"Ashes" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she was beginning dimly to realize that the car of progress would move through the quiet streets before the decade was over. The smoke of factories was already succeeding the smoke of the battlefields, and out of the ashes of a vanquished idealism the spirit of commercial materialism was born. What was left of the old was fighting valiantly, but hopelessly, against what had come of the new. The two forces filled the streets of Dinwiddie. They were embodied in classes, in individuals, in ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... glory amidst the embattled ranks of his country's foes. He lashes the cold and cruel heartlessness of the world with a noble scorn. He addresses the skeletons of departed friends with passionate longing. He finds that life and its gaudy pleasures are as dust and ashes in the mouth. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... you might say, The burning question of his day: The more he burned, the more he grew Splendiferous in feathers new. And from his ashes rising bland, Did business at the same old stand. But though good people went about And talked, they could not put him out. A wond'rous bird—indeed, they say He is ...
— The Mythological Zoo • Oliver Herford
... voice the man asked: 'Have you memorized it?' I had! It was burned into my very soul. I could not forget a syllable of it!... Without another word he took the note, struck a match and watched it curl into shapeless ashes.... Then making a quick gesture he plunged into the documents before him.... I backed away until the door closed and shut out the sight of the lonely figure enveloped in a green light, his face illuminated against the shadowy background ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... his sorrow shall expiate his offence, and his penitence find favour in the sight of Heaven! Rest, rest, ill-fated virtue!—eternal peace shall guard thy tomb, and angels minister to thy unspotted shade; nor shall thine ashes lie in dark obscurity here will I raise a monument, more suited to thy excellence and name." Serafina melted with filial tenderness; nor were the rest unmoved at this affecting scene, which Don Diego did not quit ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... entrapped them. Bertha hesitated a little before accepting her offer of a seat at her side, but once seated she found herself oddly amused. When Madame de Castro chose to rake the embers of her seventy years, many a lively coal discovered itself among the ashes. ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sideways, which they pretend to read with large spectacles without glasses, and to which they fix the rinds of scooped oranges . . . ! particularly while dangling the censers they keep shaking them in derision, and letting the ashes fly about their heads and faces, one against the other. In this equipage they neither sing hymns nor psalms nor masses, but mumble a certain gibberish as shrill and squeaking as a herd of pigs whipped on to market. The nonsense verses they chant ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... voice, yet loud enough to be heard by all present. "He shall have a caning then for his impertinence." And he called loudly to the post-boy for his whip. But at that insult Garnache's brain seemed to take fire, and his cautious resolutions were reduced to ashes by the conflagration. He stepped forward, and, virulent of tone and terrific of mien, he announced that since Monsieur Sanguinetti took that tone with him, he would cut his throat for him at once ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... lighted and there was snow and rain outside, and yams and chestnuts to roast in the ashes, and stories to be told and talked over in the glow of the red birch-log and snapping, flaming hickory sticks, the child used to feel as if she and Uncle Tom were even nearer together and more comfortable than at ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... like a wide-spread park, till at some miles distance it rose up the slopes of a volcanic mountain—the Lamongan. On the sides of this huge volcano, the woods became thicker and more continuous, till they reached the bare piles of ashes and cinders ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... almost as good as being dead. She sat in her corner, so motionless, so passive, simply with the sense of being carried, so detached from hope and regret, that she recalled to herself one of those Etruscan figures couched upon the receptacle of their ashes. There was nothing to regret now—that was all over. Not only the time of her folly, but the time of her repentance was far. The only thing to regret was that Madame Merle had been so—well, so unimaginable. Just ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... the great Godfrey and his brother Baldwin, the first Christian Kings of Jerusalem, once lay buried by that sacred sepulchre they had fought so long and so valiantly to wrest from the hands of the infidel. But the niches that had contained the ashes of these renowned crusaders were empty. Even the coverings of their tombs were gone —destroyed by devout members of the Greek Church, because Godfrey and Baldwin were Latin princes, and had been reared in a Christian faith whose ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Settlement seemed as distant as China, while among the Russians living within the Pale the sparks of former historic conflagrations, the prejudices of the ages and the unenlightened notions of days gone by were still glimmering beneath the ashes. The ignorance of some and the vicious prejudices of others could not very well manifest themselves in periodical literature, for the simple reason that in pre-reformatory Russia, throtled by the hand of the censorship, none was in existence. Only in Russian fiction one might see ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... that are gone. But if you come to them, they shall be made bright and pretty, and we will chase the shadows of the mediaeval age away. There are old pictures, old musical instruments, quaint spindle-legged chairs and tables, tapestries that crumble as you touch them—the ashes and relics of many generations. Gustave says we will sweep these poor vestiges away, and begin a new life, when I come to Cotenoir; but I cannot find it in my heart to obliterate every trace of those dead feet that have come and gone in all the ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... both Damaris' attitude and expression changed, the glory abruptly departing. She got up off the floor, left the window, and sat down very soberly, in a red-velvet covered arm-chair, placed before the flat stone hearth piled with wood ashes. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... said the tall man at last, "that no human being was consumed in this fire. If so, we would certainly see some evidences of remains. Still, these ashes, when cool, must ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... dressing-room. "Your haughty conduct of this day has reminded me that you have a sacred duty to perform. The vanities of the world will have less weight with you when you return from the graves of your ancestors. Go to the imperial vault, and learn from the ashes of the emperors and empresses who sleep there, the nothingness of all worldly splendor. Kneel down beside your dear father's tomb, and pray for humility. Tell him to pray for me, Josepha, for my crown weighs heavily upon my brow, and I fain would be ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... stone, and as far as could be seen was not ornamented. The bowl had previously been filled with leaves carefully gathered from such places as are designated by tradition. In the subsequent smokes the ashes, "dottle," were saved, being placed in a small depression in the floor, but were not again put in ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... pale as ashes, and stammered piteously, "What? what? what d'ye mean? In Heaven's name, what is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... and stabbed the frantic brute in the neck, with her spear held short in both hands. Shrinking abjectly from this attack, he swerved off toward the left. It was his left eye that was blinded, and the other was full of smoke and ashes. He missed the path, therefore, and plunged squalling over the edge of the bluff, which at this point dropped about a hundred feet, almost perpendicularly, to the beach. Rolling over and over, and bouncing out into space ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... eggs, an occupation which, notwithstanding the screams and threatened attacks of the birds, delighted Dick greatly. Soon they had as many as she could carry; so they went back to the hut and lit a fire of drift-wood, and roasted some eggs in the hot ashes; she had no pot to boil them in. Thus, one way and another the day wore away, and at last the darkness began to fall over the rugged peaks behind and the wild wilderness of sea before. She put Dick to bed and he went off to sleep. Indeed, it was wonderful to ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... the firelight we now found plenty of dead wood; we made three blazing fires side by side, and after an hour we removed the centre one, then raked away all the hot ashes, and all lay down together on the warm ground. When the morning came the rain ceased. We stretched our stiffened limbs and made for camp. Yes, there it was in plain view two miles away across a fearful canyon. ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... was cruel to her. Sometimes he'd get angry and take the shovel and throw hot ashes on the slaves. And then he'd see them with blisters on them and he would take a handsaw or a flat plank and bust the blisters. Louisiana was a warm country and they wouldn't have much clothes on. When the slaves were freed, he went completely broke. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... that at the end of all this bright-hued future there lay for me, as well as for Daniel Blake's wife, an open grave. My busy thoughts were recalled by hearing the penetrating voice of the preacher saying "dust to dust, ashes to ashes," with the remainder of the beautiful formula used by many of the churches in planting the human germ. A glance around revealed Daniel Blake leaning in the very abandonment of grief on a tombstone at the grave's side, and looking down into the coffin ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... previously prepared coating of mud was then made to furnish a clay covering for the body, so as to conceal the sickening spectacle from the view of the relatives and spectators. Sometimes, however, the furnace accomplished its work satisfactorily, and there was nothing to be seen at the end but greasy ashes and scraps of calcined bones. The remains were frequently left where they were, and the funeral pile became their tomb. They were, however, often collected and disposed of in a manner which varied with their more or less complete combustion. Bodies insufficiently burnt were interred in graves, or ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... upon the altar; and he put sackcloth upon the carrion of his body, and prayed to God, confessing all the sins which he had committed against him, and took his acquittal from the Bishops, for they absolved him from his sins; and forthwith he there received extreme unction, and strewed ashes upon himself. After this, by his own order he was carried to St. Mary of Almazan in pilgrimage, and there he remained thrice nine days, beseeching St. Mary that she would have mercy upon him and intercede ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... admirers into the deeper shadow of trees that did not bear chestnuts. At last Miss Fisher's curiosity waked up. Bidding her companion keep watch where he was, in a shadowy corner of red oaks and purple ashes, she ran off, "to beat the bush," as she said; and hardly were her footsteps out of hearing, before lighter ones came through the wood, and Hazel's white dress gleamed out among the colours. She was walking slowly, quite ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... of Timor. It was a beautiful sight, so wonderful that John awoke the sleepers, that they too might enjoy it. Fantastic lights of various colors shot upward from the crater. These shafts lit up billowing clouds of smoke and ashes, which poured out in awe-inspiring volume. Back of it all stood the dark-blue velvet sky, against which the pyrotechnics were embossed in a stunning manner. Man could never have wished to witness a more remarkable ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... in Hampshire, a carpenter, lying in bed with his wife and a young child, "was himself and the childe both burned to death with a sudden lightning, no fire appearing outwardly upon him, and yet lay burning for the space of almost three days till he was quite consumed to ashes." This year the Globe playhouse, on the Bankside, was burned, and the year following the new playhouse, the Fortune, in Golding Lane, "was by negligence of a candle, clean burned down to the ground." In this year also, 1614, the town of Stratford-on-Avon ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... soul; the handles fly hither and thither in the wild confusion of Biddy's washing-day hurry, when cook wants her to help hang out the clothes. Meanwhile, Bridget sweeps the parlor with a hard broom, and shakes out showers of ashes from the grate, forgetting to cover the damask lounges, and they directly look as rusty and time-worn as if they had come from an auction-store; and all together unite in making such havoc of the delicate ruffles and laces of the bridal outfit and baby-layette, that, when the poor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... rag on a pole, which the dark youth, our guide, called a 'sign,' and groaned out that it would surely slay us. A woman, whose white and black beads showed a 'religious,' pointed to a place where gold is 'common as ashes after a fire'—the priest being first paid. The report of this excursion spread to Akra; Major de Ruvignes had taken up in his arms a golden dog, and at once fell dead. I can hardly connect the superstition with ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... moment his face lighted up as with a hidden flame; then instantly it changed. It became like the gray of ashes after the flame is spent. "Why didn't you speak, then?" he questioned. "It did no good to keep quiet. You mustn't forget that I have ears—if ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; But now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes. ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... march all summer, it seemed to me. We'd travel through dust ankle-deep all day that was just like ashes, and halt in the red-hot sun five minutes to make coffee. We'd make our coffee in five minutes, and sometimes we'd make it in the middle of the road; but ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... quantities of epsom-salt, and of pearl ashes separately in a sufficient quantity of water; purify each solution from its dregs, and mix them accurately together by violent agitation: then make them just to boil over ...
— Experiments upon magnesia alba, Quicklime, and some other Alcaline Substances • Joseph Black
... Island and eastern Massachusetts were in terror, nearly all in actual danger. At Medfield twenty whites were killed. Deserted Mendon was burned. Weymouth was attacked, and eleven persons were massacred in the edge of Plymouth. In Groton and Marlborough every house was laid in ashes, as were all in lower Rhode Island up to Warwick, and in Warwick all but one. Sachem Canonchet of the Narragansets drew into ambush at Pawtuxet a band of Plymouth soldiers, of whom only one escaped. Canonchet was subsequently taken by Captain ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... were also remnants of furniture and pieces of garments scattered about. At the farther end, in a fissure of the rock, were stones regularly built up, the rem Yins of a larger fire,—and what the hunter did not doubt was the smelting furnace of the Spaniards. He poked about in the ashes, but found no silver. That had all ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... their action if my belief had been otherwise; and this brings me to the important point which I wish, on this last occasion, to present to the Senate. It is by this confounding of nullification and secession that the name of a great man whose ashes now mingle with his mother earth has been evoked to justify coercion against a seceded State. The phrase, 'to execute the laws,' was an expression which General Jackson applied to the case of a State refusing ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... earth's history consists in the struggle between the forces of uplift and the forces of degradation. The forces of uplift are mainly the outward expression of the inner energy and heat of the earth, whether they be the volcano belching its ashes thousands of meters into the air, or the earthquake, with the attendant crack or fault in the earth's crust, leading to a sudden displacement, and sending, far and wide, a death-dealing shock, or those mountain-building actions, which, though they may be as gentle and gradual as might ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... get a handsomer pair of sandals by and by," said the old woman, with a kindly look out of her beautiful brown eyes. "Only let King Pelias get a glimpse of that bare foot and you shall see him turn as pale as ashes, I promise you. There is your path. Go along, my good Jason, and my blessing go with you. And when you sit on your throne remember the old woman whom ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by-and-by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consumed with that which it was nourished by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong To love that well which thou must ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... called phlogiston, supposed to be contained in all combustible matter. The hypothesis accorded tolerably well with superficial appearances; the ascent of flame naturally suggests the escape of a substance; and the visible residuum of ashes, in bulk and weight, generally falls extremely short of the combustible material. The error was, non-observation of an important portion of the actual residue, namely, the gaseous products of combustion. When these were at last noticed and brought into account, it appeared to be a universal law, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... who, with all her personal charms, but without her glimpses of a better human nature, have sacrificed the dignity of womanhood to a profligate ambition, this one upbraided herself in her last moments on her wasted life; and then, when all her ambition and vanity had turned to ashes, she understood what it was to have been the toy of men and the ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... the happy haunts, and an ontreading mystery, benign yet dreadful. And something, I know not what, drove me forth. Aie! Aie! There is but the moaning of doves when the glad hymns sounded, and cold ashes and dead drifted leaves on ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... learning what any vital, that is, obedient believer in the lord of religion, might have to say. Nothing he did hear would, without the reflex of his mother's unhappiness, have waked in him interest enough for hate: what was there about the heap of ashes he heard called the means of grace, to set him searching in it for seeds of truth! If we consider, then, the dullness of the prophecy, the evident suffering of his mother, and the equally evident ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... fondness round the neck Of some sky-kissing hill, bursts in his love, Then slowly droops and flows about her feet A puling streamlet,—whilst a gilded cloud Is toying with the brow of his Beloved! 'Twas gold that sear'd the love-bud of her heart; To bitter ashes turned my life's sweet fruit; And sent my soul adrift upon the world A wandering, ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... was FIGHTING Nature, not patronizing her; and it's a business that pays. That reminds me that I must go back to it," said Bradley, rising and knocking the ashes from his pipe. ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... lesson it was found that when a material burned, it united with oxygen. It is a matter of common observation that when all solid fuels—coal, wood, paper—burn, they decrease in size, and that fuel gas is consumed. Apparently only a few ashes remain when solid fuels have been burned, and only a disagreeable odor remains when gas has been burned. Yet soot is deposited in the stovepipe and smoke issues from the chimney. Both solid and gaseous materials, such as ashes, soot, and smoke, are formed when fuels ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... tenements. The little wooden houses have a temporary aspect, and for this reason, perhaps, the tenement-house legislation in Chicago is totally inadequate. Rear tenements flourish; many houses have no water supply save the faucet in the back yard, there are no fire escapes, the garbage and ashes are placed in wooden boxes which are fastened to the street pavements. One of the most discouraging features about the present system of tenement houses is that many are owned by sordid and ignorant immigrants. The theory that wealth brings responsibility, that possession ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... returned. The sea, changing from the warm glitter of a gem, and attuned to the grays and blacks of space, resembled a monstrous cinder under a sky of ashes. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... do things. She took up the kitty, and played to her on the "music," till Ruth's ears were "on edge." After this the harmonica fell into a dish of soft soap, and in cleaning it with ashes and a sponge, ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... fellow-creatures in general—to see too exclusively the good points of those for whom you have a regard. Disappointment must be the inevitable result of this habit. Believe all men, and women too, to be dust and ashes—a spark of the divinity now and then kindling in the dull heap—that is all. When I looked on the noble face and forehead of my dead brother (nature had favoured him with a fairer outside, as well as a finer constitution, than his sisters) and asked ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... and indeed I found that it was easily fired, either by a burning lens, or the approach of red-hot iron on the outside of the phial in which it was contained, and that any part of it being once fired, the whole was presently reduced to ashes; provided it was previously made thoroughly dry, which, however, it is not very ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... in the Harz, and elsewhere, numbers of convents, and even castles, were reduced to ashes. The princes were everywhere unprepared with the necessary troops, while the insurgents in Thuringia and Saxony counted more than 30,000 men. The former, therefore, endeavoured to strengthen themselves by coalition. Duke John, at Weimar, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... space that I met her— Just for a day in the train! It began when she feared it would wet her, That tiniest spurtle of rain: So we tucked a great rug in the sashes, And carefully padded the pane; And I sorrow in sackcloth and ashes, ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... without a word and brought the baby from the packing box in which he lay at the end of the room, and drawing the blanket about both her and the child crouched on her heels very close to the flame with her bare feet in the ashes. When the crying had ceased she turned to the actor with a full-lipped smile and said, "There's nothing the matter with him, Paco. He's not even hungry. You woke him up, the poor ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... that the herdsman one day, as usual, led his swine to their accustomed pasture, and the king remained at home alone with the wife. She placed her bread under the ashes of the fire to bake, and was employed in other business when she saw the loaves burning, and said to the king in her rage, 'You will not turn the bread you see burning, though you will be very glad to eat it when done!' The king, with a submitting countenance, ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... able to deal with them." The Inquisition seized him, and he was conveyed to the Castle of St. Angelo, where he soon died, as some writers assert, by poison. His body and his books were burned by the executioner, and the ashes thrown into the Tiber. Dr. Fitzgerald, Rector of the English College at Rome, thus describes him: "He was a malcontent knave when he fled from us, a railing knave when he lived with you, and a motley particoloured ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... from the moment we beheld you approaching Peter in the person of his successor, or even entering this city, which is impregnated with his blood, that from thence to each one of you should go forth a special virtue. Yes, from this tomb, where Peter's ashes repose amid the veneration of the Christian world, a hidden power, a salutary energy, emanates which instils into the souls of the Chief Pastors the desire of great undertakings and of vast designs, inspiring ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires; E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires. ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... her demand, which is principally supplied from foreign countries. Of this kind are all naval stores, masts, yards, and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and turpentine, pig and bar iron, copper ore, hides and skins, pot and pearl ashes. The largest importation of commodities of the first kind could not discourage the growth, or interfere with the sale, of any part of the produce of the mother country. By confining them to the home market, our merchants, it was expected, would not only be enabled to buy them cheaper ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... Ellsworth's consternation all seated themselves as coolly as if they had a right in her elegant parlor, while Olive and Ela strained their eyes in horror at the fair cousin whose ashes they had believed to be lying still beneath the debris of the ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... savours of making amends, dissembling, of stubbornness. ..... Wherefore confession is the discipline of a man's prostrating and humbling himself, enjoining such a conversation as invites mercy. It restrains a man even as to the matter of dress and food, requiring him to lie in sackcloth and ashes, to hide his body in filthy garments, to afflict his soul with sorrow, to exchange for severe treatment the sins in which he indulged; for the rest to use simple things for meat and drink, that is, for the sake ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... which Lucy had pictured to herself, with Arthur for the background, and her ardor was greatly dampened even before the threshold was crossed, and she stood in the low, close room where the sick woman lay, her large eyes unnaturally bright, and turned wistfully upon them as she entered. There were ashes upon the hearth and ashes upon the floor, a hair-brush upon the table and an empty plate upon the chair, with swarms of flies sipping the few drops of molasses and feeding upon the crumbs of bread left there ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... far Cathay, Before the western world began, They saw the moving fount of day Eclipsed, as by a shadowy fan; They stood upon their Chinese wall. They saw his fire to ashes fade, And felt the deeper slumber fall On domes of ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... that the fierce mountain-lion was not unknown to this region. To the right of the doorway, some ten feet from it, were two large flat stones, set facing each other, a few inches apart; between them lay a handful of ashes, betokening the kitchen of the family living here. Close by the stones lay a number of smooth, rounded stones of use and value to the people of the hut. Back of the wickiup, a few paces up the hill, a tiny spring issued from ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... 15. The ashes of Columbus cannot be affected by the reputation he gained while living, in having doubled for us the works of the creation. But mankind delight to do justice to the illustrious dead, either from a vain hope that they enhance thereby the merit ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... Sorrowfully he returned to the celestial abode and fearfully he put on his lesser panoply. Arrayed in this he entered the chamber of Semele, but though he had left behind him the greater splendors, the immortal radiance consumed her to ashes. ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Lee sat there smoking. When she came in he rose, and, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, touched his forehead ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... mistaken shape of amusement. He thought that it was a cannon-ball, and took it for the purpose of playing at the game of nine-holes, but it happened to be a live shell. In rolling it along it went over a bed of burning ashes, and ignited without his observing it. Just as he had got it between his legs, and was in the act of discharging it a second time, it exploded, and nearly blew ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... among remote natives of Mexico and called coamillar. They cut down the trees, clear a piece of land from brushwood, and leave it in this condition until just before the wet season sets in. Then they burn the wood, which by that time is well dried up, and plant the corn in the ashes. They simply make a hole in the earth with a stick, drop a few grains of corn into it, and close it up with the foot. Of the usual number of grains I am not aware. The Tepehuanes use four. Their hoes are generally bought from the Mexicans or else home-made, the natural knotted growths of tree ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... hands he wrenched the little crib, laid it piece by piece upon their hearth, and scattered then the sacred ashes on the wind. Then, with hard-coming breath, broke open the locked door of that room which he had never entered, thinking to find there, perhaps, some sign of that unguessable life of hers, but found there only an altar, with votive ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... Krudarnudi, Maudura, Mlprn and Periarli, mounds were examined, the earth was found to consist of black mud mixed with pottery and ashes. The mounds differ only in extent, and portions of ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... empty, which stood in a corner of the room. These stoves, used widely in the North, are vertical iron cylinders into which coal is poured from above. She lifted the lid and peered in to find it a quarter full of dead ashes, then turned with shining eyes and parted lips to Glenister. He caught the hint, and in an instant the four sacks were dropped softly into the feathery bottom and the ashes raked over. The daring manoeuvre was almost as quick as the flash of woman's wit that prompted ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... case with such marriages, it turned out very inconveniently for both parties to it. It was not unfruitful, but all the fruit it produced was bad, and to the husband and father that fruit became the bitterest of bitter ashes. No romancer would have dared to bring about such a scries of unions as led to the creation of Plantagenet royalty, and to so much misery as well as greatness. There is no exaggeration in Michelet's lively picture of the Plantagenets. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... the castle that the lightest touch of her finger raised in his imagination—that he, doubtless, would have reared for her and for him, in fact, fell in quite hopeless ruins, and no similar shape was ever framed for him above its ashes. ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... had been high doings in this sombre room, hunt breakfasts and dinners, rousing songs, laughter, and the toasting of pretty women—now dust and ashes. ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... priests. These all harbored a deep-seated dislike towards Rome, and only awaited a favorable opportunity to renew the breach with her. Thus that sectarian spirit which Photius had kindled continued to smoulder on like a spark beneath the ashes, and spread itself wider and wider, as well among the worst sort of the clergy as among the fickle ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... heard after the form had vanished, and the brain of Hugonet almost turned round at the wild scene which he beheld; his utmost exertion was scarcely sufficient to withdraw him from the terrible spot, and Douglas Castle that night sunk into ashes and smoke, to arise, in no great length of time, in a form stronger than ever." The minstrel stopt, and his hearer, the English knight, remained silent for some minutes ere at length ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... draw back the roaster, and improve the fire by clearing away the ashes, bringing forward the hot coals, and putting on fresh fuel at the back. Should a coal fall into the dripping-pan take it out immediately. An allowance of about twenty minutes to each pound of meat is the time commonly given ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... can the moral perversity of a young woman who never regrets a witty deception or a graceful subterfuge, but repents sometimes in sackcloth and ashes for her truth-telling. I'd give half my forest now to have back the letter I sent you yesterday. But since I cannot recall it, I wish you to bear in mind that what was true of a woman's heart yesterday, to-day may be only a little breach of sentiment with which ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... that the maid, whose business it was to empty a bucket of ashes into an ash-hole, never could be persuaded to do it, because the ashes were blown against her face by the wind; and he determined to invent a method which should make it convenient to her to do as she was desired. The maid usually threw the ashes into a heap on the sheltered ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... of the spouse who constitutes his happiness, he will not sacrifice Rome for Cleopatra. He wants to please all by himself. For twenty months he courted Mademoiselle de Voss, he married her, he was faithful to her, he wept over her ashes. Every citizen wise enough to know human weaknesses must wish that if he made a fresh choice it would fall on an object as worthy of his heart. So let him enjoy a happiness which belongs to the simple peasant as it does to kings." This hypocritical twaddle, this licentious casuistry, ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... sandy shore. In his pocket was found a copy of Keats's poems doubled back, as if he had been reading to the last moment and hastily thrust the book into his pocket. The body was cremated upon the shore, and the ashes were buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome, not far from the grave of Keats. "It is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, to think that ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... as I was dissecting I might at least discover the root of the disease. This remark, however, was not addressed to his face, but to a crumb of ashes on the cloth, which I was trying to remove with the point of a knife. He might not have answered, or liked it, had I fired the ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... square brick building. In the center you see an iron gate. Here the crowd pauses in reverential silence. Men lift their hats and women bow their heads. You behold within, two sarcophagi. [Headnote 1] In those moldering tombs lie the ashes of the great Washington and his wife. Not a word is uttered as the crowd stand gazing on this lowly receptacle of the dust of ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... conspiracies, the ascendency of the Jews, the difficulty of doing anything in France, the scarcity of talent in the higher circles, and the abundance of intellect in the lowest ranks, where the finest courage is smothered under cigar ashes. ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... say, look out, you're getting ashes into it," called Katherine warningly, looking up from her little "toast fire" nearby, where she was crisping slices of bread held on the end ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... chair, with thin, long hands lying along the arms of it, gazing into the fire. A bit of paper there was crumbling into ashes. Alone on Christmas Eve! Even Norah had some relation with the world outside. Was there not a stalwart officer waiting for her on the nearest corner? Even Norah could feel a simple childish pleasure in candles and carols and merriment, and the ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... tried a case before him against the Norwich Railroad for setting fire to the house of a farmer by a spark from a locomotive. It was a warm summer afternoon when the house was burnt up. There was no fire in the house except a few coals among the ashes in a cooking stove where the dinner had been cooked some hours before. The railroad was very near the house. There was a steep up-grade, so that the engineers were tempted to open the bonnet of their smokestacks for a better draught. We ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... enemy," cried she, in great excitement. "Wood is hotter than coal, too. Mrs. Fixfax must have given it to me to plague me. How it does burn things up! I hope beefsteak is cheap. I won't ask anybody to eat this, all covered with ashes. I'll never try to broil any again on top of a stick of wood! I won't try that 'steamboat pudding.' Sounds as if 'twould burn, and I know it would. Let ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... venture, With all Ireland my folk shall he sack; From our kingdom Mac Mata shall drive us, And our ashes may tell of ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... reached my hand, but saw no brier, But something pricked and stunned and numbed it. And then, in a second, I spied the rattler— The shutters wide in his yellow eyes, The head of him arched, sunk back in the rings of him, A circle of filth, the color of ashes, Or oak leaves bleached under layers of leaves, I stood like a stone as he shrank and uncoiled And started to crawl beneath the stump, When I ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... of his blankets and now he lay upon it, with the other wrapped around him, his loaded pistol in his belt and his loaded rifle lying by his side. The fire that the Onondaga had built in the dip not far away had been put out carefully and the ashes had been scattered. ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... what Kittredge went upstairs for, to burn the photograph and a lot of letters—her letters, probably. The fireplace was full of fresh ashes. Rose says it was clean before he went up, so I picked out the best fragments—here they are." He drew a small package from his pocket, and opening it carefully, showed a number of charred or half-burned pieces of paper on which words in a woman's handwriting ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... ashes of the sunset lingered after the fires of the long day had gone down, and the stars came out slowly. The old chief was ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... figures of natives lying under trees or rising from their mats to note the flying horseman. Lights flickered here and there in the houses and by the roadside. A late traveller turned a cake in the ashes or stirred some rice in a calabash; an anxious mother put some sandalwood on the coals and added incense, that the gods might be good to the ailing child on the mat; and thrice, at forges in the village, he saw the smith languidly beating iron ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... been a properly authenticated detective of fiction he would have gone to his uncle's apartment, locked the door, measured the rooms with a tape-line, found imprints of fingers on a door panel, and carefully gathered into an envelope the ashes from the cigar his uncle had been smoking. The data obtained would have proved conclusively that Cunningham had come to his death at the hands of a Brahmin of high caste on account of priceless gems stolen from a temple in India. An analysis of the cigar ashes would have ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... honored my devotion by marriage with you, I should have adored only the splendor of your eyes; of them I should have made my kings; of them I should have made my gods; sooner would I have been reduced to dust, sooner would I have been reduced to ashes, than— ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... right hand held his bloody falchion bare, His left he twisted in his hoary hair; Then, with a speeding thrust, his heart he found: The lukewarm blood came rushing thro' the wound, And sanguine streams distain'd the sacred ground. Thus Priam fell, and shar'd one common fate With Troy in ashes, and his ruin'd state: He, who the scepter of all Asia sway'd, Whom monarchs like domestic slaves obey'd. On the bleak shore now lies th' abandon'd king, A headless carcass, and a ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... Father of all." 570 Thus sang the sage his song of old, Herald to God, with gladsome heart: How he was lifted to life eternal. Then we may truly interpret the token clearly Which the glorious bird gave through its burning. 575 It gathers together the grim bone-remnants, The ashes and embers all into one place After the surge of the fire; the fowl then seizes it With its feet and flies to the Father's garden Towards the sun; for a time there he sojourns, 580 For many winters, made in new wise, All of him young; nor may any there yearn To do him menace with ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... It seemed to him now that if he might have once kissed her, even that would have been a comfort to him in his present affliction. 'D——tion!' he said at last, as he jumped to his feet and kicked the chair on one side, and threw the pipe among the ashes. I trust it will be understood that he addressed himself, and not his lady-love, in this uncivil way 'D——tion!' Then when the chair had been well kicked out of his way, he took himself up to bed. I wonder whether Clara's ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope |
