the diving, an experience I burned to taste of. But this was not to be, at least in Anstruther; and the subject involves a change of scene to the sub-arctic town of Wick. You can never have dwelt in a country more unsightly than that part of Caithness, the land faintly swelling, faintly falling, not a tree, not a hedgerow, the fields divided by single slate stones set upon their edge, the wind always singing ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crying over spilt oil, as the lamp said to the wick," sang out Tom. "I move we go on until we strike a ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... the world, with a cool breeze driving under her million planets. The lights in the hotel flickered out one by one, and in the third corridor, where the adventurers were housed, only a wick, floating in a tumbler of ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... admirable private institution has for some years been in operation at Normansfield, near Hampton Wick, under the care of Dr. and Mrs. Down, who were formerly at Earlswood. There ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... nothing," answered the peasant, thoughtfully trimming one wick of the lamp with the bent brass wire which, with the snuffers, hung by a chain from the ring by which the ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... minutes," he announced impressively, "this candle has been burning. Look at the wax! And the wick! Both soft." ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a luxurious theft from sleep; and even now the remembrance of my starlit bath of that Indian morning comes pleasantly across my mind. The bath was literally taken by starlight; for the tumbler of oil, with its floating wick—which is the ordinary lamp of the country—was hardly seen in its far-off corner, when I unclosed the jalousies, and admitted the solemn, silvery planet-light. The window above the bath opened into the garden; and it is scarcely possible to conceive greater physical enjoyment than reclining in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... her pot, the daughter, a rather wild-looking person with sun-baked face and large gleaming eyes, took an old-fashioned brass dish-lamp—a deformed and vulgar descendant of the agate lamp held in the hand of the antique priestess—and, after bringing the wick towards the lip, lighted it. I lit the candle I had brought with me, and, followed by the old woman, we entered the cavern, near the mouth of which was a fig-tree. The entrance was so small that it was almost ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... far away down the reach a ferry-boat lifted its infinitesimal wail, and then the silence of the night river came down once more, profound and inscrutable A corner of the wick above my head sputtered a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... fire gets kindled easily in chaff or in a wick or in the fur of hares, but is easily extinguished again, if it find no material to keep it in and feed it, so we must not consider that the love of newly-married people, that blazes out so fiercely in consequence of the attractions of youth and beauty, will ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... individual at this time and place, he was ready and willing to make his acquaintance. Bracing himself against the window-frame, he reached out his hand, and in a few moments Mr. Beam had scrambled into the room. Lodloe turned up the wick of his lamp, and by the bright light he ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... H. had laid in what seemed a good supply of kerosene, but it is nearly gone, and we are down to two candles kept for an emergency. Annie brought a receipt from Natchez for making candles of rosin and wax, and with great forethought brought also the wick and rosin. So yesterday we tried making candles. "We had no molds, but Annie said the latest style in Natchez was to make a waxen rope by dipping, then wrap it round a corn-cob. But H. cut smooth blocks of wood about four ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... that he should not be easily seen by anyone entering. Presently there was the click of a latch, then the door opened and shut, and cigar-smoke invaded the room. An instant later a hand went up to the suspended oil- lamp and twisted the wick into brighter flame. As it did so, there was a slight noise, then the click of a lock. Turning sharply, the man under the lamp saw at the door the man who had been sitting in the corner. The man had a key in his hand. Exit now could only be had through the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stratagem—the creation, little by little, of a lamp, for the solace of the endless winter nights. One by one, the gaoler himself, unsuspectingly, brought the different ingredients: oil was imported in salads, wick the prisoner himself made from threads pulled from the quilt, and in time ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... with a little cork dipsey. They oughtn't to be mixed, but each to be separate, or they spoil each other. The tumbler should be nearly full of water, then pour a little oil on the top, and put in your tiny wick and floater, and ignite it. The water goes to the bottom—that's business you see, solid and heavy. The oil and its burner lies on the top—and that's romance. It's a living flame, not enough to illuminate the room, but to cheer you through the night, and ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... five dollars and costs. The plunder was then divided between the conspirators—two hearts that beat as one—Clagett, of course, getting the lion's share. Justice was never administered in a simpler manner in any country. This eminent legal light was extinguished in 1784, and the wick laid away in the little churchyard in Litchfield, New Hampshire. It is a satisfaction, even after such a lapse of time, to know that Lettice survived the King's Attorney sufficiently long to be very happy with somebody else. Lettice ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... around vied with one another in their offerings, hanging up about it silken streamers and canopies, scattering flowers, burning incense, and lighting lamps, so as to make the night as bright as the day. This they did day after day without ceasing. (It happened that) a rat, carrying in its mouth the wick of a lamp, set one of the streamers or canopies on fire, which caught the vihara, and the seven storeys were all consumed. The kings, with their officers and people, were all very sad and distressed, supposing that ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... For thus it is ever in the uncertain domain of the intellect, apparently the most vacillating and precarious condition of matter. The same light that falls on the intellect falls also on passion, whereof none can tell whether it be the smoke of the flame or the wick. In the case above it has not been mere animal desire to gorge themselves with honey that has urged on the bees. They could do this at their leisure in the store-rooms at home. Watch them in an analogous circumstance; follow them; you ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... building the wharf, Ben continued to cut wick-yarn and fill candle-moulds for about two years. But, as he had no love for that occupation, his father often took him to see various artisans at their work, in order to discover what trade he would prefer. Thus Ben learned the ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... jolting of the train, opens the lantern and snuffs out the wick with his wet fingers. The light flares up, hisses like a frying ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... room under the staircase. Within were two beds, placed face to face; on one I recognized my own pillows which I had brought with me, so that must be my sleeping place. Beside the window was a writing-table on which was burning a single candle, its wick so badly trimmed as to prove that he who should have trimmed it had been so deeply engaged in work that he had not remarked whether darkness or ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... 1794—year two of the Republic. The house already slumbered round him; the sounds of Paris rose to his ears softened by night and distance. Intent on his work, he looked up from time to time to make a note; or, drawing the lamp a little nearer he trimmed its wick and set it back. When this happened, the light falling strongly on his face, and bringing into relief its harsh lines and rugged features, showed him to be a man past middle life, grey-haired, severe, ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... 1. Let the wick always touch the bottom of the lamp, and see that the top is trimmed square and even across, with a pair of ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... the glass of the dull lamp, whose wick, burnt up and swollen like a drunkard's nose, came flying off in little carbuncles at the candle's touch, and scattering hot sparks about, rendered it matter of some difficulty to kindle the lazy taper; when a noise, as of a man snoring deeply some steps ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... science involved in lighting a candle. What am I doing when I apply a lighted match to this candle? The first thing I do is to melt the tallow, the melted tallow being drawn up by the capillarity of the wick. The next thing I do is to convert the liquid tallow into a gas. This done, I set fire to the gas. I don't suppose you ever thought so much was involved in lighting a candle. My candle is nothing more than a portable gas-works, similar ...
— The Story of a Tinder-box • Charles Meymott Tidy
... say, "mebbe you t'ink I'm wan beeg loup garou, Dat's forty t'ousand 'noder girl, I lef' dem all for you, I s'pose you know Polique Gauthier your frien'on St. Cesaire I ax her marry me nex' wick—she tak' me—I ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... onion that he was slicing, put a pitcher into my hand and calmly said to me: 'Go and bring me some water.' I brought it. He spilled the potatoes into it, stood them on the oil-stove and lit the wick. I timidly asked him whether I could come to take lessons from him. 'Yes, come' he answered, 'you can sweep the floor and carry water for me. Do you know how to speak Chinese?' 'No,' I answered, not knowing ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... figure a small lamp was kept perpetually burning. This Juliette now took between her fingers, carefully, lest the tiny flame should die out. First she poured the oil over the fragments of paper in the ash-pan, then with the wick she set fire ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... chuckle, "we're mixing right in with the four hundred, we are! I'm substitute and understudy when anybody gets ill. We're right in our own class at last! Pure amateurs with no professional record against us. Me and President Langham, I guess!" He struck a match and lit the smoky wick in a tin lantern. ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... done, we fill the external vessel with water up to the level bb. Thanks to the siphons, the water enters the inner vessel, presses the sulphide of carbon, which is the heavier, and causes it to rise in the tube up to the level a'a', where it saturates a cotton wick, which is then lighted. The upper end of the tube is surmounted with a chimney, PQ. which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... of the Syrian peasants—a wick afloat upon a saucerful of oil and water—burned upon the ground between us, making great shadows dance upon the walls and vaulting. The last I heard before I fell asleep was Rashid's ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... would not light itself. Dotty did not know how to turn back the chimney, and, though there was certainly blaze enough in the matches, it did not catch the wick. It leaped forward and caught the skirt of ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... spent by his mother's side, while she and her maids spun the wool of the last clipping. She was a fair woman out of the Western Isles, all brown and golden as it seemed to him, and her voice was softer than the hard ringing speech of the Wick folk. She told him island stories about gentle fairies and good-humoured elves who lived in a green windy country by summer seas, and her air would be wistful as if she thought of her lost home. And she sang him to sleep with crooning songs which had the sweetness of the west wind in them. But ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... for fourpence! Anywhere yer like to name. 'Ammersmith, 'Ackney Wick, Noo Cross, Covent Garden Market, Regency Park. Come, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... Jamaica rum; giving to the whole the appearance of a vast storehouse. An enormous chafing-dish, filled with burning charcoal, stood near the centre, and in a deep iron pan was placed a keg of oil, a hole having been driven into its head, through which a sort of hempen wick had been introduced; it flared and blazed like an overgrown flambeau, throwing a warm and glowing light over the entire of the wild ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... decorated with what the Book calls 'beaten work,' and what we in modern jewellers' technicality call repousse work, each of which bore on its top, like a flower on its stalk, a shallow cup filled with oil, in which a wick floated. There were thus seven lamps in all, including that on the central stem. The material was costly, the work adorning it was artistic, the oil with which it was fed was carefully prepared, the number of its ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... snuffers is prowling about And his shaky old fingers will soon snuff us out; There's a hint for us all in each pendulum tick, For we're low in the tallow and long in the wick. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... fireplace; the embers had burned to a gentle glowing radiance. Of the four candles she had lighted, the wick of only one had taken fire and was burning. Nancy's breath caught in her throat, and she could not steady it. Collier Pratt took a step forward and held out ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... shall succeed well, experience has shown that the nature of the fuse employed has much to do with it. Plaited or woven wick is not adapted, and will fail absolutely with dry coals, unless it is made very free burning. In this case not less than three-quarters of an inch in length is necessary, and the weight of such ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... aren't done, I suppose." Billy Louise went over and took a lantern down from its nail, turning up the wick so that she could light it with the candle. "Go up to the fire and thaw out," she invited the man. "We'll have supper in a ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... listening to the rain pattering against the canvas. That, and the occasional whine of a hungry cur, foraging on the outskirts of the camp for a stray bone, alone broke the silence, save when a vicious drop of rain detached itself meditatively from the ridge-pole of the tent, and fell upon the wick of our tallow candle, making it "cuss," as Ned Strong described it. The candle was in the midst of one of its most profane fits when Blakely, knocking the ashes from his pipe and addressing no one in particular, but giving breath, unconsciously as it were, to the ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... water from the chamber of his lamp and pulled out the wick and pressed it. He thought that possibly he might make it burn a little longer without oil. He selected one of the matches and struck it against the rock at his side. It did not light. The rock was wet and ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... confront her caused him to hesitate: should he go in? What else could he do? where had he to go? So, with a sort of desperation, he pushed open the door and found himself within the sitting-room. It was empty; the fire had burnt low, the wick of the unsnuffed candle had grown long; evidently Eve had not returned; and with an undefined mixture of regret and relief Adam sat down, leaned his arms on the table and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... muttered Carne, whose troubles were faintly illuminated by a sputtering wick. "Get out, you scoundrel, as you love plain English. Go direct to the devil—only let me die ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... state we'll soon be in! Such a clamour, such a din, Raised from Kew to Dalston, Cork to Cromer, Wight to Wick! Seeking votes through thin and thick, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, July 2, 1892 • Various
... the ground; for he knew he would never sleep at his post of duty. But first in his thoughts was the need of starting the lamp again. Calling to his mother, he sped up the spiral stairway, which never seemed so long before, and began to pump the oil. Then he lighted the wick from a small lantern burning in the watch-room, and pumped again until the oil tank was quite full. His mother in the mean time had found the form of the keeper, and partially restored him. Wally stepped out upon the gallery ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... moths of many sizes and as many colours. Screens and double screens at the window openings did not avail to keep these visitors out. Somehow they found a way in. The mosquitoes and the gnats preyed upon him; the beetles and the moths were lured by the flame to a violent end. To save the wick from being clogged by their burnt bodies he hooded the top of the lamp with netting. This caused the lamp chimney to smoke and foul itself with soot. To save his shins from attack he wrapped his legs in newspaper buskins. For his hands and his face and his neck and his ears ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... oil, number 2 oil, number 4 oil, naphtha; rocket fuel, high specific impulse fuel, liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen, lox. [gaseous fuels] natural gas, synthetic gas, synthesis gas, propane, butane, hydrogen. brand, torch, fuse; wick; spill, match, light, lucifer, congreve^, vesuvian, vesta^, fusee, locofoco^; linstock^. candle &c (luminary) 423; oil &c (grease) 356. Adj. carbonaceous; combustible, inflammable; high octane, high specific impulse; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... he often went with his father to the court-house where the lawyers and clerks playfully called him "judge Wick." Here as a privileged character he met and mingled with the country folk who came to sue and be sued, and thus early the dialect, the native speech, the quaint expressions of his "own people" were made familiar to him, and took firm root in the ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... to an almost miraculous state of excitement. While Hans was at work, I actively assisted my uncle to prepare a long wick, made from damp gunpowder, the mass of which we finally enclosed ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... always accessible in suburban or country homes and the regular type of a mission lamp would be of little use. The illustration shows an ordinary round wick kerosene lamp fitted ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 2 • H. H. Windsor
... Christian vitality and radiance is close and unbroken contact with Jesus Christ, the Source of all light. Threadbare; but if we lived as if we believed it, the Church would be revolutionised and the world illuminated; and many a smoking wick would flash up into a blazing torch. Let Christian people remember that the words of my text define no special privilege or duty of any official or man of special endowments, but that to all of us has been said, 'Ye are My witnesses,' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... a slush-lamp swinging from a string, and I had a mind to light its rope wick and search through the chests for a weapon; but I did not want to remain too long below, although I could not bring myself to leave empty-handed the only place which ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... of her market, ranks among the very lowest order of townships; every petty village claims the honour of being a constable-wick—we are no more. Our immunities are only the trifling privileges anciently granted to the lords; and two thirds of these are lost. But, notwithstanding this seemingly forlorn state, perhaps there is not a place in the British dominions, where so many people are governed by so ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... the candle, and, with his pocket-knife, cut it down until it was a mere stub in the socket, then lit a match and held the flame to the wick, until the tallow ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... door in the stone wall the bey took down the lantern which so short a time before he had replaced upon its nail and lighted its still smoking wick. He had not restored the key to Yussuf, and he drew it now from his pocket and fitted it into the ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... progress in the East, and sometimes they "strike it rich," as the boys used to say in Nevada. One of these companies uncovered a terra-cotta lamp factory, in which were found literally thousands of small, crude lamps, each with a strupe to hold the wick through which the oil passed. These were of two sizes, the small ones being called "wise virgins," and the larger ones "foolish virgins." There were at least a thousand of them on hand at the beginning of the reception, and each guest was given one by our hostess. When it came to ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... cut off the king's head as they did in France! But such was the rapidity of the horses' ascent in the hope of rest, and warmth, and supper, that the carriage was in the close, and rattling up to the door, ere she had got the long wick of the tallow candle to acknowledge the dominion of fire. The laird rose in haste from his arm-chair, and went to the door. There stood the chaise, in the cloud of steam that rose from the quick-heaving ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... from the town was a farm then known as Wick's farm, situated in a beautiful wooded country. The daughter of Mr. Wick, named Tempe (probably short for Temperance), was the owner of a very fine horse, and on this beautiful animal it was her delight to ride over the roads and ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... a beautiful pine-shaded road, although houses are now being built and so somewhat despoiling the original beauty of the spot. The cliffs may be regained once more at Southbourne, and after walking for a short distance towards Hengistbury Head the road runs inland to Wick Ferry, where the Stour can be crossed and a visit paid to the fine old Priory of Christchurch. Wick Ferry is one of the most beautiful spots in the neighbourhood, and is much resorted to by those who are fond of boating. Large and commodious ferry-boats ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... rub it on boots, I keep my guns and ax from rustin' by smearin' it on. Why, long ago in the woods I've known where families made candles out of bear's fat by using a wick in the middle." ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... front door of this venerable mansion ran a wide hall bare of everything but a solid mahogany hat-rack and table with glass mirror and heavy haircloth settee, over which, suspended from the ceiling, hung a curious eight-sided lantern, its wick replaced with a modern gas-burner. Above were the bedrooms, reached by a curved staircase guarded by spindling mahogany bannisters with slender hand-rail —a staircase so pure in style and of so distinguished an air that only maidens in gowns and slippers should have ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... little sister Anna!" answered the old man, covering his face with both hands, and crying till his sobs were carried away in the louder wail of the storm. "At first I could not believe it. A candle stood on the table with its wick bent double. It had swirled away at the sides till the tallow ran down upon the brass. After I had shut the window, it gave out a steadier light, that fell on Anna's face. I would not believe it, but bent down and kissed her on the forehead. My lips were amost as ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... all the odds and ends of worsted which lurked in the scrap-basket. A forage next took place in search of string, but as no parcels were ever delivered in that sequestered valley, twine became a precious and rare treasure. In default of any large supply being obtainable, my lamp and candle-wick material was requisitioned by F—— (who, by the way, is a perfect Uhlan for getting what he wants, when bent on a sporting expedition); and lastly, one or two empty flour-sacks were called for. You will see the use of this ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... the grooves with corn bread blackened with soot that we can make by holding the wick of this smoky lamp against ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... the only reply she received. And nothing stirred after that. She perhaps dozed off. The cold in the studio grew keener, and the wick of the lamp began to carbonise and burn red, while Claude, still bending over his sketch, did not seem ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... Morris, "interest $2,400,000; Robert Morris threatening to resign; delirious prospect of panic in consequence; national spirit with which we began the war, a stinking wick under the tin extinguisher of States' selfishness, stinginess, and indifference—caused by the natural reversion of human nature to first principles after the collapse of that enthusiasm which inflates mankind into a bombastic pride of itself; Virginia pusillanimous, Rhode Island an old beldam ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... that while Amos fumed and Lydia sought vainly for a new wick, footsteps sounded on the porch, the door opened and Billy Norton and his father supported John Levine into the living-room. Levine's overcoat showed a patch of red ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... price may be paid for grades of mineral oil reputed to be safer or to give a "brighter" or "clearer" light; but as the quantity of light depends mainly upon the care and attention bestowed on the burner and glass fittings of the lamp, and partly upon the employment of a suitable wick, while the safety of each lamp depends at least as much upon the design of that lamp, and the accuracy with which the wick fits the burner tube, as upon the temperature at which the oil "flashes," the extra expense ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... and the shrill clear "phe-be" of the chickadee is one of the prettiest sounds now, just as it was in February. Pretty soon a bevy of them come flitting and talking along, like a girl botany class on the search. Before they have passed out of sight the loud and prolonged "O-wick-o-wick-o-wick-o-wick" of the flicker makes us lift our eyes to the top of a scarlet oak and anon three or four of the handsome fellows alight nearer by so that we may the better admire their white-tailed coats, brown shoulders, scarlet napes and the beautiful ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... An Indian woman had come to visit my mother. On opposite sides of the kitchen stove, which stood in the center of the small house, my mother and her guest were seated in straight-backed chairs. I played with a train of empty spools hitched together on a string. It was night, and the wick burned feebly. Suddenly I heard some one ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... Elmer did was also a very natural move. He saw a candle in a bottle, standing on an upturned box, and stepping forward he applied his match to the waiting wick. ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... Waddow, killed first, and then drowned i' the well by one o' the men for concubinage, as the parson says; and so for the wrong done, her ghost ne'er having been laid, you see she claims every seventh year an offering which must be summat wick—and"——While he hesitated another took up ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... She stared at it—incredulously. He had gone; he would have none of her assistance then; preferred—She listened, but caught only the rustling of the heavy silk. When? Minutes passed; at her left, a candle, carelessly adjusted by the maid, dripped to the dresser; its over-long wick threw weird, ever-changing shadows; her own silhouette appeared in various distorted ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... in her hand. The wick had fallen aside and was now wasting itself in a broad, unequal yellow flame. The maid of honour looked at it in perplexity, knitting her pretty brows in ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... buy, for Lowwood was an open-light pit, and was soon busy on the instructions of his father learning the art of "putting in a wick" to the exact thickness, testing his tea flask, and doing all the little things that count in preparing for the first descent into a coal mine. He was very much excited over it all, and babbled all the evening, ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... the end of the third hall you will find a door opening into a garden planted with trees loaded with fine fruit. Walk directly across the garden to a terrace, where you will see a niche before you, and in the niche a lighted lamp. Take it down and put it out. Throw away the wick and pour out the liquor, which is not oil and will not hurt your clothes; then put the lamp into your waistband and bring it to me." The magician then took a ring from his finger and put it on Aladdin's, ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... should go out like the rest, nothing can prevent my looking upon it as a sinister omen." The fourth taper went out. It was remarked to the Queen that the four tapers had probably been run in the same mould, and that a defect in the wick had naturally occurred at the same point in each, since the candles had all gone out in the order in which they had ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... addressing her husband, "you have forgotten to turn up your lamp wick. It is smoking. I can smell it from here, even through ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... pressed against the India rubber ring on the ball-flange, a perfectly tight joint is made, which prevents the admission of any external air. The tube in the bottom of the lamp is carried within a short distance of the height of the wick-holder. It is covered at the upper end with gauze, besides being fitted with other thicknesses of gauze at certain distances within the tube; and if it be found desirable to further protect the flame against strong currents of air, a small valve may be placed at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... wanted; an' I knowed dar wuz a glass somewhar on my table wid cracked ice in it. Lor'! Lor'! how dry I wuz! I neber longed fer whiskey in my born days ez I panted fur dat ice. It wuz powerful dark, fur de grease wuz low in de lamp, an' de wick spluttered wid a dyin' flame. But I felt aroun', feeble like an' slow, till my fingers touched a glass. I pulled it to me, an' I run my han' in an' grabbed de ice, as I s'posed, an' flung it in my mouf, ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... gasped Peter between paroxysms. "I kept it in my closet for a week, and half an hour ago I stole a bit of wick out of Dinah's pantry and dipped it well in melted tallow, and than stuck it inside, when, as you see, having carved out two eyes and a slit for the nose, it looks somewhat ghastly when the ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... must be known that, among all his friends, Pinocchio had one whom he loved most of all. The boy's real name was Romeo, but everyone called him Lamp-Wick, for he was long and thin and had ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... such unctuous and inflammable refuse as we can find, and make our soul's light into a tallow candle, and thenceforward take our guttering, sputtering, ill-smelling illumination about with us, holding it out in fetid fingers—encumbered with its lurid warmth of fungous wick, and drip of stalactitic grease—that we may see, when another man would have seen, or dreamed he saw, the flight of a divine Virgin—only the lamplight upon the hair of a costermonger's ass;—that, having to paint the good Samaritan, we may see only in distance the back ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... his cloak, And binds the mire like a rock; When to the loughs the curlers flock, Wi' gleesome speed, Wha will they station at the cock? Tam Samson's dead! When Winter muffles up his cloak, He was the king o' a' the core, To guard, or draw, or wick a bore, Or up the rink like Jehu roar, In time o' need; But now he lags on ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... followed the broken army; and when they joined the royalists of Essex, and threw themselves into Colchester, he laid siege to that place, which defended itself to the last extremity. A new fleet was manned, and sent out under the command of War wick, to oppose the revolted ships, of which the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... morning, wouldn't you? (Singing) "'Ere we go round the mulberry bush on a cowld and frosty mornin'." (Spoken) Give you my word, I 'aven't thought o' that in ten year; used to sing it at a hinfant school in 'Ackney, 'Ackney Wick it was. (Singing) "This is the way the tyler does, the tyler does." (Spoken) Bloomin' 'umbug. 'Ow are you off now, for the notion of a future styte? Do you cotton to the tea-fight views, or the old ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... cable in British waters is that from Sinclair Bay, Wick, to Sandwick Bay, Shetland, of the length of 122 miles, and laid in 1885. The shortest being four cables across the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, at the latter place, and each less than ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... prices of these goods, both the groceries and soft goods, do you allow it margin for profit, just the same as any merchant would do in Lerwick, or Wick, or any other town?-I should fancy it is much the same. Of course, groceries being an article of daily use, we charge a less percentage on them than we do on soft goods. Very often soft goods lie on our shelves for a considerable ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... personality. The way he had overawed the idlers in the store that afternoon when the old chest was broken open, and his refusal to make any further explanation of Cap'n Abe's absence, pinched out Louise's courage as one might pinch out a candle wick. ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... efficient burner for heating the ignition tube, Frank started with an ordinary wick-type kerosene lamp with a small metal tank. Wishing to use gasoline in the lamp, he found it necessary to fabricate a number of burner units before he found a type that gave him a clean blue flame. He then found the flame to be very sensitive to drafts and easily extinguished, ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... worth eating—a fact which, in the true sportsman's eyes, will go for nothing. But though the man who can buy fresh soles and salmon may despise chub, there are those who do not. True, you may make a most accurate imitation of him by taking one of Palmer's patent candles, wick and all, stuffing it with needles and split bristles, and then stewing the same in ditch-water. Nevertheless, strange to say, the agricultural stomach digests chub; and if, after having filled your creel, or three creels (as you may too often), with them, you will distribute ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... piece of linen tied round the bulb, wetted enough to keep it damp by a thread or wick dipping into a cup of water, it will show less heat than a dry one, in proportion to the dryness of the air, and quickness of drying.[9] In very damp weather, with or before rain, fog, or dew, two such thermometers will be ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy
... convenient opportunity, setting fire to dwellings by this means. They have been also known to upset tumblers containing oil, which is thus spread abroad and likely to be ignited by the falling wick. It is, perhaps, impossible totally to exterminate this race of vermin, which in the Fort set cats completely at defiance, but something might be done to keep the population down. I have been told that there are places in the more crowded portion rendered perfectly ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... his hand upon the rugged door. He looked through one of the great chinks, for it was much smaller in places than the aperture it pretended to close, and saw his little oil wick burning just where ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... course, and she could get the mantle back. But there was Nella, in the next room, and Nella seemed to be always awake, and would hear her stirring and come in to know if she wanted anything. Besides, she was in the dark. The night light burned always in Nella's room, a tiny wick supported by a bit of split cork in an earthen cup of oil, most carefully tended, for if it went out, it could only be lighted by going down to the hall where a large lamp burned ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford |
