"Rushlight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Antinous's! We set out with our eyes fixed on Vega, blazing above, and flaunt our banner—'tout ou rien!'—but when the campaign ends, Vega laughs at us from the horizon, quitting our world; and we console ourselves with a rushlight, and shelter it carefully from the wind with another flag: 'Quand on n'a pas ce qu'on aime, il faut aimer ce qu'on a!' Such is the worldly wisdom that comes with ripening years, like the deep stain on the sunny side of a peach. Moreover, 'folding empty arms,' is only melodrama metaphor, and 'empty ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... fast now, Poyser; Alick's been come in this long while," said Mrs. Poyser, rising with an appearance of relief from her low chair. "Get me the matches down, Hetty, for I must have the rushlight burning i' my ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... to the low steps which lead up from the river to the villa, a diminutive figure, then in its prime, (if prime it ever had), is seen moving impatiently forward. By that young-old face, with its large lucid speaking eyes that light it up, as does a rushlight in a cavern—by that twisted figure with its emaciated legs—by the large, sensible mouth, the pointed, marked, well-defined nose—by the wig, or hair pushed off in masses from the broad forehead and falling behind in tresses—by the dress, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... my immediate policy to prove my sincerity. I valued my life, and I had but to look at the men to reckon that it would not be worth a rushlight if they suspected I was not doing my best to find them a safe asylum among the islands in the Pacific. Accordingly, I fetched one of the charts, placed it upon the skylight, where those who gathered about me could see it, and laid off a course for ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... the subversion of a cup of chocolate, which a servant was handing to the Reverend Doctor Gaster, into the nape of the neck of Sir Patrick O'Prism. Sir Patrick, rising impetuously, to clap an extinguisher, as he expressed himself, on the farthing rushlight of the rascal's life, pushed over the chair of Marmaduke Milestone, Esquire, who, catching for support at the first thing that came in his way, which happened unluckily to be the corner of the table-cloth, drew it instantaneously ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... it had a bed of heather stalks, on the other there was something dark which felt like cold meat. The man came grunting in behind me, clinking his leg-irons. After groping about in a corner of the room he lighted a stinking rushlight by means ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... for his misconduct. At once were all their little hands put out to prevent Mr. Random's resolution of taking him away, but all their petitions were in vain. Richard was forced into an empty cellar, and left with no other companion than a glimmering rushlight. Here he was told he might do as much mischief as he pleased. The iron bars kept him from getting out on one side, and the door was padlocked on the other. In this dilemma he marched round and round, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... a night-light, the chamberlain had brought me in, before he left me, the good old constitutional rushlight of those virtuous days.—an object like the ghost of a walking-cane, which instantly broke its back if it were touched, which nothing could ever be lighted at, and which was placed in solitary confinement at the bottom of a high tin tower, perforated with round holes that made a staringly ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... reminded you of CHEPSTOWE, the incomparable poet who was at one time supposed to have revolutionised the art of verse. Now he is forgotten, the rushlight which he never attempted to hide under the semblance of a bushel, has long since nickered its last, his boasts, his swelling literary port, his quarrels, his affectations—over all of them the dark waves of oblivion ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... commentators or exegetes on our simple Bible in those days. The great texts stood out to our eyes in those days as if they had been written with a sunbeam; while all other books (and we read nothing but the best books in those days) looked like twilight and rushlight beside our Bible. In those immediate, direct, and intense days we would have satisfied Wordsworth and Matthew Arnold themselves in the way we read our Bible with our eye never off the object. The Four Last Things ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte |
