"Taper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his room and lighted his taper, made of string dipped in fat, and set himself to study. "I ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... solemn triumphs, some for vain glory had used to throw themselves down by a rope, and so killed themselves, vainly to please other men's eyes. At the battlements of the steeple, sundry times were used their popish anthems, to call upon their Gods, with torch and taper, in the evenings. In the top of one of the pinnacles was Lollards' Tower, where many an innocent soul had been by them cruelly tormented and murdered. In the middest alley was their long censer, reaching from the roof to the ground; as though the Holy ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... under sky,' so any of the fair sex will serve them to write about just as well as another. They take some awkward thing and dress her up in fine words, as children dress up a wooden doll in fine clothes. Perhaps a fine head of hair, a taper waist, or some other circumstance strikes them, and they make the rest out according to their fancies. They have a wonderful knack of supplying deficiencies in the subjects of their idolatry out of the storehouse of their imaginations. They presently translate their ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... into the likeness of vast teocallis to Tonatiuh, over whose apex the struggling rays fell red and presageful. Dulled by the stained glass windows, the light that filled the semi-circular chapel at "The Lilacs", was chill and sombre, until the fair sacristan held a taper over the tall wax candles on each side of the altar, whence a mellow radiance soon streamed over all; flashing along the golden letters under the cross, and upon the gilded pipes of the little organ. On the marble steps in front of the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... a peanut-girl Like little Fauns began to caper; His hair was all in tangled curl, Her tawny legs were bare and taper; And still the gathering larger grew, And gave its pence and crowded nigher, While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew His pipe, ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... 'twas a vision! his hour was not yet, And waking, he turn'd on his pallet of straw, And a form by his side he could never forget, By the pale misty light of a taper he saw. "'Tis I! 'tis thy Winifred!"—softly she said, "Arouse thee, and follow—be bold, never fear! There was danger abroad, but my errand has sped, I promised to save thee—and lo ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... fatigue, and there might still be twenty years of achievement before him, which would justify the thirty years of preparation. That prospect was made the sweeter by a flavor of vengeance against the hasty sneers of Carp & Company; for even when Mr. Casaubon was carrying his taper among the tombs of the past, those modern figures came athwart the dim light, and interrupted his diligent exploration. To convince Carp of his mistake, so that he would have to eat his own words ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... even ten or twelve attendants; and instead of the usual bearers and sextons, hirelings of the lowest of the populace undertook the office for the sake of gain; and accompanied by only a few priests, and often without a single taper, it was borne to the very nearest church, and lowered into the first grave that was not already too full to receive it. Among the middling classes, and especially among the poor, the misery was still greater. Poverty or negligence ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... accede to this request and cry in a chanting voice: "Thus he commands the night and it becomes day, and the extinguished taper and lo! it flames with brightness. If indeed thou art nigh, Oh ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... tree-stump, which, after the mud should be scraped out of it, was evidently intended to contain ink, and a milestone, when a similar operation had taken place, would doubtless contain one pen; a coloured three-cornered hat flung beside the figure upon the ground was obviously designed to hold a taper. ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... Regina took a taper from the Murrhine cup on the mantle, and standing on a chair lighted the cluster of burners shaped like Pompeian lamps, in the chandelier nearest the grate; then went back to the rug before the fire, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... of amazement, of frightened incredulity, upon her face. Some one, a man, had stepped into the dim-lit room and was fumbling with the lock, his eyes fixed upon them, meanwhile, over his shoulder. The light from the windows had faded, the faint illumination from the taper before the shrine was insufficient fully to pierce the gloom. But on the instant of his interruption all triumph and hope, all thoughts of love, fled from Norvin's mind, bursting like iridescent bubbles, at a touch. The flesh along his back ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... necessarily vague and not obviously pertinent remarks to criticism, which may fairly be less diffident, we leave Congreve's life and come to his work, to his 'tawdry playhouse taper,' as Thackeray called it. It is only after the man has appeared that we recognise that he came at the hour; but the nature of the hour is in this case not difficult to be discerned. The habit of playgoing was well-established; the turmoil of the Revolution was over; De Jure was at a comfortable ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... too surely guarded to make escape possible, and his Highness Prince Sobieski would himself incur the Emperor's hostility. So when I had made sure that those five men were joined against me, I twisted that letter into a taper and before their faces lit ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... the hall leaning on Sir George's arm. She scarcely bestowed a look upon any of her servants, but made them one sweeping courtesy in return, and passed on; only Sir George felt her taper ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... Canada, against the military force of the Empire of Great Britain. The sovereign of our mighty realm tolerates in no land any dispute of her authority, and this mad uprising will be crushed as I might stamp put the feeble splutter of a bed-room taper. There are without the intervention of outside force at all, enough of brave and loyal whitemen to overthrow this scurvy miscreant; and my immediate task is to do the little that lies in my power to incite them to their duty. When my work is done, when the plains are cleared of the ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... determination till it was near ten o'clock of the Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing you should be too late—and when the old bookseller, with some grumbling, opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting bedwards) lighted out the relic from his dusty treasures—and when you lugged it home wishing it were twice as cumbersome—and when you presented it to me; and when we were exploring the perfectness of it (collating you called it)—and while I was repairing some of the ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... and backed by the grand amphitheatre of the fells at the other side, whose snowy peaks show faintly against the sky, tinged with the vaporous red of the western light. As you descend towards the margin of the lake, and see Golden Friars, its taper chimneys and slender gables, its curious old inn and gorgeous sign, and over all the graceful tower and spire of the ancient church, at this hour or by moonlight, in the solemn grandeur and stillness of the natural scenery that surrounds it, ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... and approaching his bed, inquired if he wished for a drink; he made a slight movement of his eyelids, as if to thank me, and at that instant the first ray of the rising sun shone in on his bed. Then the eyes lighted up, like a taper that flashes into brightness before it is extinguished—he looked as if saluting this last gift of his Creator; and even as I watched him for a moment, his head fell gently on the side, his kindly heart ceased to beat. He had ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... laboured. The rest of those artificial helps are summed up by the Jesuit And. Schottus. I remember that Monsieur Huygens (author of the pendulum), who brought up the learned father of that incomparable youth Monsieur de Zulichem, who used to prescribe to me the benefit of his little wax taper (a type whereof is, with the history of it, in some of our Registers) for night elucubrations, preferable to all other candle or lamp light whatsoever. And because it explodes all glaring of the flame, which by no means ought to dart upon the eyes, it seems very much to establish ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... Cathedral. The warden of the Fleet was there, and the knight marshal, and the tipstaffs, and "all the company they could make," "with bills and glaives;" and in the midst of these armed officials, six men marching in penitential dresses, one carrying a lighted taper five pounds' weight, the others with symbolic fagots, signifying to the lookers-on the fate which their crimes had earned for them, but which this time, in mercy, was remitted. One of these was Barnes; the other five were "Stillyard men," undistinguishable by any other ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... of those we have loved repose. Where the heart has laid down what it loved most, there it is desirous of laying itself down. No sculptured marble, no enduring monument, no honorable inscription, no ever-burning taper that would drive away the darkness of the tomb, can soften our sense of the reality of death, and hallow to our feelings the ground which is to cover us, like the consciousness that we shall sleep, dust to dust, with the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... also the name of Hedge Taper, and used to be called Torch, because the stalks were dipped in suet, and burnt for giving light at funerals and other gatherings. "It is a plant," says the Grete Herball, "whereof is made a manner of lynke if ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... was but the light of a wax taper flickering over it; the strange, solemn beauty of that serene brow and those quiet ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... didn't mean to smoke only this once. That is, I didn't mean to at first, but after I got to smoking I thought it would be a good plan to taper off." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... lingered, noticing every detail, the blue dress, the lighted taper, the halo round the head, and she was loath to leave, even when her father came to the door, and her ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... land in the northern regions, while in the south is a vast expanse of ocean. In the north continental masses form an almost continuous belt around the icy sea, while in the southern hemisphere the continents taper down into a broad extent of frigid waters. In the north the plains of Siberia and of the Hudson's Bay territories, warmed by the sunbeams of summer, become at that season centers of radiating heat, while the antarctic lands, of small extent, isolated in the midst of a polar ocean and chilled ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... of their marriage, Perdita presented Raymond with a lovely girl. It was curious to trace in this miniature model the very traits of its father. The same half-disdainful lips and smile of triumph, the same intelligent eyes, the same brow and chestnut hair; her very hands and taper fingers resembled his. How very dear she was to Perdita! In progress of time, I also became a father, and our little darlings, our playthings and delights, called forth a thousand new and ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... of them went to the said place. . . . And on the day of the Fete-Dieu, which was the 11th day of the said month of June, the king went in procession, most devoutly, with the parish of St. Paul and all the clergy, to the spot where was the said image. He himself carried a lighted waxen taper, bareheaded, with very great reverence, having with him the band and hautbois with several clarions and trumpets, which made a glorious show, so melodiously did they play. And with him were the Cardinal of Lorraine, and several prelates and great lords, and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the simple hall of the cloister: a single taper, tall and wan, burned on the oak board. The abbess led Edith by the hand, and at a sign from the King, withdrew. So, once more upon earth, the betrothed ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of mighty pow'r, Charmer of an idle hour, Object of my warm desire, Lip of wax, and eye of fire: And thy snowy taper waist, With my finger gently brac'd; And thy pretty swelling crest, With my little stopper prest, And the sweetest bliss of blisses, Breathing from thy balmy kisses. Happy thrice, and thrice agen, Happiest he of happy ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... see them afterwards?" Charles resumed, in a sharp, eager whisper. "In our dreams, man? Or when the watchman cries, and we awake, and the monks are singing lauds at St. Germain, and—and the taper ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... admire the paintings of the Bologna school. I hastened to escape from the sad solitude of Ferrara, which in the age of Caesar was still more desolate. The spectacle of Venice afforded some hours of astonishment; the university of Padua is a dying taper: but Verona still boasts her amphitheatre, and his native Vicenza is adorned by the classic architecture of Palladio: the road of Lombardy and Piedmont (did Montesquieu find them without inhabitants?) led me back to Milan, Turin, and the passage ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... was I to break it to them? Should I send Bingo in, with a card tied to his neck and my regrets and compliments? That was too much like a present of game. Ought I not to carry him in myself? I would wreathe him in the best crape, I would put on black for him; the Curries would hardly consider a taper and a white sheet, or sack-cloth and ashes, an excessive form of atonement, but I could not grovel to quite such an ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... 2.20. From five to ten seconds, then, in about a hundred and sixty is the whole range of the maxima of the present race of trotting horses. The same thing is seen in the running of men. Many can run a mile in five minutes; but when one comes to the fractions below, they taper down until somewhere about 4.30 the maximum is reached. Averages of masses have been studied more than averages of maxima and minima. We know from the Registrar-General's Reports, that a certain number of children—say from one to two dozen—die every year in England from drinking hot ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... is the taper waist— Shapeless grows the shapely limb, And although securely laced, Spreading is the figure trim! Stouter than I used to be, Still more corpulent grow I— There will be too much of me In the ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... a bearing in heraldry made in the form of a spindle, with its yarn or thread wound about it. Fusils are longer than lozenges, and taper ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... felt responsible for the confidence granted to her thus upon credit, and a strong ambition was excited in her mind to justify the high opinion her superior friend had formed of her. She determined to become all that she was believed to be; as the flame of a taper suddenly rises towards what is held over it, her spirit mounted to the point to which her ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... village church among the trees, Where first our marriage-vows were given, With merry peals shall swell the breeze And point with taper spire ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... watch had passed, and still sweet slumber shed Its magic power around the hero's head— When forth Tahmineh came—a damsel held An amber taper, which the gloom dispelled, And near his pillow stood; in beauty bright, The monarch's daughter struck his wondering sight. Clear as the moon, in glowing charms arrayed, Her winning eyes the light of heaven displayed; Her cypress form entranced the gazer's view, Her waving curls, ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... up where others sat, and blotting out the prospect of half the church with her flaring brim and flaunting feathers. The worshippers came and went, and while the monk preached and reposed a man crept dizzyingly round the cornice with a taper at the end of a long pole lighting the chandeliers, while two other men on the floor kindled the candles before the altars. As soon as their work was completed, the monk, as if he had been preaching against time, sat definitely down and ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... knobs of golden blossoms. The milk-weed, (I see a great gorgeous creature of gamboge and black lighting on one as I write,) is in flower, with its delicate red fringe; and there are profuse clusters of a feathery blossom waving in the wind on taper stems. I see lots of these and much else in every direction, as I saunter or sit. For the last half hour a bird has persistently kept up a simple, sweet, melodious song, from the bushes. (I have a positive conviction that some of ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... be there The funeral dirge to sing, Who day and night by the taper's light Their aid to me ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... which led to her apartments. Esmond stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce seemed to see until she was gone, and then her image was impressed upon him and remained forever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating, the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and her shining golden hair. He went to his own room and to bed, but could not get to sleep until daylight, and ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... that women and girls above thirteen years of age use the weed in the form of quids. A magnificent Hebe, arrayed in satin and flashing in diamonds, "puts you back with one delicate hand, while with the fair taper fingers of the other she takes the tobacco out of her mouth previous to your saluting her." A European visiting Paraguay for the first time is rather astonished at the conduct of the fair beauty, but such is the force of custom that the squeamishness of the new-comer is soon overcome, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... backward down the steep stairway up which I had sprung with such furious precipitation. Something white lay in a corner on the seventh step from the top. Curious to see what it was, I descended cautiously and with some reluctance; it was the half of a thick waxen taper, such as are used in the Catholic ritual at the burial of the dead. No doubt it had been thrown down there by some careless acolyte, to save himself the trouble of carrying it after the service had ended. I looked at it meditatively. ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... this story: I will put it into rough English for you.—"I couldn't help laughing to hear one fellow bawling out, so that he might be sure to be heard, a promise to Saint Christopher of Paris—the monstrous statue in the great church there—that he would give him a wax taper as big as himself. 'Mind what you promise!' said an acquaintance that stood near him, poking him with his elbow; 'you couldn't pay for it, if you sold all your things at auction.' 'Hold your tongue, you donkey!' said the fellow,—but softly, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... confidence—passed quickly over his face, the light in his eyes went out, and he rose from his stool with a short, dissatisfied sigh, which was repeated once or twice as he put away his work and arranged his tools. He made the rounds of the workshop, looked to the fastenings of the windows, lighted a taper, and then extinguished the lamp. He threw a loose overcoat over his shoulders without passing his arms through the sleeves, and went out into the street. Glancing up at the windows of his house opposite, he saw that the lights ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... key-hole and saw the two sisters come into their room, preceded by the polite Don Francisco, who carried a taper, and, after lighting a night-lamp, bade them good night and retired. Then my two beauties, their door once locked, sat down on the sofa and completed their night toilet, which, in that fortunate climate, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... he locked his shop and went home, and in the night there came to the bazar an artful thief disguised in the habit of the merchant, and pulling out keys from his sleeve, said to the watchman of the market, "Light me this wax-candle." The watchman took the taper and went to light it,—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the taper-stars, the altars gay; And those who crouch and pray; The white-robed crowd in close monastic stole, Who hither fled the world To find the world again within ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... —that you may look in vain for verification of ethnological assertions.... No: the heel does not protrude;—the foot is not flat, but finely arched;—the extremities are not large;—all the limbs taper, all the muscles are developed; and prognathism has become so rare that months of research may not yield a single striking case of it.... No: this is a special race, peculiar to the island as are the shapes of its peaks,—a mountain race; and mountain races are comely.... Compare ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... pyramid some sixty feet in height. Old King Carnival, in effigy, was placed at the apex of the pyramid, and the interior was filled with comestibles that would set the whole erection in a blaze as soon as a taper was applied. When the signal was given, bells pealed and trumpets sounded glad farewell to the customs of the ancient carnival. The procession set forth from San Marco on Palm Sunday (led by white-robed children with garlands on their heads), and went round the city till it came to the cathedral. ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... coming and the dismal images of his fancy, to produce a real rapture of gloomy expectation... The clock struck twelve, the owl screeched from the ruined battlement, the door was opened by the sexton, who, by the light of a glimmering taper, conducted the despairing lover to a ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... to place it upon the finger of the lady, he desired him to observe that it was a symbol of marriage.—During the whole of the service two other acolytes were stationed in front of the bride and bridegroom, each holding in his hands a lighted taper; and near the conclusion, while they knelt before the altar, a pall of flowered brocade was stretched behind them, as emblematic of their union. Holy water was not forgotten; for, in almost every rite of the Catholic church, the mystic ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... written it. She held it to the taper, and then flinging it on the hearth, silently watched spark by spark die out. Long did she stand there, her head against the mantel-piece, her eyes fixed upon the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... the side rails and posts, first put on a coat of glue on the ends of the side rails and let it dry. This will fill up the pores in the end grain of the wood which will make a strong joint when finally glued together. The dowel pins are made 3/8 in. square with a slight taper at the ends. These can be easily forced into the holes, when the ends of the side rails are coated with glue and ready to be put together, by clamps pressing on the outside ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part I • H. H. Windsor
... streets, and past the harbored ships The Night's young handmaid, Twilight, walked with me. A spent moon leaned inertly o'er the sea; A few, pale, phantom stars were in eclipse. There was the house, My Ladye's sea-girt bower All draped in gloom, save for one taper's glow, Which lit the path, where willing feet would go. There was the house, and this the ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... hall. Taking a solitary light, which stood on the supper-table, I descended the winding stair-case; but before I had reached the vaulted passage leading to the statue of the blessed Jeanne of France, a blast of wind extinguished my taper. I hastily remounted the stairs, to light it again at the chimney; but judge of my feelings, when, on arriving at the entrance to the armory, I beheld the Seneschal and his lady, who had descended from their frames, and seated themselves on each side ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... necessary select two good 20-foot pieces, 3 inches wide and 1 1/2 inches thick, and one 10-foot long, of the same thickness and width. Plane off the bottom sides of the 10-foot strip, beginning about two feet back from each end, and taper them so the strip will be about 3/4 inch thick at the extreme ends. Lay the two 20-foot beams end to end, and under the joint thus made place the 10-foot strip, with the planed-off ends downward. The joint of the 20-foot pieces ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... altar. At length a fine psalm was sung, the chief door was thrown open, the high altar and its splendid decorations were displayed, and from the side doors issued forth the whole troop of officiating priests bearing the bread and wine for the sacrament, preceded by one man with a lighted taper, and the high priest coming in the rear with a silver chalice; the procession is closed by a priest with a salver on his head. Again they all entered the sanctuary, the bread and wine were placed on the altar, and the priest kneeling, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... by night in a great saloon of the palace, which lay between the king's bedchamber and that of the queen, and one night, amongst others, he saw the king come forth of his chamber, wrapped in a great mantle, with a lighted taper in one hand and a little wand in the other, and making for the queen's chamber, strike once or twice upon the door with the wand, without saying aught, whereupon it was incontinent opened to him and the taper taken from his hand. Noting this and having seen the king return after the same fashion, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... instant, and then extending her fair and taper hand took it. I dared not look at her as she did so, but a proud swelling triumph at my heart ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... all the yeare. When every one receyved hath this odour, great and small, Then one takes up the pan with Coales, and Franckensence, and all, Another takes the loafe, whom all the rest do follow here, And round about the house they go, with torch or taper clere, That neither bread nor meat do want, nor witch with dreadful charme Have powre to hurt their children, or to do their cattell harme. There are, that three nightes onely do perfourme this foolish geare, To this intent, and thinke themselves in safetie all the yeare. ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... Sir Isaac Newton's papers, by his little dog "Diamond" upsetting a lighted taper upon his desk, by which the elaborate calculations of many years were in a moment destroyed, is a well-known anecdote, and need not be repeated: it is said that the loss caused the philosopher such profound grief that it seriously injured his health, and impaired his understanding. ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... the taper Bows toward her; and would under-peep her lids, To see th' enclosed lights, now canopied Under these windows, white and azure, lac'd With ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... glow faded in the West and Night settled down, he came swinging sturdily across the street, his ladder hung on his right shoulder, his wax taper in his left hand. Quickly, unerringly he placed the ladder against the iron post that sent its metallic ring into the clear night air as the ladder struck, and was three rounds up almost before it settled into position. Then a quick ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright
... back towards him. By the white light of the little taper his face appeared absolutely ghastly, and his heavy eyelids drooped in a way that ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... in a livelier tone than usual, but it was like the last kindling of the taper in its oil-less socket — for instantly the paleness of death overspread his face, and after a feeble effort to vomit, with convulsions, the natural effect of great loss of blood, he sunk ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... replied, with her small taper finger on her lip, "it's the fairies I'm after—the 'good people,' nurse Bridget has told me so much about. I am sure there must be some of them in this still, shady place. I've found their 'rings' in ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... death is but a groom Which brings a taper to the outward room, Whence thou spy'st first a little glimmering light; And after brings it nearer to thy sight: For such approaches doth heaven ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... old, Elspie Murray "laid the child in her bosom and became nurse unto it." But for her, the life of our Olive Rothesay—with all its influences, good or evil, small or great, as yet unknown—would have expired like a faint-flickering taper. ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... morning, returning to my quarters at Mr Finnie's in time for their six o'clock dinner. On the day week after my first visit she was out of Fisher's hands, and as I left her late that afternoon I thought I had never seen a prettier little craft. Her tall, slim, taper spars had a jaunty little rake aft, and were encumbered with only so much rigging as was absolutely necessary to prevent them from going over the side. Her yards, though light, were of immense spread, and the new suit of sails with which she had been fitted fore and aft, and ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... precipitous morass to the river's brink. A slender pine-tree spanned the screaming foam and bent midway to touch the water. The surge beat upon the taper trunk and gave it a rhythmical swaying motion, while the feet of the packers had worn smooth its wave-washed surface. Eighty feet it stretched in ticklish insecurity. Frona stepped upon it, felt it move beneath her, heard the bellowing of the water, saw the ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... these cigars? They're some I've just got out from London, but I'm not quite satisfied with them myself," he grumbled, pushing toward me the silver box and its attendant taper. ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... beneath them, there are four little calcareous beads (as may be known by their dissolving with effervescence in any acid, and breaking easily under the needle); these are the 3/2000ths of an inch in their larger external diameter; they are rather deeply imbedded in the outer integument, and taper a little downwards ending in a concave terminal point, into which a minute tubulus enters, like those passing into and through the valves of ordinary Cirripedia: along the axis of imbedment, they are often 4/2000ths of an inch in length. These calcareous beads or rudimental ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... above. Claudius Ptolemaeus, an excellent describer of the world, has made mention of it in the second book of his work, saying: "There is a great island situated in the surge of the northern Ocean, Scandza by name, in the shape of a juniper leaf with bulging sides that taper down to a point at a long end." Pomponius Mela also makes mention of it as situated in the Codan Gulf of the sea, with Ocean lapping ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... weary pilgrim into the castle hall, Where brightly burned the fire, and many a taper tall. On a seat he sat him down, and made him right good cheer. His eyes around the hall cast the hero without fear." Heldenbuch ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... held sacred by the Hindoos and freely used at their religious ceremonies. Its leaves are very long and taper to a ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Exorcistes, serued to commaunde euille sprites oute of menne, and in token therof, had a lesse booke giuen them. The Acholite, had the bearyng and the orderyng of the Tapers, Candelstickes, and Cruettes at the Altare: and therfore had a Candelsticke, a Taper, and two emptie Cruorettes deliuered hym. The Subdeacon, mighte take the offring, and handle the Chalice, and the Patine, carie theim to the Altare, and fro the Altare, and giue the Deacon Wine and water, out of the Cruettes. And ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... taken to avoid too great thickness and too much spring in the pressure strips, or the plate glass may be broken by excessive pressure. The strips used are about five-eighths of an inch thick at the middle, and taper to about three-eighths of an inch at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... like suns, did seem to light The beauties of her face, Suffusing all her forehead white And cheeks of rosy grace, Her bosom swelled to pillows large, Till her so taper waist Scarce able seemed to bear the charge ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... dark room with perfect ease, struck a match, lighted a taper and went swiftly and softly about. He touched the taper to one candle after another,—they seemed to be everywhere,—and won from the dark a faint twilight, that yielded slowly to a growing mellow splendor of light. I have often watched the acolytes in dim cathedrals of ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... that's all gone off," cried the boy, drawing a deep long breath, as he eagerly looked round the deck and up at the rigging of the smart schooner, whose raking taper masts and white canvas gave her quite the look of ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... Major Noah, has suffered himself to be cajoled by that most beguiling of all beguiling little divinities, Miss Walter, of The Transcript. We have been looking all over her article with the aid of a taper, to see if we could discover a single syllable of truth in it—and really blush to acknowledge that we cannot. The adorable creature has been telling a parcel of fibs about us, by way of revenge ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... ray of dawn the mistress arose and went to her. The bed was empty, the nurse asleep. Following the instinct of the moment, the lady hastened along the quiet corridors to where the night taper showed the still form of the devoted veteran stretched out on the thick, soft carpet, her cold fingers clasping the ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... so long as to leave a tolerably large wick, blow it out; a dense smoke, which is composed of hydrogen and carbon, will immediately rise. Then, if another candle, or lighted taper, be applied to the utmost verge of this smoke, a very strange phenomenon will take place. The flame of the lighted candle will be conveyed to that just blown out, as if it were borne on a cloud, or, rather, it will seem ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... day would have been complete had his mother been present, when in the presence of the old priest who had instructed Adrienne in her catechism, Sulpice stood forward and took by its velvet shield the taper that seemed so light to him, and awkwardly held the wafer that the priest extended to him. It was a great event in Grenoble when the leader of the Liberal Party, who headed the list at the last election, was seen being married like a believing bourgeois. The organ ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... old man who watched our coming; "tarry here and honour my roof." Another came up, shook us by the hand, his eye sparkling with kind feelings. A third took our mules by the bridles and led us to his own door, when half-a-dozen pretty girls, with flashing dark eyes and long taper fingers, insisted on undoing our leggings and taking off ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... he had forgotten her. She felt, too, that this man was gripped by the desert influence more fiercely even than she was, and that he must have a stronger imagination, a greater force of projection even than she had. Where she bore a taper he lifted a ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... with details with little taper-finger touches of nicety, but she could not judge as well as he of generalities and the final scope of combinations. It was doubtful if Abigail ever fairly appreciated ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the closet. It is one thing to read the Iliad at Sigaeum and on the tumuli, or by the springs with Mount Ida above, and the plain and rivers and Archipelago around you; and another to trim your taper over it in a snug library—this I know. Were the early and rapid progress of what is called Methodism to be attributed to any cause beyond the enthusiasm excited by its vehement faith and doctrines (the truth or error of which I presume neither to canvass nor to question), I should venture ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... pleasurable sensation of being still alive he found himself standing upright upon an uneven floor of masonry. He thrust out his arms and touched sides of mossy rock. Then just before him a pale flame flickered. The old man had kindled a little taper that hardly did more than make shallow hollows in the darkness ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... the wildness of the horrible ceremony, by their long and unearthly tones. The countenances of these human tigers were livid with suppressed rage; their knit brows, compressed lips, and kindled eyes, fell under the dim light of the taper, with an expression calculated to sicken any heart not ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... all, it was more than I had ever before held in my hand at once. But what was a paltry thousand, aye a paltry ten thousand, to a man's pride? I bit off the end of my cigar, creased the check into a taper, and struck a match. I watched it burn and burn. I struck another. I held it within an inch of the check, but for the life of me I could ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... sparks, Retires, content to quake, so they be warmed. The man feels least, as more inured than she To winter, and the current in his veins More briskly moved by his severer toil; Yet he, too, finds his own distress in theirs. The taper soon extinguished, which I saw Dangled along at the cold finger's end Just when the day declined, and the brown loaf Lodged on the shelf, half-eaten, without sauce Of sav'ry cheese, or butter costlier still, Sleep seems their only refuge. For alas, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... his sleeves, which were long, He had twenty-four packs, Which was coming it strong, Yet I state but the facts; And we found on his nails, which were taper, What ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... not so well, and so clear in her intellects, [so much alive, she used to say,] if she exceeded this proportion. If she slept not, she chose to rise sooner. And in winter had her fire laid, and a taper ready burning to light it; not loving to give trouble to the servants, 'whose harder work, and later hours of going to bed,' she used to ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... finely rounded limbs half buried in billowy cushions; the attitude is the very poetry of repose, languid it may be, but glowing life thrills beneath that flower-soft exterior, from the varying cheek and flashing eye, to the henna-dyed taper fingers, that capriciously play with her rosary of beads. The blaze of sunshine is round her kiosk, but she sits in the softened shadow so dear to the painter's eye. And so she dreams away the warm hours in such a calm of thought within, and sight or sound without, that she starts when ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... liveries, and the fifty Comandadori in their flowing blue robes and red caps; then follow musicians, and the squires of the Doge in black velvet; then the guards of the Doge, two chancellors, the secretary of the Pregadi, a deacon clad in purple and bearing a wax taper, six canons, three parish priests in their sacerdotal robes, and the Doge's chaplain dressed in crimson. The grand chancellor is known by his crimson vesture. Two squires bear the Doge's chair and the cushion of cloth of gold. And the Doge—the representative, and not the master ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... a dear friend and lover of the PIPE; He us'd to say, one pipe of Kirkman's best Gave life a zest. To him 'twas meat, and drink, and physic, To see the friendly vapour Curl round his midnight taper, And the black fume Clothe all the room, In clouds as dark as science metaphysic. So still he smok'd, and drank, and crack'd his joke; And, had he single tarried He might have smok'd, and still grown old in smoke: ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... oneself on the straw, covering the head with handkerchief or towel to isolate it from the searching stench of fermenting straw, and sleep. Fouillade, master of his time to-day, being on neither guard nor fatigues, decides. He lights a taper to seek among his belongings, and unwinds the coils of his comforter, and we see his emaciated shape, sculptured in black relief, folding and ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... looking deep into her own, and while she gave him back look for look he seemed incapable of continuing. But she turned away, somewhat confused, and slowly he continued: "One time I discovered that in us all there is a secret temple, with a very small but highly prized altar lighted by a tiny taper flame, where we keep just our own little treasures—our wonderful selves." She glanced up in some surprise, but this time he was staring at the ground. "In some, its door is studiously, carefully locked; in others, its paths ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... moth, which, with a sense profound Of all unholy presence, augurs truly; And with a grim significance flits round The taper burning bluely. ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... costumes, and was full of all manner of dreadful accessories; the stage smile, the made-up beauty, the tortured hair: but there was no difficulty in recognising it. A trembling like palsy seized upon him as he gazed at it: then he lit his taper once more, and with a prayer upon his quivering lips burnt it. The ring he twisted up in paper, and carried out with him in his hand till he reached the muddy, dark-flowing river, where he dropped it in. Thus all relics and vestiges of her, poor creature, God forgive her! ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... heartless way in which it speaks of Jean Armour. 'I am dissatisfied with her—I cannot endure her! I, while my heart smote me for the profanity, tried to compare her with my Clarinda. 'Twas setting the expiring glimmer of a farthing taper beside the cloudless glory of the meridian sun. Here was tasteless insipidity, vulgarity of soul, and mercenary fawning; there, polished good sense, heaven-born genius, and the most generous, the most delicate, the most tender passion. ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... all secondary care of teacher, of friend, or parent, must be baseless and fruitless; if, lastly, the motions of the soul transcend in worth those of the animal functions, nay, give to them their sole value; then truly are there such powers; and the image of the dying taper may be recalled and contemplated, though with no sadness in the nerves, no disposition to tears, no unconquerable sighs, yet with a melancholy in the soul, a sinking inward into ourselves from thought to ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... over; seething and fuming and frothing and foaming and yet remaining so cool and clear that a quick fancy would discover thousands of banished fountains under that agitated and impatient surface. Both ends of the island are as much alike as its sides are dissimilar. They taper off almost to a distinct bladepoint of rock, in which a mere doll's flagstaff of a pine-tree grows; then comes a small detached rock, with a small evergreen on it, then a still smaller rock, with a tuft of grass, then a line of partially submerged stones, ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... become quite well and strong again, I wondered how the sailors could really like such stuff; but many of them had a jug of it, besides the Greenlander, which they brought along to sea with them, to taper off with, as they called it. But this tapering off did not last very long, for the Jamaica was all gone on the second day, and the jugs were tossed overboard. I wonder ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... their ease, and the whirr of the lathe slept not; the latter was all patterns, tapes, hooks and eyes, whalebone, cuttings of muslin, poplin and paper; clouds of lining-muslin, snakes of piping; skeins, shreds; and the floor literally sown with pins, escaped from the fingers of the fair, those taper fingers so typical of the minds of their owners: or they have softness, suppleness, nimbleness, adroitness, and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... are twelve in number. They are all absolutely plane, all spread out horizontally, and they go on increasing in length from the exterior to the middle. They are quite wide at the point of insertion, increase in diameter at the middle, and afterward taper to a sharp point. Altogether they form a tail of extraordinary length and width which the bird holds slightly elevated, so as to cause it to describe a graceful curve, and the point of which touches the soil. The beak, whose ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... spoke, she rang the bell once, twice, thrice. The silvery tinkle had scarcely died away the third time before the door opened silently; I saw no one, but she drew me into a narrow hall or passage. A taper in an embossed holder was burning on a chest. She took it up, and telling me to follow her led the way lightly up the stairs, and into a room, half-parlour, half-bedroom—such a room as I had never seen before. It was richly ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... Peas on tiptoe for a flight, With wings of gentle flush: o'er delicate white, And taper fingers catching at all things To bind them all about ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... out, and the gloom of the room was only lightened by a single bed-room taper, which, as it stood near the door, only served to render palpable the darkness of the further end of the chamber. For half an hour Lord Cashel walked to and fro, anxious, wretched, and in doubt, instead of going to his room. How he wished that Lord ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... near the Washington Monument, sending up a huge spout of dust that veiled it from his eyes. Instinctively Dick shot toward the scene. Slowly the dust subsided, and then a yell of exultation broke from Dick's lips. The noble shaft still stood, a slim taper pointing to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... passed through the various branches of his family, some dating back to 1681 and 1702, and methinks I can see Lovecraft poring over these time-stained bits o' bookish lore as the monks of old followed the printed lines with quivering fingers in the taper's uncertain, flickering light. For Lovecraft appeals to me as a bookworm—one of those lovable mortals whose very existence seems to hang on the numbered pages of a heavy, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... splendour—it was the pre-trapeze age, and we were caught by mild marvels, even if a friendly good faith in them, something sweet and sympathetic, was after all a value, whether of their own humanity, their own special quality, or only of our innocence, never to be renewed; but I light this taper to the initiators, so to call them, whom I remembered, when we had left them behind, as if they had given us a silver key to carry off and so to refit, after long years, to sweet names never thought of from then till now. Signor ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... seen Alice then he would not for a moment have doubted the nature of her feelings toward himself. She did not cry out, nor faint, but her face turned white as the dress she wore, while her hands pressed so tightly together, that her long, taper nails left the impress ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... Galen, That to their books put med'cines all in, But known this secret, they had never (Of which they will be guilty ever) Been murderers of so much paper, Or wasted many a hurtless taper; No Indian drug had e'er been famed, Tobacco, sassafras not named; Ne yet of guacum one small stick, sir, Nor Raymund Lully's great elixir. Ne had been known the Danish Gonswart, Or Paracelsus, with ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... constitute the flutings of the Doric column. Its derivations from the Minoan and Mycenaean columns seems most improbable. There are two essential parts in the Doric column, the shaft and the capital (the Greeks did not use any base for this order). The Minoan columns taper downwards instead of upwards, an utterly unconstructional form, and though in the palace of Knossos and at Tiryns columns of this shape appear to have been used to carry lintels, the stone columns on either side of ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... but the most striking point of the speaker's appearance was the extraordinary brilliancy of his complexion, which shamed with its whiteness that of all fair ladies round, save where open on each cheek a bright red spot gave warning, as did the long thin neck and the taper hands, of sad possibilities, perhaps not far off; possibilities which all saw with an inward sigh, except she whose doting glances, as well as her resemblance to the fair youth, proclaimed her at once ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... mechanical pursuits to which he had hitherto devoted his life, he wore, like Milton's Adam, his wavy hair down to his shoulders. In his youth, it had been thick and curling; now it was thinner and straighter, yet curled where it lay. His hands were small, with the taper fingers that indicate the artist, while his thumb was that of the artizan, square at the tip, with the first joint curved a good deal back. That they were hard and something discoloured was not for Dorothy to wonder at, when she remembered what ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... print she wore revealed her smooth, slender throat; her sleeves were rolled up above her elbows and the hand which guided the bow of her violin was perhaps the most beautiful thing about her, perfect in shape and texture, firm and white, with rosy-nailed taper fingers. One long, drooping plume of lilac blossom lightly touched her hair and cast a wavering shadow over the ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... just described, began, and all the rest of the preacher's oratory was dumb show. The body was at length deposited in the coffin, and the groaning and shrieking of the assembled multitude ceased. A solemn funeral ceremony took place: every respectable person received a great wax taper to carry in the procession: the coffin after being carried all round was deposited in the church: the people dispersed; and the great day of Passion Week was brought to ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... upon her face, she took up a small taper, and lighted it; and, holding Mr. Copley's paper by one corner, she raised it to the flame and converted it into ashes. One line escaped. A fragment of the paper was scorched but not consumed, and as she took it up to make ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... beg pardon! Have you been long here?" said the most soft and insinuating voice, while the speaker passed his taper fingers across his brow, as if to dissipate the traces of ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... about eleven years old. The appearance of this child was a new source of interest. She was a little fairy figure, with a skin as white as the driven snow—light auburn hair, and large blue eyes; her dress was scanty, and showed a large portion of her taper legs. She hastened to Nattee, and folding her arms across her breast, stood still, saying meekly, ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... goat, and on his chubby cheeks the delicate tints of a shiny crusty Beaucaire roll. On all the grand Alpine excursions it was to him that the Club entrusted its banner, and his childish soul had vowed to the P. C. A. a fanatical worship, the burning, silent adoration of a taper consuming itself before an altar in the ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... has two calcareous jaws, hemispherical, flat before, and angular behind. The shell is taper, winding, penetrating ships and submarine wood, and was brought from India into Europe, Linnei System. Nat. p. 1267. The Tarieres, or sea-worms, attack and erode ships with such fury, and in such numbers, as often greatly to ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... stirred, conscious no doubt of a presence, or disturbed by the light of the taper on his eyelids. The doctor retired on tiptoe to the door which he noiselessly closed; then he went back to his room, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... sight of a man in his shirt-sleeves. Which shows that it is exceedingly unsafe to judge by appearances,—of a woman, especially. The slender figure showed that the physical indications in the delicately rounded arm, the taper fingers, and shapely feet were justified by the proportionate development of the rest of her anatomy. Nature had been gentle rather than generous. Mlle. Fouchette was in demand for angels ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... showed us the hole in the rock of Calvary, where the cross was planted. Close beside it was the fissure produced by the earthquake which followed the Crucifixion. But, to my eyes, aided by the light of the dim wax taper, it was no violent rupture, such as an earthquake would produce, and the rock did not appear to be the same as that of which Jerusalem is built. As we turned to leave, a monk appeared with a bowl of sacred ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... spirits. "My child, my beloved child!" exclaimed the weeping mother, "fear not, God is merciful and will accept your sincere abhorrence of your fault. I have this day offered in your name a fine wax taper to your patroness, St. Anne, who will, no doubt, intercede for you." "No, no!" replied the unhappy girl, "there is no longer any hope for me; and the torments I now suffer are but the preludes to those which I am doomed to endure everlastingly." ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... been faintly tinged with rouge, the locks parted, perfumed, and curled, the waist duly compressed, a slight addition, if necessary, made to the breadth of the hips, and the feet confined by the most taper and diminutive chausserie imaginable), will just serve to give to the tout ensemble that one touch of the masculine character which, perhaps, it may be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... of the lip of the ripple just under— The half-awake nightingale's dream in the yews— Came up from the water, and down from the wonder Of shadowy foliage, drowsed with the dews,— Unsteady the firefly's taper—unsteady The poise of the stars, and their light in the tide, As it struggled and writhed in caress of the eddy, As love in the billowy breast ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... the running of loose pulleys and their belts, controlled from any point. Send for catalogue. Taper Sleeve Pulley ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... who throws a flickering taper's ray To light departing feet, my shadowed way You brighten with your faith. Faith makes the man Alas, that my poor foolish age outran Its early trust in God! The death of art And progress follows, when the world's hard heart Casts out religion. 'Tis the human brain Men worship now, ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... and some white flowers placed on his breast; the lid was drawn back a little, and on it were placed his Prayer-book, his Bible (open at I John iv.), a photograph of him in a frame, and a single wax taper. Then the folding doors leading into the back school-room were opened and the boys gathered around and sang the hymn he loved, "Safe in the arms of Jesus." Scarcely an eye was dry, and many a sigh was heaved, and many a sob broke the silence of the apartment ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... people did not recive us at first with the same cordiality of those above, they appeare to be the Same nation Speak the Same language with a little curruption of maney words Dress and fish in the Same way, all of whome have pierced noses and the men when Dressed ware a long taper'd piece of Shell or beed put through the nose-this part of the river is furnished with fine Springs which either rise high up the Sides of the hills or on the bottom near the river and run into the river. the hills are high and rugid a fiew scattering trees to be Seen on them either ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... burning, side chapels pass unnoticed. If you are looking for inscriptions or want to admire the old master's picture, with which every church claims to be endowed, you must get the verger with his taper. Altars are gaudily decorated and statues bejeweled and be (artificial) flowered in Hispano-Italian fashion. The mairie, reconstructed from an ancient palace or castle, was more interesting. Beside the mairie a medieval square tower, which may have been a donjon, was occupied ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... resembling a butcher's cleaver in miniature. Nature generally denies him beard, so he shaves what a sailor would term the fore and after part of his head. He reaps his hirsute crop dry, using no lather. His cue is pieced out by silken braid, so interwoven as gradually to taper into a slim tassel, something like a Missouri mule-driver's "black snake" whip-lash. To lose this cue is to lose caste and standing among his fellows. No misfortune for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... taper in yon lofty ha', Yet nought now shines bright where her shade doesna fa'; My Peggy was pure as the dew-drops o' May, But Peggy, sweet Peggy, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... all she could think of to persuade her daughter to alter her decision, and, when this failed, to extract the answer to the momentous conundrum, which Edna knew her mother too well to confide to her, so that at length she was obliged to take up her bedroom taper and retreat, with a Parthian prediction that such folly would be bitterly repented ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... asleep again. When he awoke it was dark outside, but on the table by his cot was a lighted taper and a dish of fruit. He ate of the fine grapes and pears, then rose and opened his door. In the small room beyond a young priest was seated at a table, bending over a large leaf of parchment, to which he was applying a pen with quick delicate strokes. He ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... the wooden handle is fitted, and made fast by small screws passing through holes in the sides of the metal, and then into the wood itself. The wood, for about a foot above the barb, should be about three quarters of an inch in diameter, and from thence gradually taper to about a quarter of an inch in thickness until the end of ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... sufficiently reverence the religious society. It were to be wished, perhaps, that some of the secrets of electricity were improved enough to be piously and usefully applied to this purpose. If we beheld a shekinah, or divine presence, like the flame of a taper, on the heads of those who receive the imposition of hands, we might believe that they receive the Holy Ghost at the same time. But as we have no reason to believe what superstitious, credulous, ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... were about three times as large and coarse as those of the boy who had carried the thrush before, but they seemed to him three times more light and tender—they were handy and kind, and this goes farther than taper fingers. ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... with a stiff, limy frame and (as in all sessile animals) a number of waving arms round the mouth. In the next geological age the stalk will become a long and flexible arrangement of muscles and plates of chalk, the cup will be more perfectly compacted of chalky plates, and the five arms will taper and branch until they have an almost feathery appearance; and the animal will be considered a "sea-lily" by the ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... give up thy nature to fly out and mingle among men. Then the years that would have belonged to thee will be contracted to half the span of the ephemeral fly, that lives but a day: one night, and thy life-taper shall be blown out—the leaves of the tree will wither and be blown away, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... extraordinary dignity, sitting upright and stiff like a pagan idol, dressed in a magnificent and fantastic purple robe, with a great double ruff, like a huge collar, behind her head; a long taper waist, voluminous skirts spread all over the cushions, embroidered with curious figures and creatures. Over her shoulders, but opened in front so as to show the ropes of pearls and the blaze of jewels on the stomacher, was a purple velvet mantle ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... the hour when happy faces Smile around the taper's light; Who will fill our vacant places? Who ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter |
