"Spark" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... November afternoon when we gathered what remained of the crops, cleaned off the beds, heaped the refuse in the center of the garden, and had a most glorious bonfire, though it was not election day. We watched the last spark die out, closed the gate, and with regretful steps wended our way back to the schoolroom, to await the coming of ...
— Construction Work for Rural and Elementary Schools • Virginia McGaw
... possession of the roof of the rail-coach, that I might enjoy the prospect. I had not travelled three miles before I perceived a strong smell of burning; at last the pocket of my coat, which was of cotton, burst out into flames, a spark having found its way into it: fortunately (not being insured) there was no property ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... ropes, which bound his limbs, and also bound him to a heavy chair, which seemed to be affixed to the ground. One of the three had a piece of metal in a pair of long-handled pliers. It was white hot, and a white electric spark that shot to and fro between two terminals close by, showed where it ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... justly delineated. This fellow, of desperate enterprize, is one of the numerous practitioners of knavery, who set themselves up for men of property and integrity, the more easily to defraud the unwary and ignorant out of their substance and effects. This Spark, connecting himself with several others of similar pursuit, they took a genteel house in a respectable part of the town, and dividing themselves into classes of masters, clerks, out-riders, shopmen, porters, and servants, and thus making a show of opulence, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... along the margin of the wood, and formed the most direct communication between the pavilion and the mansion- house; and, as I cast my eyes to that side, I saw a spark of light, not a quarter of a mile away, and rapidly approaching. From its uneven course it appeared to be the light of a lantern carried by a person who followed the windings of the path, and was often staggered and taken aback by the more violent squalls. I concealed ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Fire, the vital spark, is the essential element of all these chaps," said he, "and if you can turn the nozzle of your extinguisher on that spook your ghost ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... you to give up our trip just to have old Cousin Ann have a place to visit. We've had more than our share of her already. If she had a spark of delicacy she would go now and not wait until we are all upset with packing and all. I know you have not told her that we are going abroad, but you know she snoops around enough to have heard us talking. I bet she ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... reduced to the most hopeless incompatibility; and the affair was at a dead lock. No matter what the subject of debate, Missouri was sure, in some way, to get involved in it; and the mere mention of the name was like a spark upon loose gunpowder. In February, for example, the House had to go through the ceremony of counting the votes for President of the United States,—a mere ceremony, since Mr. Monroe had been re-elected almost unanimously, and the votes of Missouri ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... Providence. Do that in payment of your debt to me, Lepage. I demand that." In this transgressor there was a latent spark of honour, a sense of justice that might have been developed to great causes, if some strong nature, seeing his weaknesses, had not condoned them, but had appealed to the natural chivalry of an impressionable, vain, and weak character. He struggled to meet Hume's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... of Worcestershire, pursued them to Holbeach, where he invested them, and summoned them to surrender. In preparing for their defence, they put some moist powder before a fire to dry, and a spark from the coals setting it on fire, some of the conspirators were so burned in their faces, thighs, and arms, that they were scarcely able to handle their weapons. Their case was desperate, and no means of escape appearing, unless by forcing their way through the assailants, they made a furious ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... sight I ketched of it after my loss,' said Bob. 'I were very broken-hearted, but it seemed to bring a tiny spark of hope to my heart, to see what I had only believed by faith was goin' on underground. It's grand to see the Lord's workin's; but mind, you little ones, that there plant is just as much alive before it shows itself. There is a deal goin' on in the silence and ...
— Bulbs and Blossoms • Amy Le Feuvre
... made a scene exceedingly solemn and impressive. Below, in the sombre shadow of the cliff, Field heard the faint, musical bubble of the water among the rocks, and a sheep bleated once behind the ruined fort: those were the only sounds. He dropped the end of his cigar, and watched the spark till it went out ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... stone landing and looked up. A round spark, as from a cigarette, was visible at the open window. While he gazed the spark glowered brighter and illumined a pale, haggard boy's face, surmounted by tousled locks ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... tell you," he went on evenly, "that I found a spark of life in your husband's body that morning and drew ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... young man! You sail on the sea, you have no worries, and [In an excited tone of voice] do you remember the joy of tacking? Is there a sailor who doesn't glow at the memory of that manoeuvre? As soon as the word is given and the whistle blown and the crew begins to go up—it's as if an electric spark has run through them all. From the captain to ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... Allan, hast another; that black Axe-bearer has a third; the little yellow man a fourth, and so on through the tale of living things. For even a dog such as thou sawest has a conscience and—like thyself or I—must in the end be its own judge, because of the spark that comes to it from above, the same spark which in me burns as a great fire, and in thee as a smouldering ember ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... these discourses are written in such an affected style, that were it only on that account, and had I nothing to object against his MELLIFLUOUS precepts, I should not allow girls to peruse them, unless I designed to hunt every spark of nature out of their composition, melting every human quality into female weakness and artificial grace. I say artificial, for true grace arises from some kind ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... my first knowledge of him, was never rent; yet occasionally it seemed to me to gape in a manner that let a little momentary finger of light through, in the flashing of which a soul kindled and shut in his eyes, like a hard-dying spark in ashes. I wished to know what gave life to the spark, and I set ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... Wells or at Tunbridge (for of this important matter Jocasta cannot be certain) it was her ladyship's fortune to become acquainted with a young gentleman, whose conversation was so sprightly, and manners amiable, that she invited the agreeable young spark to visit her if ever he came to London, where her house in Spring Garden should be open to him. Charming as he was, and without any manner of doubt a pretty fellow, Jocasta hath such a regiment of the like continually marching round her standard, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... poured over the cloud-rock, until there was not a spark left alight, and rushed down through the sky into ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... the dead earth, and sleeping roots aroused with fresh forces from their torpor, and sent up green signals to the birds above. A spark of light awoke in Hitty's eye; she planned to get away, to steal the boat from its hidden cove in the bushes and push off down the friendly current of the river,—anywhere away from him! anywhere! though it should be to wreck on the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... him to the end in silence, and felt glad of one thing; he had never pronounced Marya's name. Was it because his self-love was wounded by the thought of her who had disdainfully rejected him, or was it that still within his heart yet lingered a spark of the same feeling which kept me silent? Whatever it was, the Commission did not hear spoken the name of the daughter of the Commandant of Fort Belogorsk. I was still further confirmed in the resolution I had taken, and when ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... this young spark on the matter of settlements,' continued he; 'and he seemed disposed to be ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... natural equality of mankind, and the tyranny of artificial distinctions; and the poorer classes, still smarting under the exactions of the late reign, were by the impositions of the new tax wound up to a pitch of madness. Thus the materials had been prepared; it required but a spark to set the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... atmosphere of happiness, with care and worry and perhaps, when a vexed or worried feeling has been allowed to control us, even forbid the children to play at that time. Why not reverse things and drown care and strife in the well-spring of joy given and received by reviving the latent spark of childhood and youth; joining in their pleasures passively or actively and being one of them at heart. So presuming that "men are but children of a larger growth," the games, pastimes and entertainments described herewith were collected, ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... had been less noble than he was, and his friendship for Jesus less loyal, such words from his followers would have embittered him. There are people who do irreparable hurt by such flattering sympathy. A spark of envy is often fanned into a disastrous flame by friends who come with such appeals to the evil that is in ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... committed the foulest deed in the annals of American frontier life. There was in his shifting eyes no shadow of doubt, of fear, of uncertainty. There was only the look of satisfaction, of supreme triumph. The coward caught the spark of red that flashed ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... angry-pleasant flushes—he had hardly dared to ask for what she proffered freely; and having requested Nicholas to take the dairyman's daughter, led Christine to her place, Long promptly stepping up second with his charge. There were grim silent depths in Nic's character; a small deedy spark in his eye, as it caught Christine's, was all that showed his consciousness of her. Then the fiddlers began—the celebrated Mellstock fiddlers who, given free stripping, could play from sunset to dawn without turning a hair. The couples ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... observing this Hartley withal So expert and so active at brushes and ball, Was moved with compassion, and thought it a pity A youth should be lost, that had been so witty: Without more ado, he vamps up my spark, And now we'll suppose him an eminent clerk! Suppose him an adept in all the degrees Of scribbling cum dasho, and hooking of fees; Suppose him a miser, attorney, per bill, Suppose him a courtier—suppose ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... along the river and raced wordlessly the greater part of the remaining half mile to the Bar L-M corrals. When they drew rein in the wide clearing in which stood range house, bunk house, stables and corrals, there was no spark of light about. They unsaddled swiftly, turned their horses loose with a resounding slap to send them out toward the little enclosed pasture, and went up to the range house. At the door of the men's ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... The little spark of hope had begun to glow under Slavens' breath. Perhaps Walker and sheep were the solution of his life's muddle. He would find Walker before the young man took somebody else in with him, expose the true state of his finances, and see whether Walker would entertain ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... hour with no result, then sought his bunk once more, cursing all men. Confound the Infantry getting the jumps over a rocket or two! Confound them two times! Then a spark of inspiration glowed within him, glowed and flamed brightly. If his exalted poilus got the wind up over a handful of rockets, how much more ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... away for the yacht," cried Paul, as he placed the form of the poor girl—for he was not certain that it was still animated by the vital spark—in the bottom ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... world are just emerging from the strain and agony of the most terrible and disastrous war in the history of mankind. From a tiny spark of hatred a great conflagration of passion spread over the world, well-nigh destroying the entire fabric of civilization. How near we have come to that catastrophe, as a result of the war and its evil progeny, they best know who have recently visited ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... inevitably impress itself on the thinking and feeling man and woman is that the sight of brutal clubbing of innocent victims in a so-called free Republic, and the degrading, soul-destroying economic struggle, furnish the spark that kindles the dynamic force in the overwrought, outraged souls of men like Czolgosz or Averbuch. No amount of persecution, of hounding, of repression, can stay this ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... life is dimmed and dark; Hope's flame is dwindled to a spark; But, though I live thus dyingly,— My heart, my ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... orders to pass his bayonet through the body of the rash man if he was unable to answer the questions of this last sentinel. These rigorous precautions were rendered necessary by the vicinity of these terrible powder magazines, which a single spark might blow up, and with it the town, the fleet, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Abbot, this passes!" exclaimed Bernard the Dane. "Our young Lord is no monk, and we will not see each spark of noble and knightly spirit quenched as soon ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and Hal could see that the gasoline flow had been turned on nearly to the full capacity. It was the poor ignition work that was making the motors respond so badly. A little less, and a little less, of the electric spark that burned the gasoline, and air mixture—that was the secret of the gradually decreasing speed, while all the time it looked as though the "Farnum" was doing her level ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... vermilion pilasters and its pale yellow wall, the delicate moulding of its slender bricks and the elaborate elegance of its decoration, not to omit its pleasing, though diminutive proportions, arising from the wild green turf of this melancholy region, can scarcely fail of affecting with at least a spark of fancy, the flattest spirit of this work-day world. For my own part, I should be much less disposed to pronounce it a temple than a tomb; and, in fact, the whole appearance of this wide dull tract seems eminently adapted to sepulchral piles. It is most melancholy, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... Father hath in like Manner been summoned from the Floor of his Threshing, to discourse of Heaven and Earth, and bring forth from his Mind's Storehouse Things new and old. I wonder if the World will ever give heed to his Teaching. Suppose a Spark of Fire should drop some Night on the Manuscript, while Ettwood is dozing over it;—why, there's an end on't. I suppose Father could never do it over again. I wonder how many fine Things have been lost in suchlike Ways; or whether God ever permitts a truly fine Thing to ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... his hands upon Brown's shoulders, "in ten minutes I'll be on the road, and gone like that spark. We won't see each other agin; but, before I go, take a fool's advice: sell out all you've got, take your wife with you, and quit the country. It ain't no place for you, nor her. Tell her she must go; make her go, if she won't. Don't whine ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... gentleman, whom she introduced by the name of Monsieur Du Bois: Mrs. Mirvan received them both with her usual politeness; but the Captain looked very much displeased; and after a short silence, very sternly said to Madame Duval, "Pray who asked you to bring that there spark ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... Hanover, living on the bark of trees, leaves, berries, &c. threw Voltaire into transports of joy. He declared the event to be the most wonderful and important that ages had recorded in the annals of science, as it demonstrated the fact of man living after the fashion of beasts, without the least spark of civilization, and without speech; thereby forming a species of a nature having more in common with monkeys than with men, and presenting the regular degree, or intermediate class, between the homo civilis and the homo sylvestris. The circumstance, however, which afterwards ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... supremacy of self-interest and "man the irresponsible machine" are the main features of 'What Is Man' and both of these and all the rest are comprehended in his wider and more absolute doctrine of that inevitable life-sequence which began with the first created spark. There can be no training of the ideals, "upward and still upward," no selfishness and unselfishness, no atom of voluntary effort within the boundaries of that conclusion. Once admitting the postulate, that existence is merely ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... that Brown's peculiar monomania made him to be "dreaded by the Missourians as a supernatural being." Sure enough, a hero in the midst of us cowards is always so dreaded. He is just that thing. He shows himself superior to nature. He has a spark of ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... seemed to him a very simple matter to account for. Several of the boys of the village—his own son John for one—had lately taken to the old sport of whirling round a lighted stick at the end of a string, to make a circle of fire in the dark. Sometimes it happened that a spark caught the string; and then the stick was apt to fly off, nobody knew where. It was an unsafe sport, certainly; and as such he had forbidden it to his son John: but there was no doubt in his mind (without defending the sport), that the stick in question had jerked itself ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... cloth, they then beat it between two stones, by which means the juice of the fruit is expressed and absorbed by the rag, which is dyed by it of a dirty blue; the rag is then dried in the sun, and ignites with the slightest spark of fire. The Arabs nearest to Egypt use the coloquint in venereal complaints; they fill the fruit ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... that the subject of Independence was cautiously introduced by an ardent Whig, and the thought seemed to excite the abhorrence of the whole circle. A few weeks after, Paine's 'Common Sense' appeared, and passed through the continent like an electric spark. It everywhere flashed conviction, and aroused a determined spirit, which resulted in the Declaration of Independence, upon the 4th of July ensuing. The name of Paine was precious to every Whig heart, and had resounded throughout ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... saw that there was not a spark left in the stove, she went into her own little room and prepared to go out. Her excitement caused her to forget her rheumatism entirely. One more look around her little kitchen, then she locked it up and set out for ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... perfect charity seeks himself in nothing, but desires only the glory of God. He envies no one, because he loves no joy of his own, nor cares to rejoice in himself; but wishes, above all good things, to find felicity in God. Whoever has a spark of true charity feels at once that all earthly things are ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... have generally supplanted candles, in the country where candles are still used, the spark on the wick is considered to denote the coming of a letter, and the melted tallow or composition forming a winding sheet denotes ...
— Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District • Charles Dack
... would have stung a less sensitive man. With Sophie Carr's lip-pressure fresh and warm upon his own Thompson was in that exalted mood wherein a man is like an open powder keg. And Tommy Ashe had supplied the spark. A most unchristian flash of anger shot through him. His reply was an earnest, if ill-directed blow. This Tommy dodged by the simplest expedient of twisting his head sidewise without moving his body, and launched at the same time a return jab which ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... on the locks—no occasion for fire—thermometer at 200—hot as h-ll! I have seen four thousand men at a time cooking for the whole army as much as twenty or thirty thousand pounds of steaks at a time, all hissing and frying at a time—just about noon, of course, you know—not a spark of fire! Some of the soldiers who had been brought up as glass-blowers at Leith swore they never saw such heat. I used to go to leeward of them for a whiff, and think of old England! Ay! that's the country, after all, where a man may think and say what he pleases! But that sort of work ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... spark of humanity in your soul, woman, you'll give me food," he cried. "I am dying. Have you no heart, either of you? See here, I'll give each of you enough money to keep you in comfort for the rest of your lives ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... were not screened by it, the pitch boiledout from the seams. The swell rolled in from the offing in long shining undulations, like a sea of quicksilver, whilst every now and then a flying fish would spark out from the unruffled bosom of the heaving water, and shoot away like a silver arrow, until it dropped with a flash into the sea again. There was not a cloud in the heavens, but a quivering blue haze hung over ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... engaging in a Puritan service with a few of the chosen ones, who would not join in what they deemed the Popish ceremonies of the church in the valley. These stern dissenters from the reformed religion were keeping alive that spark which, fanned into a flame some fifty years later, was to sweep through the land and devastate churches, and destroy every outward sign in crucifix, and pictured saint in fair carved niche, and image of seer or king, which were in their ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... my young spark from the country! Ah, it is a fine habit, that of early rising. I practised it once myself, so I speak with authority. But what would you in this Babylon? And, i' faith, what is there to do before the afternoon to tempt a man from his couch? I have scarce had four ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Tom threw a lever which brought the generator of high frequency currents in contact with the motor by means of a friction fly-wheel. The alternator began to buzz and spark, crackling viciously. ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... thought that he had imagined a magnificent theory, when he averred that every man had within him a spark of the divine flame. But, silly PLATO! he never considered how easily this spark might be blown out. At this moment, how many Englishmen are walking about the land utterly extinguished! Had men been made on the principle of the safety-lamp, they might ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... with men's blood, gloriously decomposed, torn, blackened with powder, and riddled with bullets. Now the strong arms of German non-commissioned officers carried them in the sultry heat of the midsummer afternoon, these miserable remnants hanging heavy and limp without a flutter, without a spark of trembling life in the silken folds; they looked like imprisoned kings, who with heads bowed down, and despair in their eyes, walked in chains behind the triumphant ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... like an arch Athwart thy welkin?—wondrous zone of stars, Dim in the distance circling one huge sun, To whom thy sun is but a spark of fire— To whom thine Earth is but a grain of dust: Glimmering around him myriad suns revolve And worlds innumerable as sea-beach sands. Ere on yon Via Lactea rolled one star Lo I was there and trode the mighty round; Yea, ere the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... have left my family in a bad condition, we have hardly money to go to market; and nobody will take our words for sixpence. A very fine spark this Esquire South! My husband took him in, a dirty boy. It was the business of half the servants to attend him.* The rogue did bawl and make such a noise: sometimes he fell in the fire and burnt his face, sometimes broke his ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... maid who is gentle and pure. So it shall be enough if he will go down to the Hudson and seize a drop from the bow of mist that a sturgeon leaves when he makes his leap; and after, to kindle his darkened flame-wood lamp at a meteor spark. The fairy bows, and without a word slowly descends the rocky steep, for his wing is soiled and has lost its power; but once at the river, he tugs amain at a mussel shell till he has it afloat; then, leaping ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... passed, and a sixth, during which he lived and toiled as a machine, with just a spark of something more in him, just a glimmering bit of soul, that compelled him, at each week-end, to scorch off the hundred and forty miles. But this was not rest. It was super-machinelike, and it helped to crush out the glimmering bit of soul that was all that was left him from former ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... the Meuse at Mouzon. The start was made in a very sulky humor; the men, with empty stomachs and bodies unrefreshed by repose, unnerved, mentally and physically, by the experience of the past few days, vented their dissatisfaction by growling and grumbling, while the officers, without a spark of their usual cheerful gayety, with a vague sense of impending disaster awaiting them at the end of their march, taxed the dilatoriness of their chiefs, and reproached them for not going to the assistance of the 5th corps at Buzancy, where the sound of artillery-firing had been heard. ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... and fears Annulling youth's brief years, Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! Rather I prize the doubt Low kinds exist without, Finish'd and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... of armored ships is the firing pin's frail spark, More sure than the helm of the mighty fleet are my rudders to their mark, The faint foam fades from the bright screw blades—and I strike from ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... in Rogers' heart toward the two outlaw leaders, and a perverse devil lurked in him. For many months he had worshiped Barbara Morgan from a distance, vaguely aware that his passion for her could never be realized. But there was a spark of honesty and justice in Rogers despite his profession, and a sincere admiration for the girl that admitted of no thought ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... spark through a barrel of gunpowder. Like wildfire it flew about the church that the Duke's party and the Parson had quarrelled, and this was a public protest. Whig and Tory settled that with one scrape of the feet, and Major Dyngwall turned in the porch to find ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to remorseless fire! Watch till the last faint spark expire; Then strew its ashes on the wind, Nor leave one atom ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... though one wheel gives motion to another, yet all the wheels seem to move simultaneously; or in that mechanical contrivance which is adapted to firearms, where, the trigger being touched, down comes the flint, strikes against the steel, elicits a spark, which falling among the powder, ignites it, when the flame extends, enters the barrel, causes the explosion, propels the ball, and the mark is attained—all of which incidents, by reason of the celerity with which they happen, seem ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... advancing in person on Naples; be instant in solicitation; be importunate if necessary, so that the Turkish army cross the sea without delay. Be present yourself at the embarkation of the troops. Be active; run; fly." He himself ran through all his kingdom, striving to resuscitate some little spark of affection and hope. He had no success anywhere; the memory of the king his father was hateful; he was himself young and without influence; his ardor caused fear instead of sympathy. Charles kept advancing along ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a spark of light in the darkness of those early garrison years, takes us a step further. The sentiment of compassion was scarcely known to the early eighteenth century in France; it was certainly never extended to those unfortunate women who, as Vauvenargues puts it, "watch ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... rest—silence. The sweetest thing about his funeral was that no sound broke the stillness save the reading of the Scriptures, and the melody of music. No fire that can be kindled upon the altar of speech can relume the radiant spark that perished yesterday. No blaze born in all our eulogy can burn beside the sunlight of his useful life. After all, there is nothing ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... appealing lines on "A Girl to Her Dead Lover" form a vividly pathetic glimpse into low life. The poetic form is quite satisfactory. As a whole, Merry Minutes constitutes a rather remarkable enterprise, sustaining through troubled times the spark of activity which will kindle anew the fires of British amateur journalism after the victorious close of the war. May America, in her new ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... little and the great are joined in one By God's great force. The wondrous golden sun Is linked unto the glow-worm's tiny spark; The eagle soars to heaven in his flight; And in those realms of space, all bathed in light, Soar none except the eagle ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... unable to resist her tender violence; and though I could see he nourished not one spark of hope, he consented to desert his whole estate, beyond some hundreds of dollars that he had by him at the moment, and to flee that night, which promised to be dark and cloudy. As soon as the servants were asleep, he was to load two mules with provisions; two others ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal. We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time, when all at once I thought I would open my eyes; for when between sheets, whether by day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I have a way of always ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... his end in the same year 1694, upon the 17th of July he took sickness, and on the 25th died. On his first arrest, O friends, said he to such as were about him, sickness and death are serious things; but till the spark of his fever was risen to a flame, he was not aware that that sickness was to be unto death; for he told a relation, That if it should be so, it was strange, seeing the Lord did not hide from him the things that he did with him and ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... general principles. Anything new and strange excites their suspicions. In a herd of animals, cattle, or horses, fear quickly becomes a panic and rages like a conflagration. Cattlemen in the West found that any little thing at night might kindle the spark in their herds and sweep the whole mass away in a furious stampede. Each animal excites every other, and the multiplied fear of the herd is something terrible. Panics among men are not ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... iron shoes, and sheep-skin breeches, More rags than manners, and more dirt than riches, From driving cows and calves to Leyton market, While of my greatness there appear'd no spark yet, Behold I come to let you see the pride, With which ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... hesitation, nor even any thought as to what he should do next. We straightened at the first command he flung at us, and in three minutes we were working to please him. The position of a soldier! Was there the slightest spark of amusement in his eyes as he described it to us, as if to say "You mob of clerks and manufacturers and professional men can't really take this position"? I never "lifted and arched" my chest so thoroughly. Did he intimate as he gave his other commands, ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... country, like "love in a cottage," does better in idea than in the reality. We gave up our "castle under the hill" with reluctance, and proceeded to Clarens, where a spacious, unshaded building, without a spark of poetry about it, was first shown us. This was refused, incontinently. We then tried one or two more, until the shades of night overtook us. At one place the proprietor was chasing a cow through an orchard, and, probably a little heated with his exercise, he ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Montgomeryshire was a preparation for what took place six or seven years later is a suggestive question only, but when the wave of spiritual power from the great American revival of 1857-8 reached England, its first messenger to Wales, Rev. H.R. Jones, a Wesleyan, had only to drop the spark that "lit a prairie fire." The reformation, chiefly under the leadership of Mr. Jones and Rev. David Morgan, a Presbyterian, with their singing bands, was general and lasting, hundreds of still robust ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... jammed with a foul and stewing crowd of tramps. A loud-mouthed German was holding forth about the war in Europe, and crowding me on my plank. Cold and hunger had not sufficed to put out the patriotic spark within me. It was promptly fanned into flame, and I told him what I thought of him and his crew. Some Irishmen cheered and fomented trouble, and the doorman came in threatening to lock us all up. I smothered my disgust at the place ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... the usual ancient idea that in the creation of human life, man is the important factor. The child is his fruit, he is the soul. The spirit the vital spark. The woman merely the earth that warms and nourishes the seed, the earthly environment. This unscientific idea still holds among people ignorant of physiology and psychology. This notion chimes in with the popular view of woman's secondary place in the world, and so is accepted as law and gospel. ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... and strong trust come out wonderfully in her direction to the servants, which is the exact opposite of what might have been expected after the cold douche administered to her eagerness to prompt Jesus. Her faith had laid hold of the little spark of promise in that 'not yet,' and had fanned it into a flame. 'Then He will intervene, and I can leave Him to settle when.' How firm, though ignorant, must have been the faith which did not falter even at the bitter lesson and the apparent repulse, and how it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... cave with six of these, and his tinder-box to light them with. In those days there were no matches, and men used to strike a light with a flint and steel, and tinder, which was a stuff that caught fire very easily from a spark. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... glad I extracted some spark of politics from your dear Majesty, very kindly and nicely expressed. I know that your generous little heart would not have wished at any time but what was good for a country in which you were much ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... our carefully integrated plan for recovery. That plan is based on four commonsense fundamentals: continued reduction of the growth in Federal spending; preserving the individual and business tax reductions that will stimulate saving and investment; removing unnecessary Federal regulations to spark productivity; and maintaining a healthy dollar and a stable monetary policy, the latter a responsibility ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... promptly lowered at the sound of our joyful shouting, I saw my wife standing beside the big carronade that commanded the roadway up the hill. The smoking match was in her hand, but at sight of me she stooped and smothered in the dust the spark that would have dealt out death to the robbers had they ever gained a near approach. Descending from my elephant, I greeted her and thanked her for the courage of herself and all the other ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... confondre. Not the slim green pamphlet with the imprint of Andrew Elliot, for which (as I see with amazement from the book-lists) the gentlemen of England are willing to pay fancy prices; but its predecessor, a bulky historical romance without a spark of merit and now deleted ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and saw. His eyes met Sophy's. In his there crept a certain exultant gleam, as of one who had fought for something great and won. Sophy saw the look. The shy questioning in her eyes was replaced by a spark of defiance. She tossed her head, and turned to the man who had called ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... ecclesiastics who became skilled in architecture were taught by the Masons, and that it was not the monks, as some seem to imagine, who taught the Masons their art. Speaking of this early and troublous time, Giuseppe Merzaria says that only one lamp remained alight, making a bright spark in the darkness that extended ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... State of Europe] The extensive confederacies by which the European potentates are now at once united and set in opposition to each other, and which, though they are apt to diffuse the least spark of dissension throughout the whole, are at least attended with this advantage, that they prevent any violent revolutions or conquests in particular states, were totally unknown in ancient ages; and the theory of foreign politics, in each kingdom, formed a speculation much ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... his pocket, as well as he was able, and drew out a flint and steel. He struck a spark out of it, and lit a burnt rag he had in his pocket. He blew it until it made a flame, and he looked round him. The church was very ancient, and part of the wall was broken down. The windows were blown in or cracked, and the timber of the ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... the mischief which might come out of these two words until it seemed to me that they were charged with destiny. I could hardly sleep for thinking what a train I might have been laying, which might take a spark any day, and blow up nobody knows whose peace or prospects. What I dreaded most was one of those miserable matrimonial misalliances where a young fellow who does not know himself as yet flings his magnificent future into the checked apron-lap of some fresh-faced, half-bred country-girl, no more ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... conversation with her had she shown the sudden spark of recognition that had so wonderfully lighted my parting with her in the night. She had given me her confidence about her family affairs because she counted me as a new ally, however ineffective, coming in unexpectedly ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... property, or to destroy property, or to prevent the development of property. Yet, strange as it may seem, the men who suffer from war are those whose passions generally lead it on. The king may apply the spark, but the combustion is with the common people. They furnish the army, they themselves become destroyers; and the ravages of war, in the history of the human family, have destroyed more property than it is possible to enter into the thoughts of men ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... escapade, And, lo! your wounded shoulders show it! No manly spark left such a mark— Leastwise he surely ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... and disposition appeared to be perfectly amiable. He began therefore to pay her very serious attention, but here again poor Lionel had only to lament his mistake. He found Claribel quite as untutored as her cousins, without a spark more desire of improvement. He was not likely to meet with a repulse from so gentle a creature, but the acquiescence with which she received his assiduities seemed more the result of habitual passiveness than of reciprocal attachment. She betrayed no emotion of pleasure at his approach, or ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... it made no material difference to her that Fyfe might or might not face ruin, she could not, before her own conscience, evade responsibility. The powder might have been laid, but her folly had touched spark to the fuse, as she saw it. That seared her like a pain far into the night. For every crime a punishment; for every sin a penance. Her world had taught her that. She had never danced; she had only listened to the piper and longed to dance, as nature had fashioned her to ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... refer them to the paper itself. I hope that there is none here, who, considering the subject in the calm light of philosophy, will advance an objection dishonorable to Virginia; that at the moment they are securing the rights of their citizens, an objection is started that there is a spark of hope, that those unfortunate men now held in bondage, may, by the operation of the general government be made free. But if any gentleman be terrified by this apprehension, let him read the system. I ask, and I will ask again and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... another establishment of even older date at Malvern, and a third at Metchley. The grounds of Messrs. Pope and Sons, at King's Norton, are also extensive and worthy of a visit. There are other nurseries at Solihull (Mr. Hewitt's), at Spark hill (Mr. Tomkins'), at Handsworth (Mr. Southhall's), and in several other parts of the suburbs. The Gardeners' Chronicle, the editor of which is supposed to be a good judge, said that the floral arrangement at the opening of the Mason Science College surpassed anything of the kind ever seen ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... speak. She trembled from head to foot; but not a word escaped her. So intense was her anguish, that it awoke a spark of better feeling in the young man; for confronting Rust, he said in a bold voice: 'If you have any questions to ask respecting me, address them ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... of flint meeting steel—a sound that spread along the ranks that lay unseen beyond Prat and Cnut. And behold—a spark! a glow! a little flame that died down, leapt up, caught upon dry grass and bracken, seized upon crackling twigs, flared up high and ever fiercer—a devouring flame, hungry and yellow-tongued that ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... and, Cuvier-like, evolve an entire flock from Colburn's two geese and a half. His memory was prodigious. He could name the Presidents, bound the States and Territories, and rattle off the list of prepositions so fast that you could almost see the spark-shower from his rushing wheels of thought. It was an understood thing among us, when Sam was in his teens, that he should at least enter the Senate; perhaps he would even be President, and scatter offices, like halfpence, among his scampering townsmen. But ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... Dorothy seems to think Harrold delivered the letter, and it was mislaid in London. Perhaps it was this letter, and what was written about it, that caused all those latent feelings of despair and discontent to awaken in the breasts of the two lovers. Was this the spark that loneliness and absence fanned into flame? You shall judge for yourself, reader, ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry |
