"Tinder" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... went into the cabin to strike a light, which he obtained by a piece of iron and flint, with some fine dry moss for tinder. While he was so employed, my eyes were fixed on the vessel, wondering what it could be. It moved through the water, turned this way and that. "It must be alive," thought I; "is it a fish or a bird?" As I watched the vessel, the sun was going down and there was not more than an hour's ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... like a giddy fool as I was, I needs must give them a startler—the whoop of an owl, done so exactly, as John Fry had taught me, and echoed by the roof so fearfully, that one of them dropped the tinder box; and the other caught up his gun and cocked it, at least as I judged by the sounds they made. And then, too late, I knew my madness, for if either of them had fired, no doubt but what all the village would have risen and rushed upon me. However, as the luck of ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... clarified by reading the opinions mirrored by the press. One cannot praise too highly the wisdom and discretion of our newspapers during the perilous days of war when a word from them might have been as a match to tinder, and when they held many important secrets in their keeping. The great dailies were loyal to the last degree and the confidence that was placed in them was never betrayed. It was unavoidable that they should possess knowledge that the ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... the snow piled over the hydrants and kerosene oil cans mixed up with packing boxes and kindling wood in the front yards, after the happy-go-lucky housekeeping methods followed by Plummers Lane housekeepers, I should say three blocks would go like tinder. Bill McCormack was down to see us, just as we were knocking off, and he was pleased as Punch at ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... nor since have I known savages to take the background and let two whites play out a tragedy unchecked. But now they formed a ring and watched. They forgot their interest in me and let me go. I could stand unheeded. An old man threw tinder on the fire, and we saw each other's faces as in the searching, red light of a storm. I watched the cords in Starling's neck tighten and relax as he talked ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... the place, showing that the men with port fires were at work, and in a quarter of an hour the bluejackets and marines were seen issuing from the houses and coming down to the shore. The place was by this time a sheet of fire, the lightly built huts, dried in the heat of the sun, catching like tinder, and blazing up in a fierce flame, that in a few minutes left no vestige ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... little farm; they say 'tis going like tinder, and he's half crazed," came back to them as ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... means this was done, or what purpose it answer'd, we were not able to Guess. I thought the Combustable matter was contain'd in a reed or piece of small Bamboo, which they gave a Swing round in the hand and caused it to go off.* (* The natives carry hollow canes with burning tinder for making fires.) ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... near horse with one hand, she sprang upon the wagon-tongue, and the next moment sat upon the board at his side. Then, rummaging in a deep pocket, she produced, one after the other, a short black pipe, an eel-skin tobacco-pouch, flint, tinder, and a clumsy knife. With a dexterity which could only have come from long habit, she prepared and kindled the weed, and was presently puffing forth rank streams, with an air ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... King, and knew that Giglio must come to grief, got up very early the next morning, and went to devise some plans for rescuing her darling husband, as the silly old thing insisted on calling him. She found him walking up and down the garden, thinking of a rhyme for Betsinda (TINDER and WINDA were all he could find), and indeed having forgotten all about the past evening, except that Betsinda was ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... forward to stamp out these sparkling perils, the fire had spread, as the girl, wise in the direful ways of brush-fires, had known at once that it would spread, to the encircling pine-tops, left in a tinder barricade about the clearing by the sawyers ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... nice for going to church, the thing was to rub oneself with a little tansy that grew on the hillside. Father was full of wisdom. He taught the boys about stones, about flint, how that the white stone was harder than the grey; but when he had found a flint, he must also make tinder. Then he could strike fire with it. He taught them about the moon, how when you can grip in the hollow side with your left hand it is waxing, and grip in with the right, it's on the wane; remember that, boys! Now and again, Isak would go too far, and grow mysterious; one Friday ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... piece off it from top to bottom, but fortunately did not disable it; but a sad mishap befell one of our men while sitting at mess at the time, for he was struck dead, his shirt being burnt in places like tinder, and his mess-tin being likewise turned black, while the top of a bayonet that was standing close to the unfortunate man was melted like lead. The blow had shaken our little bark so terribly that the captain ordered the pumps to be tried; fortunately there was no leakage to be found, but ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... it, sire! Your words were like the steel striking the flint, and kindling the tinder of their national ardor. It will burn, sire—burn so brightly that Russia, Austria, and Prussia, may be badly injured in ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... and steel, but the sparks were not bright enough to light the tinder of emotion. She knew it, for he was cool and buoyant and really unconcerned, and she ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... neck, I was taken too quickly aback to stir; but stood like a stuck pig, while the butler fumbled with his tinder-box. ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of a burning-glass, and know how easily dry grass or tinder, or a piece of paper, may be set on fire by a good glass when the sun is bright; but they would find it very difficult to place a glass over a little cannon so that it would infallibly be discharged at any set hour. And ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... hopes were excited on the perception of a faint brimstone odour issuing from an antiquated iron box found among some rubbish; but instead of any vellum or parchment, there were only the unused remains of some bundles of veteran matches, with their tinder-box accomplice, which had been thrown aside and forgotten, ever since the time when the functions of those old hardened incendiaries, flint and steel, were extinguished by the lucifers. All further search, ...
— The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil • Edward G. Flight
... Markgraf went to the salon to fetch what he needed; he brought in a tiny and graceful Chinese tea-pot of the Rose family, which he filled with gun powder, and through the neck of which he carefully introduced a long piece of tinder, lighted it and, running, carried this infernal machine into the ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... Caleb dropped the bow and gently fanned the powder heap. It still smoked. He removed the fire-board, and lifting the punk, showed the interior of the powder to be one glowing coal. On this he laid the Cedar tinder and over that a second piece of punk. Then raising it, he waved it in the air and blew gently for awhile. It smouldered and then burst into a flame. The other material was handy, and in a very short time they had a blazing fire in the middle of ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the chimney-piece five or six articles which appeared to be made of tin from the noise they made in falling, the captain succeeded in getting hold of another pipe and the tinder-box, for in those days flint and steel were the implements generally used in procuring a light. With much ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... behind the rest, and looking back to see the result of his infernal deed. Secretly, when no one knew it, he had kindled a fire at the rear of the wooden building, which being old and dry caught readily, and burned like tinder. ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... always been hard, though she was still a virgin spinster; but it had never yielded in this way at the first assault. She had intended to bring together a middle-aged, studious clergyman and a discreet matron who might possibly be induced to marry again, and in doing so she had thrown fire among tinder. Well, it was all as it should be, but she did feel perhaps a little put out by the precipitancy of her own success, and perhaps a little vexed at the readiness of Mrs. Bold ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... seen human arms, hands, and heads, and as soon as twelve heads have appeared, the weird plant vanishes. It is further added that on one occasion a shepherd happened to pass the mysterious spot where the thistle was growing, when instantly his arms were paralysed and his staff became tinder. Accounts of these fabulous trees and plants have in years gone been very numerous, and have not yet wholly died out, surviving in the legendary tales of most countries. In some instances, too, it would seem that certain trees like animals have gained a notoriety, purely ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... the curious pieces of Raphael, Durer, and Holbin, and before that of canvass, and much more lasting: To these add the galls, misletoe, polypod, agaric (us'd in antidotes) uvae, fungus's to make tinder, and many other useful excrescencies, to the number of above twenty, which doubtless discover the variety of transudations, percolations and contextures of this admirable tree; but of the several fruits, and ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... fire; but now needing it, they are met with the difficulty, if not impossibility, of making one. The mere work of kindling it were an easy enough task, the late occupant of the Calypso's caboose being provided with flint, steel, and tinder. So, too, is Seagriff, who, an inveterate smoker, is never without igniting apparatus, carried in a pocket of his pilot-coat. But where are they to find firewood? There is none on the islet—not a stick, as no trees grow there; while ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... Officers of State; 1530 That henceforth they may stand reputed, Proscrib'd in law, and executed; And while the Work is carrying on Be ready listed under DON, That worthy patriot, once the bellows, 1535 And tinder-box, of all his fellows; The activ'st Member of the Five, As well as the most primitive; Who, for his faithful service then Is chosen for a Fifth agen: 1540 (For since the State has made a Quint Of Generals, he's listed in't.) This worthy, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... with a kick, pointed to something on the floor. Amazed and wrathful, Mrs. Cross saw a long roller-towel, half a yard of it burnt to tinder; nor could any satisfactory explanation of the accident be drawn from Martha, who laughed, sobbed, and sniggered by turns as ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... but one can well imagine that, in the assemblies of the primitive Quakers, such stirring battle-cries and warlike tropes, even when employed in enforcing or illustrating the doctrines of peace, must have made many a stout heart' to beat quicker, tinder its drab coloring, with recollections of Naseby and Preston; transporting many a listener from the benches of his place of worship to the ranks of Ireton and Lambert, and causing him to hear, in the place of the solemn and nasal tones of the preacher, the blast of Rupert's bugles, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... from the dexterity with which it is wielded, a single stroke generally sufficing to sever a limb, while recovery from its stab is almost hopeless. Attached to the girdle also are a powder-flask, a small metallic box containing fat to anoint the rifle-balls, a purse of skin for carrying flints, tinder, and steel, and not unfrequently a hatchet, or knife in a sheath. The sabre is silver-hilted, without a guard; and its scabbard, richly embroidered, is composed of several pieces of morocco of different colors. The pistols also are mounted with silver; the poniard ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... ignition. The only fire producer that it is worth while supplementing the sulphur match with is the even older-fashioned flint and steel, which to a man who smokes is a convenience in a wind. All the modern alcohol and gasoline pocket devices are extinguished by the lightest puff of wind, but the tinder, once ignited, burns the fiercer for the blast. With dry, shredded birch-bark I have made a fire upon occasion from the flint and steel. One resource may here be mentioned, since we are on the subject, which is always carried in the hind-sack of my sled against difficulty in fire making. ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... the stiff fuse from the firebox into the hole. To make certain of results, Lennon used three pieces of fuse, which were attached with caps to the sticks of dynamite, in the bottom of the hole. He then put the stones back in their places. The ends of the fuses were hidden by the tinder of the ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... for the stars, else it might be our fate to be lost in the wilderness, which I did not much relish. We were all at this time "hungry as hunters," and beginning to feel very miserable from being wet through. What little ammunition I had left I fired off as signals, or made tinder of to get up a fire, but the wood would not burn. In this hapless condition the black boys began murmuring, wishing to go on, pretending, though both held opposite views, that each knew the way; for they thought nothing could be worse than their ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... time flew by as swift an' as pleasant as a bird on the wing, an' the sun wint down, an' the moon shone sweet an' soft instead, an' they two never knew a ha'porth about it, but kept talkin' an' whisperin', an' whisperin' an' talkin'; for it's wondherful how often a tinder-hearted girl will bear to hear a purty boy tellin' her the same story constant over an' over; ontil at last, sure enough, they heerd the ould man himself comin' up the boreen, singin' the 'Colleen Rue'—a thing he never done ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... smoke a pipe with ol' Jeff," Solomon answered. "They ain't no nonsense 'bout him. I learnt him how to talk Injun an' read rapids an' build a fire with tinder an' elbow grease. He knows me plenty. He staked his life on me a dozen times in ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... the heart. The heart is said to be the lord of the body, which it rules as a master rules his house. Shall the lord, who is the heart, be ailing and his sickness be neglected, while his servants, who are the members only, are cared for? If the knee be lacerated, apply tinder to stop the bleeding; if the moxa should suppurate, spread a plaster; if a cold be caught, prepare medicine and garlic and gruel, and ginger wine! For a trifle, you will doctor and care for your bodies, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... rose up before him like a black billow. Then came the almost comforting thought, he could not lurk without creating suspicion on the part of Mrs. Henshaw. He would have to get out, somehow. The weather was glorious, and the strip of seaweed hanging by the mantelpiece dry as tinder. A sea-side visitor who sat all day in his room in the face of such weather, would create a most unhealthy interest in the mind of any sea-side landlady. No, whatever else he might ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... cool. We caught four or five of the performers as they came out, and closely examined their feet. They were cool, and showed no trace of scorching, nor were their anklets of dried tree-fern leaf burnt. This, Jonathan explained, is part of the miracle; for dried tree-fern is as combustible as tinder, and there were flames shooting out among the stones. Sceptics had affirmed that the skin of a Fijian's foot being a quarter of an inch thick, he would not feel a burn. Whether this be true or not of the ball and heel, the instep is covered with skin no thicker ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... awaited results. A sound like the snort of a steam-engine followed, and presently flames were seen bursting from the top of the chimney-like trunk. The dry mould and dust of ages that had collected inside this shaft had now caught fire, like so much tinder, turning the whole tree in a twinkling ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... parties returned, highly rejoiced at having found plenty of oysters and fresh water. I had also made a fire by the help of a small magnifying glass; and, what was still more fortunate, we found among a few things which had been thrown into the boat, and saved, a piece of brimstone and a tinder-box, so that I secured ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... barely habitable, and had to contest the tenancy with rats, which asserted their claim with such tenacity, that he went to sleep at the risk of being devoured. Their incursions compelled him to furnish himself with loaded pistols and a tinder-box, and he kept watch one night, remaining quiet till there was an irruption, when he started up and struck a light. But his vigilance proved of no avail, for the clink of the flint and steel caused a stampede, and not a rat remained by ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... wheels and scoops, oars, masts, and yards [and in China, sails, cables, and caulking, asparagus, medicine, and works of fantastic art], spears and arrows, hats and helmets, bow, bowstring and quiver, oil-cans, water-stoups and cooking-pots, pipe-sticks [tinder and means of producing fire], conduits, clothes-boxes, pawn-boxes, dinner-trays, pickles, preserves, and melodious musical instruments, torches, footballs, cordage, bellows, mats, paper; these are but a few of the articles ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... I heard a heavy groaning; so, instead of pursuing the robber, I felt my way into Nanny's chamber. "Nanny," said I, "mother, what's the matter?" but there was no reply, except another groan. I knew where she kept her tinder-box and matches; I found them, and struck a light; and by the light of the match I perceived the candle and candlestick lying on the floor. I picked it up, lighted it, and then turned to the bed; the flock mattress was above ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... cell!" he was ordered by Godfrey McCulloch. "We must have them all out. There are torches and the old place might take light. The wood is sure to be as dry as tinder ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... breathless; about my body was strapped a leather belt to which was attached a wicker bottle. When we were seated on the rock, my dear Brigitte asked for the bottle; I had lost it, as well as a tinder-box which served another purpose: that was to read the inscriptions on the guide-posts when we went astray, which occurred frequently. At such times I would climb the posts, and read the half-effaced ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... suspect there be verily evil work in the cape, and a witch's bodkin hath pierced these cunning eyelets. It goeth so fast now that erelong every guileless, senseless thing in our houses, down to the tinder-box and the candle-stick, will find hinges and turn into a gate, whereby witchcraft can enter. You say, Widow Hutchins, that Olive Corey gave this ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... behind him Le Beau made his ISKOO of birch-bark and dry wood at the far end of the windfall. The seasoned logs and tree-tops caught the fire like tinder, and within a few minutes the flames began to crackle and roar in a manner that made Miki wonder what was happening. For a space the smoke did not reach him. Le Beau, watching, with his rifle in his bare hands, did ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... those who allow themselves to be guided by their initial impressions and make resolutions or commit acts tinder the domination of a special consciousness into which perception ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... old fellow!' he said. 'How about that!' and he shook him heartily by the shoulder. The instant he let go the figure collapsed. In order to get a closer view Hartnoll then struck a light with the tinder box. ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... above a city of doom. Herr Ritter sat up late that night, reading a packet of old worn- looking letters, which he had taken out of a small wooden box beneath his bed; and as he read them, burning them to tinder one by one in the flame of his lamp. A little torn morsel of a note, yellow with age, and half charred with the smoke of the destruction it had escaped, fluttered down from the table through the open casement, and fell in the balcony by my side. There were words on the paper, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... the Asiatic regions. The properties of this tree are thus enumerated by Hooker:—The fruit serves for food; clothes are made from the fibres of the inner bark; the wood is used for building houses and making boats; the male catkins are employed as tinder; the leaves for table cloths and for wrapping provisions in; and the viscid ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... Smith [To the Butcher] That was no foolish thought of thine, yon candle. I do remember now as I look back, They always loved the lights. My Rudi there Would aye be meddling with my tinder-box. And once I—Oh!— [Choking] ...
— The Piper • Josephine Preston Peabody
... never succeeded in making flames, but it is thrilling to get sparks from flint. Once a child brought an old tinder box with steel and flint, but even then we were not skilful enough to get up a flame. Still it is something to have tried, and we are left with a respectful admiration for those who could so easily do ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... roller passed tinder her, the surf-boat swooped higher and higher, and the laboring paddles seemed to give her less and less momentum. The head-man strained at the steering oar. The Krooboys had hard work to keep their perches ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... brought a candle and a tinder-box in his pocket. When the flame burned up, we saw an arched stone roof above our heads, and broad deal shelves all round us covered with dusty ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... more inflammable than tinder, madame, if you are afraid that she will catch fire by touching me," ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... to finish the whole thing up," went on the biggest brother, ruefully eying the prairie. "The country's as dry as tinder. And our place ain't plowed around half well enough. If a blaze should happen to come down on us"—he shook ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... will serve my turn,' said the hunter applying to his gun. 'But stay—I do not care to see any more fire to-day than is necessary.'—And drawing his work off to a safe place, he went on to kindle tinder and make a nice little fire.—'Haven't you learned how to make ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... troubles. Once lit, with all the difficulty attendant upon flint and steel and burnt rag, they had to be kept alight from morning till night and from night till morning. If a fire went out it was a woful business to start it again with the reluctant tinder-box. There was, indeed, another way, an easier way, of going round to a neighbor and borrowing a shovelful of hot embers wherewith to kindle the blackened hearth. But in villages built for the most part of ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... forth radiant; and Garth marvelled afresh at the vision of urban perfection she made in the wilderness. He was blowing the fire at the time; a typical tenderfoot's fire, all tinder and no fuel, at which the breeds grinned askance. He soon learned better. The breeds haunted their camp, enjoying their struggles with that superior, insulting grin. Natalie, rolling up her sleeves, announced her intention of cooking the ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... aine mama unn ain papa edam (wesen). unn (unt) diesa abn wais (twai) kinna (tinder) ghatf (dehappt). unn die kinna sint (dsint) in den walt tegang (gangen). unn-daben (habn) holz (olz) geh[o]l (ohlt). dann sint (dsint) sie an ain utsom-haendom (zuke-haeussn) zezan (gangn). unn (unt) habn (abn) ge ... ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... to fire is a natural transition. How to get a blaze just when you want it puzzles the will sometimes hugely. Every traveller should provide himself with a good handy steel, proper flint, and unfailing tinder, because lucifers are liable to many accidents. Pliny recommended the wood of mulberry, bay-laurel, and ivy, as good material to be rubbed together in order to procure a fire; but Pliny is behind the times, and must not be trusted to make rules for General McLellan's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... reach it, the great north barn was in flames. There was no way of summoning outside help, even if any one could have reached them in such a storm, and the wind was blowing the fire straight in the direction of the house; in less than an hour, most of the old and rotten outbuildings had burnt like tinder, and the rest had collapsed under the fury of the sweeping gale; but by eight o'clock the stricken Grays, almost too exhausted and overcome to speak, were beginning to realize that though all their hay and most of their ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... structures packed in closely together were like so much tinder wood. Those who had escaped drowning died in their ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... from early childhood, even in the icy northern waters, and he had been trained in swimming to hide his head beneath his floating shield, so that it could not be seen. He had learned also to carry tinder in a walnut shell, enclosed in wax, so that no matter how long he had been in the water he could strike a light on reaching shore. He had also learned from his father acts of escape as well as attack. Thus he had once sailed on a return trip from Denmark after plundering a town; ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... alone in her room on the Thursday night lights a fire (not to destroy it; two of her fellow-servants are prying outside her door, and she knows better than to make a smell of burning, and to have a lot of tinder to get rid of)—lights a fire, I say, to dry and iron the substitute dress after wringing it out, keeps the stained dress hidden (probably ON her), and is at this moment occupied in making away with it, in some convenient place, on that lonely bit of beach ahead of us. ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... in my tinder grew dull and went out. For a long while I lay there, thinking, awed by the ways of God—so certain, so inscrutable. And understood how at the last all things must be revealed—even the momentary and lightest impulse, and every deepest and ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... a bundle three or four times as big as I want," Giuseppi said, "and then half of them will be dry. I can put my clothes on them and the tinder. I will answer for the fire, but I would rather have been with ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... his communication, Caleb feebly stretched his wan hand, held the letter which had "come too late" over the flame of the candle. As the blazing paper dropped on the carpetless floor, Mr. Jones prudently set thereon the broad sole of his top-boot, and the maidservant brushed the tinder into the grate. ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... into the bank, and the passengers were all saved. The pilots, in the presence of such disaster, were in the sorest straits, and were, moreover, the ones of the boat's company upon whom most depended the fate of those on board. Perched at the very top of a large tinder-box, all avenues of escape except a direct plunge overboard were quickly closed to them. If they left the wheel the current would inevitably swing the boat's head downstream, and she would drift, aimlessly, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... tinder and the flint and steel," remarked Israel, "we must git to a lew plaace an' light the candle. Come over 'ere. Ther's a 'ollow behind the rocks, ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... and reached his tinder box. As the steel struck sparks from the flint, these revealed the face ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... found this ancient cave homelike and familiar. There was less litter within than she had found without and what there was was mostly an accumulation of dust. Beside the doorway was the niche in which wood and tinder were kept, but there remained nothing now other than mere dust. She had however saved a little pile of twigs from the debris on the porch. In a short time she had made a light by firing a bundle of twigs and lighting others from this fire she explored some of the inner rooms. Nor here did she ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... shooting star, it is fire," he replied in a startled voice, and, as he spoke, other streaks of light, scores of them, began to rain down from the brow of the cliff and land upon the wooden buildings to the rear of the palace that were dry as tinder with the drought, and, what was worse, upon the gilded ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... man, had delayed; rather they had not considered that there was any immediate danger from fire; it was too early in the season for the grass to be tinder dry, as it would become a month or six weeks later. They were wholly unprepared for the catastrophe, so far as any expectation of it went. But for all that they knew exactly what to do and how to go about doing it, and they did not waste a single minute in meeting ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... the other priest, "that at twenty you must indeed have been excitable, a veritable tinder-box, to have retained so much energy! Come, monsieur, try to calm yourself and have patience: you yourself admit it can only be ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... thoroughly enjoyed themselves for five minutes. The little marquis went into the drawing-room to get what he wanted, and he brought back a small, delicate china teapot, which he filled with gunpowder, and carefully introduced a piece of German tinder into it, through the spout. Then he lighted it, and took this infernal machine into the next room; but he came back immediately and shut the door. The Germans all stood expectantly, their faces full of childish, smiling curiosity, and as soon as the explosion had shaken ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... cool judgment of Bob Quirk, violence would have resulted. The primitive mind is slow to resent an affront, and while the chief deputy had couched his last remarks in well-chosen language, his intimation that I was a fugitive from justice, and an outlaw in resisting arrest, was tinder to stubble. Knowing the metal of my outfit, I curbed the tempest within me, and relying on a brother whom I would gladly follow to death if need be, I waved hands off to my boys. "Now, men," said Bob to the deputies, "the easiest way out of this matter is the ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... back from the window and groped for her tinder-box. The glow, as she blew the spark upon the dry rag, lit up a very pretty but tear-stained pair of cheeks; and when she touched off the brimstone match, and, looking up, saw her face confronting her, blue and ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... As the flames which Alexander in those hot parts of India saw falling upon his host, solid to the ground, wherefore he took care to trample the soil by his troops, because the vapor was better extinguished while it was single; so was descending the eternal glow whereby the sand was kindled, like tinder beneath the steel, for doubling of the dole. Without repose was ever the dance of the wretched hands, now there, now here, brushing ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... among the Indians. They could be plainly seen in the red glare thrown by the burning cabin. It had been a very dry season, the rough shingles were like tinder, and the inflammable material burst quickly into great flames, lighting up the valley as far as the edge of the forest. It was an awe-inspiring and a horrible spectacle. Columns of yellow and black smoke rolled heavenward; every object seemed dyed a deep crimson; the trees ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... in his pockets, one after another. A few small coins, a thimble, and some thread and big needles, a piece of pig-tail tobacco bitten away at the end, his gully with the crooked handle, a pocket compass, and a tinder-box, were all that they contained, and I began ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... away the snow from before the fallen tree trunk as best he could. Using as tinder a handful of the long hairy moss that hung from the inner limbs of the spruce trees, he lighted it with a match from the tin box salvaged the previous day at the big rock. Placing the burning moss upon the cleared spot next the log he ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... granary, or storehouse, in which was kept all the ripe maize of the tribe, together with much starch-root (koonti katki) and a large quantity of yams. The granary was built of pitch-pine posts and poles, heavily thatched with palm-leaves, that the summer suns had dried to a tinder. ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... having been taken from the field, some night—dear sport for the lads!—takes place the burning of the "hempherds," thus returning their elements to the soil. To kindle a handful of tow and fling it as a firebrand into one of those masses of tinder; to see the flames spread and the sparks rush like swarms of red bees skyward through the smoke into the awful abysses of the night; to run from gray heap to gray heap, igniting the long line of signal fires, until the whole earth ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... the blacks aloft with his musket, I sprang to the hatchway and sang out, "We do not want to do you any harm, but if you attempt any trick, for our own sakes we must shoot every one of you!" I said this because I saw one of them striking away over a tinder-box, with the intention, I had little doubt, of trying to set the ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... time they had reached the back-kitchen door, just as Sylvia had unladen herself, and was striking a light with flint and tinder. The house seemed warm and inviting after the piercing outer air, although the kitchen into which they entered contained only a raked and slumbering fire at one end, over which, on a crook, hung the immense pan of potatoes cooking for the evening ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... having been found in the morning, was dried in the sun during the day, which was very fine; a steel, gun-flints, and tinder made also a part of the same parcel. After a good deal of difficulty we set fire to some fragments of dry linen. We made a large opening in the side of an empty cask, and placed at the bottom of it several ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... that dismal barrack! All that the Jew used to spend on decorating the street, he is saving up now in his money chest!" The words were like a spark among tinder ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... beautiful candle, fluttering about, on and off, in and out of the flame with dazzled eyes, till in a rash moment they rush in too near the wick, and then fall with singed wings and crippled legs, burnt up and reduced to tinder by the consuming fire of matrimony. Happy marriages, men say, are made in heaven, and I believe it. Most marriages are fairly happy, in spite of Sir Cresswell Cresswell; and yet how little care is taken on earth towards such ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... the right side, with holes and pools of the sweetest water. Here "green grow the rushes," especially the big-headed Kasb (Arundo donax); the yellow-tipped Namas or flags (Scirpus holoschnus) form a dense thicket; the Ushr, with its cork-like bark which makes the best tinder, is a tree, not a shrub; and there are large natural plantations of the saffron-flowered, tobacco-like Verbascum, the Arab's Uzn el-Humr ("Donkey's Ear"). Add scattered clusters of date-trees, domineering ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... the flood-gates of heaven were opened, and the rain suddenly pelted down in such overwhelming torrents that in less than five minutes the conflagration aloft was completely extinguished; but not until the sails had been burnt to tinder, the spars badly charred, and most of the standing and ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... inevitably perish, they determined to search for the hut, and to winter there, if so fortunate as to find it. Himkof, with three others, were selected to make the search. They were provided with a musket, twelve charges of powder, a dozen balls, an axe, a small kettle, a knife, a tinder-box and tinder, a wooden pipe for each, some tobacco, and a bag with twenty pounds of flour. This was as much as they could carry with safety, as they had to make their way for two miles over loose ridges of ice, which ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... Dartrey's an honest fellow with women. But men are men. Very few men spare a woman when the mad fit is on her. A little woman-pretty little woman!—wife to Jacob Blathenoy! She mustn't at her age have any close choosing—under her hand. And Dartrey's just the figure to strike a spark in a tinder-box head.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... can hardly define what, instinct, guided my eyes to the side table where I had left my manuscript. It was gone. At that instant: the wind from the wide open window and door blew the lamp flame and stirred the curtains, and a great sheet of whole black tinder drifted across the carpet up ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... to a tinder, is the farm: so Sam, our carter, says; and 'twas done by some idle boys lighting a bonfire of dry furze near." This was her report when she returned to ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... servant, guilty of absence without leave, who was bound to a stake in the presence of his sister, and destroyed by a cannon placed six paces off, but only loaded with powder, in order to prolong the agony; now, a Christian accused of having tried to blow up Janina by introducing mice with tinder fastened to their tails into the powder magazine, who was shut up in the cage of Ali's favourite ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the slow rise of jumbled rock that evidently marked the extent of weathering on that side. Here he turned to the right and rode out into the valley. The floor was level and thickly overgrown with long, dead grass and dead greasewood, as dry as tinder. It was easy to account for the dryness; neither snow nor rain had visited that valley for many months. Slone whipped one of the sticks in the wind and soon had the smouldering end red and showering sparks. Then he dropped the stick in the grass, with ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... English bachelor, equipped with gladstone bag, shaving kit, evening clothes and tweeds; passing from country house to London club, from Oxford common room to Sussex gardens, the solemn pageantry of the cultivated classes now and then burst upon him in its truly comic aspect. The tinder and steel of his wit, too uncontrollably frictioned, ignited a shower of roman candles, and we conceive him prostrated with irreverent laughter in ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... surprised him beyond measure. There, in the darkness, stood Hank Stiger. The half-breed had a bit of lighted tinder in his hand, and at his feet lay the keg of powder with a long fuse attached ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... sulphur splinters kindled by the tinder burned up, first blue and then red, Shcherbinin lit the tallow candle, from the candlestick of which the cockroaches that had been gnawing it were running away, and looked at the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was bespattered all over with mud and had smeared his face by wiping it with ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... hove overboard, and which, being dragged with its surface against the water, impedes the progress of the whale. Besides these things, each boat is supplied with a case in which are stowed several necessary articles, the most important being a lantern and tinder-box—the lantern to be used as a signal when caught out at night—a compass, and perhaps a small cooking-apparatus. A whale-boat, when going in chase, has a crew of six men: one is called the headsman, the other the boat-steerer. The headsman has the command of the boat. ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... terkulturo. Tiller (of boat) direktilo. Tilt klini—igi, duonlevi. Tilt (an awning) kovrilego. Timber ligno, lignajxo. Time tempo. Timely gxustatempa. Timepiece horlogxo. Timid timema. Timidity timeco. Timorous timema. Tin stani. Tin stano. Tinder fajrfungo. Tinfoil hidrargajxo. Tinge koloretigi. Tingle vibreti, soneti. Tinkle tinti. Tint koloretigi. Tiny malgrandeta. Tip pinto. Tip (gratuity) trinkmono. Tippet manteleto. Tipple drinki. Tippler drinkemulo. Tipsy ebria. Tirade ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... smocks, Look well to your locks, And your tinder box, Your wheels and your rocks, Your hens and your cocks, Your cows and your ox, And beware of the fox. When the bellman knocks, Put out your fire and candle-light, So they shall not you affright: May you dream of your delights, In your sleeps see pleasing sights. Good rest to all, both old ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... I told you the other day? Stories start from nowhere. It's just like putting a match to tinder. ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... exhorted to forget all that has happened. Yes, the wrath, the conflict, the cruelty, but not those overruling decrees of God which this war has pronounced. As solemnly as on Mount Sinai, God says, "Remember! remember!" Hear it to-day. Under this sun, tinder that bright child of the sun, our banner, with the eyes of this nation and of the world upon us, we repeat the syllables of God's providence and recite the solemn decrees: No more Disunion! No more Secession! No more Slavery! Why did this civil war begin? We do not wonder that European statesmen ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... hungry. I was allowed a fair amount of outdoor exercise which, after my close confinement, proved to be a delightful shock. But, above all, I was again given an adequate supply of stationery and drawing materials, which became as tinder under the focussed rays of my artistic eagerness. My mechanical investigations were gradually set aside. Art and literature again held sway. Except when out of doors taking my allotted exercise, I remained in my room reading, writing, ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... my own room, I made the customary motions of undressing, so that I might time myself; and when the cycle was complete, set my tinder-box ready, and blew out my taper. The matter of an hour afterward I made a light again, put on my shoes of list that I had worn by my lord's sick-bed, and set forth into the house to call the voyagers. All ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thick spruce grove near the river and drew together a fairly good supply of dead wood. On the under side of the branches of the fir trees was generally to be found a thick growth of hairy moss, and with a handful of this as tinder it did not take me long to get a good fire blazing. Close to the fire I threw a pile of spruce boughs that I broke from low branches and the smaller trees. I melted snow in my cup for water, and in this put a few lumps of mould from the ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... history, and when I would stop talking, she would ply me with questions. So I told her how poor everybody was before the discovery of gold; how mothers would send their boys to grandma's early morning fire for live coals, because they had no matches or tinder boxes; how neighbors brought their coffee and spices to grind in her mills; how the women gathered in the afternoons under her great oak tree, to talk, sew, and eagerly listen to the reading of extracts from letters and papers that had come from friends away back in the ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... a curious tradition in the north of England, which is practically done away with in these days of lucifer matches. In the old days of tinder boxes, if any one failed to get a light, it was of no use his going round to the neighbours to get one, for even his dearest friends would refuse him, it being considered most unlucky to allow any light to leave the house between ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... of history, Queen Mab's register, one whom, by the same figure that a north country pedlar is a merchantman, you may style an author. It is like overreach of language, when every thin tinder-cloaked quack must be called a doctor; when a clumsy cobbler usurps the attribute of our English peers, and is vamped a translator. List him a writer and you smother Geoffrey in swabber-slops; the very ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... a difficult matter to light the fire. They scraped off the inside of the bark until they accumulated a little heap of tinder. It was ignited with a few sparks of the flint and steel, and then the bark too caught fire. After that they had nothing to do but feed the flames which grew and grew, casting a luminous red glare in every corner of the old Council House. Then it was so strong ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was going on the fire died out, having been flooded by the water. The Prince would not waken his brothers, although he had no tinder-box of his own to rekindle the flame, but resolved to search around a little in the wilderness in hope of stumbling upon some ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... dragged on with its one little glimmer of light and its big black clouds of disappointment, and it was Christmas-time when the spark came to the waiting tinder. What a bloody bill could the holidays and holy days of the world tot up! On the Sunday night before Christmas a British subject named Tom Jackson Edgar was shot dead in his own house by a Boer policeman. ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... stake they bound Korak. Then they brought brush and piled about him, and The Sheik came and stood by that he might watch the agonies of his victim. But Korak did not wince even after they had fetched a brand and the flames had shot up among the dry tinder. ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... girl uttered an exclamation of thankfulness; then, after groping about, she found a tinder-box, and ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... when I rose, and exhausted in body and mind, was soon fast asleep. I must have slept many hours, for when I awoke I was in darkness—the candle had burnt out. I groped for the basket, and examined the contents with my hands, and found a tinder-box. I struck a light, and then feeling hungry and weak, refreshed myself with the eatables it contained, which were excellent, as well as the wine. I had replaced the remainder, when the key again turned in the door, and Melchior ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... Shallow-brained cheerfulness, foolish dreams, unfounded hopes, you would say; and I will not venture to deny it: suspicions to that effect arose too frequently in my own mind. But our wishes are like tinder: the flint and steel of circumstances are continually striking out sparks, which vanish immediately, unless they chance to fall upon the tinder of our wishes; then, they instantly ignite, and the flame of hope is kindled ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... fire. As for the rent, John, do not waste this trifle on that," whispered Vivian, slipping his purse into his hand, "for I will see Stapylton Toad, and get time. Why, woman, you'll never strike a light, if your tears drop so fast into the tinder-box. Here, give it me. You are not fit to work to-day. And how is the trout in Ravely Mead, John, this hot weather? You know you never kept your promise with me. Oh! you are a sad fellow! There! ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... the blatter of hail, the soft crush of snow and the rattle of thunder among crags. Then it quieted to the low sultry croon which told of blazing midday when the streams are parched and the bent crackles like dry tinder. Anon it was evening, and the melody dwelled among the high soft notes which mean the coming of dark and the green light of sunset. Then the whole changed to a great paean which rang like an organ through the earth. There were trumpet notes ill it and flute notes and the ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... stores of his own imagination: and there was often a great dissimilitude between his fair captivator, as she appeared to others and as she seemed when invested with the attributes he gave her." "My heart," he himself, speaking of those days, observes, "was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other." Yet, it must be acknowledged that sufficient room exists for believing that Burns and his brethren of the West had very different notions of ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... — N. fuel, firing, combustible. [solid fuels] coal, wallsend^, anthracite, culm^, coke, carbon, charcoal, bituminous coal, tar shale; turf, peat, firewood, bobbing, faggot, log; cinder &c (products of combustion) 384; ingle, tinder, touchwood; sulphur, brimstone; incense; port-fire; fire-barrel, fireball, brand; amadou^, bavin^; blind coal, glance coal; German tinder, pyrotechnic sponge, punk, smudge [U.S.]; solid fueled rocket. [fuels for candles and lamps] wax, paraffin ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... head, as he calmly lighted his pipe by means of a German tinder-box, and replied, 'This is my carriage. When things are flat, I take a ride sometimes, and enjoy myself. I am the inventor ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... tree with its symmetrical spread of branches stood lifeless. And its tons of low-hanging festooned moss was as void of life as was the tree they had killed. Tinder-dry it hung there, a beauteous, tragic, spectacle, towering high above the surrounding flatness of landscape, visible for miles by ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... such plans and labors and purposes as these, the days passed quickly for two weeks. By that time the fierce rays of the sun had dried every board and stave so that it became like tinder. The ship itself felt the heat; the seams gaped more widely, the boards warped and fell away from their rusty nails, the timbers were exposed all over it, and the hot, dry wind penetrated every cranny. The interior ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... in abundance, together with a lantern, axe, bill-hook, tinder-box, matches, candles, oil, tea, coffee, sugar, biscuits, wine, brandy, sauces, etc., a few hams, some tins of preserved meats and soups, and a few bottles of curacea, a glass of which, in the early dawn, after ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Sterling went home to snatch a bite of something to eat, and lazy Lem Wacker came strolling into the place, pipe in full blast, Bart had not hesitated to exercise his brief authority. A spark among that tinder pile would mean sure and swift destruction. Besides, light-fingered Lem Wacker was not to be trusted ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... by the saloon centre table tinder the full blaze of the electric lamp, looked at her with a ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... neither man nor deevil. He got his tinder-box, an' lit a can'le, an' made three steps o't ower to Janet's door. It was on the hasp, an' he pushed it open, an' keekit bauldly in. It was a big room, as big as the minister's ain, an' plenished wi' grand, auld, solid gear, for he had naething else. There was a fower-posted bed wi' auld tapestry; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thought, to tell him the truth, after he took the change that was put upon him so well, and it made him so happy like. Well, I was afeard of my life he'd pull off the cap to search for the scar, so I would not let your head be touched any way, dear, saying it was tinder and soft still with the fall, and you'd cry if the cap was stirred; and so I made it out indeed, very well; for, God forgive me, I twitched the string under your chin, dear, and made you cry like mad, when they would come to touch you. So there was no more about it, and I ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... his orders. He was indeed a holy man. Not in the memory of the oldest had a miracle such as this happened. Upon their return with wood and embers the holy man built the fire, handing a lighted torch to Kathlyn and signifying for her to touch the tinder. The spirit in Kathlyn told her that these people meant her no immediate harm, so she stepped out of the sarcophagus and applied the torch. The moment the flames began to crackle the villagers ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... glance Across the table, shot by chance From fair Eliza's graceful form, Assail'd and took my heart by storm? And mark'd you not, with earnest zeal, I ask'd her, if she'd have some veal? And how, when conversation's charms Fresh vigour gave to love's alarms, My heart was scorch'd, and burnt to tinder, When talking to her at the winder? These facts premised, you can't but guess The cause of my uneasiness, For you have heard, as well as I, That she'll be married speedily; And then—my grief more plain to tell— Soft cares, sweet fears, fond hopes,—farewell! But still, tho' false ...
— English Satires • Various
... even if you got away, which you couldn't do, they would come back and capture the depot. We have got to fight for it, that's evident; and the boats of a fleet could hardly make their way in here. We had best get the three craft moored with their broadsides to the entrance. We will blow the boats to tinder if they try to come in, and then we can load up with all the most valuable goods and slip out at night-time. That is ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty |
