"Spark" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and nearly a dozen daring fellows who had risked their skins to save their lieutenant, had been led over to hospital to be cooled off and lotioned and bandaged and variously put to bed, and when at last not a spark could be found in the black, unsightly ruins, and even they had been buried under bushels of snow, the colonel and his men-at-arms went back to quarters, and many of the officers to the store, to talk it all over, especially what Bobby had said ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... spark of spirit would resent it, and I have resented it. I have told Lord Fawn that I will, on no account, part with the rich presents which my adored Florian showered upon me in his generosity. It is not ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... frequent iteration and noise, but obscurely confused; whereas spatter, on account of the sharper and clearer vowel a, intimates a more distinct poise, in which it chiefly differs from sputter. From the same sp and the termination ark, comes spark, signifying a single emission of fire with a noise; namely sp, the emission, ar, the more acute noise, and k, the mute consonant, intimates its being suddenly terminated; but adding l, is made the frequentative sparkle. The same sp, by adding r, that is spr, implies a ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... that the first spark it threw out was a direct answer of the question and a challenge of the consequences. To have said, "What is that to you?" in the first instance, would have seemed like shuffling—as if he minded who knew anything ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... one spark fell upon the tinder and seemed to stay, while as soon as Vince saw this he bent down and blew, with the result that it began to glow and increase in size so much that when the brimstoned point of the match was applied to the glowing spot ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... charity, and Julia its minister. She carried a good honest basket, and there you might see her Bible wedged in with wine and meat, and tea and sugar: and still, as these melted in her round, a little spark of something warm would sometimes come in her own sick heart. Thus by degrees she was attaining not earthly happiness, but ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... gain it, fair son, where others have gained it before you. You have that which is the first thing of all, a heart of fire from which other colder hearts may catch a spark. But you must have knowledge also of that which warfare has taught us in olden times. We know, par exemple, that horsemen alone cannot hope to win against good foot-soldiers. Has it not been tried at Courtrai, at Stirling, and again ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... same time the Duke of Somerset was committed to the Tower. So, now the Duke of Somerset was down, and the Duke of York was up. By the end of the year, however, the King recovered his memory and some spark of sense; upon which the Queen used her power—which recovered with him—to get the Protector disgraced, and her favourite released. So now the Duke of York was down, and the Duke of ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... Mr. Chorley,—It is always better to be frank than otherwise; sometimes it is necessary to be frank—that is when one would fain keep a friend, yet has a thing against him which burns in one. I shall put my foot on this spark in a moment; but first I must throw it out of my heart you see, and here ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... any of you can be so idiotic as to connect her with it, I can't imagine. Never mind, Patty dear! We know you better than to believe such rubbish. Don't trouble your head about it, for it simply isn't worth worrying over. Everyone with a spark of sense will agree with me, and I'm sure Miss Harper will ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... slack hour for Pedro's kind of trade, and the shanty was empty of customers when the impromptu vigilance committee entered. Pedro himself was half dozing in the faro dealer's chair. His small, ferret eyes flashed a spark at the visitors as he rose, but ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... solicitor?" I could write a book on this subject. There are numerous solicitors, within my acquaintance, to whom I would entrust my life and my character; there are some, not of my acquaintance, but of my knowledge, into whose hands, if I had one spark of Christian feeling left, I would not see my enemy delivered. There is little difference between one class of men and another as to natural disposition; and whether you take one or another, you must ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... as ever," was the somewhat bitter reply. "That's what I resent so much. I should like Henry to believe that he had killed every spark of love in me." ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... cut him to bits with the fiendish skill, that mutilated without bringing unconsciousness, had no terrors for him. He was inured to suffering and to the sight of blood and to cruel death; but the desire to live was no less strong within him, and until the last spark of life should flicker and go out, his whole being would remain quick with hope and determination. Let them relax their watchfulness but for an instant, he knew that his cunning mind and giant muscles would find a way to escape—escape ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... attempt it, and may I succeed in fanning into a flame any spark of patriotism that may still linger in ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... a divine spark, and bards without, feel the need at times of an inspiration from without, "the breath of another soul to stir our inner flame," especially when we are in pursuit of a part of that "utmost musical beauty," that we are capable of understanding—when we are breathlessly running to catch ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... a few little noises," says Miss McLeod. "Barry doesn't. A loose fender or a worn roller bearing means nothing to him. Why, he started with a cracked spark-plug that was spitting like a tom-cat, the carburetor popping from too lean a mixture, and a half filled radiator boiling away merrily. It was stopping to get those things fixed up, and having some air pumped into the spare tire, that ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... to make him nervous must be avoided. The same caution applies to exciting literature. In short, a patient with organic heart disease must be a drone in the hum of this busy, fast-rushing life, if he would hope to keep the spark of life for many years. Sleep, rest and quiet is a better motto for you than the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... automatic intelligence on the physical plane? Does the gate of possibilities, does the door of opportunity close with this brief mortal life? To that question science as well as faith answers "no." The law of Evolution is the law of eternal possibility and opportunity. The spark of immortality—the divine spark, implanted by God, when he made man in His image,—this is eternal in its nature, and unquestionably survives death. But immortality is the result of man's co-operation with the Divine. God has implanted the spark. He has placed ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... especially obstinate. Manzano escaped thence with some few of his men, and hid in certain mountains, but the Zambals, Pangasinans, and Cagayans pursued him, and finally, the justice of our arms prevailed. For, in order that no spark might be left which might kindle a new fire, he was also seized on March 22. Thus was that difficult war ended, which had caused Manila many terrors, for it caused not a few fears to the Spaniards. Thereupon, the provinces continued to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... Irritated words circulated in a low tone, still, it is true. "The mystery! the mystery!" they murmured, in hollow voices. Heads began to ferment. A tempest, which was only rumbling in the distance as yet, was floating on the surface of this crowd. It was Jehan du Moulin who struck the first spark from it. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... with that of the emperor. He was a man who united all those qualities of prudent forethought, with prompt execution and attention to business, which was so necessary in controlling the irritable Alexandrians, who were liable to be fired into rebellion by the smallest spark. Justice was administered fairly; the great were not allowed to tyrannise over the poor, nor the people to meet in tumultuous mobs; and the legions were regularly paid, so that they had no ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... infinite Intelligence. We feel His laws are those of eternal justice and that they govern all things from the most glorious intellectual natures belonging to the sun and fixed stars to the meanest spark of life animating an atom crawling in the dust of your earth. We know all things begin from and end in His everlasting essence, the cause of causes, the ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... comfort are rarely absent. But whoever has true and perfect charity seeks himself in nothing, but desires only the glory of God. He envies no one, because he loves no joy of his own, nor cares to rejoice in himself; but wishes, above all good things, to find felicity in God. Whoever has a spark of true charity feels at once that all earthly things are ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... minutes to walk a mile—or thirty minutes in desert sand; forty minutes to make inquiries; surely it needn't take longer! And thirty minutes back. But an hour and a half dragged on, before there was any sign of the absentee; then at last, Stephen's eye, roving wistfully from the cards, saw a moving spark at about the right height above the ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... ours, bring forth the endlessly varied forms and the endlessly complex movements that make up what we can see of life. And as when God revealed himself to his ancient prophet He came not in the earthquake or the tempest but in a voice that was still and small, so that divine spark the Soul, as it takes up its brief abode in this realm of fleeting phenomena, chooses not the central sun where elemental forces forever blaze and clash, but selects an outlying terrestrial nook where seeds may germinate ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske
... enough to let his wounded comrade steady his aim and fire. Time and again did each whirl his antagonist round, point-blank to the threatened danger; yet as often did the other regain the lost advantage. Burning to revenge himself before his feeble spark of life went out, the dying savage, with his fiery eyes glaring along the barrel, continued to shift his rifle from side to side as the struggle shifted from place to place. The red giant was on the point ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... over Mr. Fletcher's face; his cold eyes kindled with an angry spark, his lips were pale with anger, and his voice was very ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... little girl, twelve years old now, nine when her first volume of verses appeared, Hilda Conkling is not so much the infant prodigy as a clear proof that the child mind, before the precious spark is destroyed, possesses both vision and the ability to express it in natural and beautiful rhythm. Grace Hazard Conkling, herself a poet, is Hilda's mother. They live at Northampton, Massachusetts, in the academic atmosphere of Smith College where ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... radiation of all the stars. The causes that more powerfully excite the light of the Sun in the atmosphere and in the upper strata of our air, that give rise to heat-engendering electric and magnetic currents, and awaken and genially vivify the vital spark in organic structures on the earth's surface, must be reserved for the subject of ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... returning evil for good!" cried poor Miss Wodehouse, with tears. As for Lucy, she did not quite know what her sister said. She only felt that it was cruel to stop her, and look at her, and talk to her; and there woke up in her mind a fierce sudden spark ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... say of him, "He has a spark in his inside." What the poor wretch suffers when he cannot get strong drink! How he begs and prays for a penny to get a gill of beer. Now don't blame God for that! It is his own doing. Suppose now, God lets that man have his own way, and die a drunkard, and he wakes up in hell ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... after day, seized an English ship containing arms and supplies, lying in the bay, marched to the Church of Saint Nicholas, took the Confederate oath, and shut Willoughby up in the citadel. Clanrickarde hastened to extinguish this spark of resistance, and induced the townsmen to capitulate on his personal guarantee. But Willoughby, on the arrival of reinforcements, under the fanatical Lord Forbes, at once set the truce made by Clanrickarde at defiance, burned the suburbs, sacked the Churches, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... sweeping the globe will be upon us, and happy if we make timely provision to give it an easy passage over our land. From the present state of things in Europe and America, the day which begins our combustion must be near at hand; and only a single spark is wanting to make that day to-morrow. If we had begun sooner, we might probably have been allowed a lengthier operation to clear ourselves, but every day's delay lessens the time we ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... uncompromising rigidity of her principles and pride that she saw so little of them, the constant iteration had gradually remoulded her body, and had given her a sort of 'bearing' which was accepted by the plebeian as a sign of breeding, and even kindled, at times, a momentary spark in the jaded eyes of old gentlemen in clubs. Had anyone subjected Mme. de Gallardon's conversation to that form of analysis which by noting the relative frequency of its several terms would furnish him with the key to a ciphered message, he would at once have remarked that no expression, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... best men of the party than for any and all of your utterances inside the line of the platform. I know, if you had in your letter of acceptance, or in your New York speech, declared yourself in favor of "perfect equality of rights for women, civil and political," you would have touched an electric spark which would have fired the hearts of the women of the entire nation, and made the triumph of the Republican party more grand and glorious than any ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... natural eloquence which on this occasion flashed forth from the coarse and unlettered Henry, as the spark-of fire from the flint, continued to distinguished him both as a Member of the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg, and afterwards as a member of Congress. He took from the first a bold and active part against the pretensions ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... multitude, but all traces of them had to be removed before noon. When the sun was declining from the meridian, all the people were commanded by the voice of a crier to stay within doors, to do no bad act, and to be sure to extinguish and throw away every spark of the old fire. Universal silence now reigned. Then the high priest made the new fire by the friction of two pieces of wood, and placed it on the altar under the green arbour. This new fire was believed to atone for all past crimes except murder. Next a basket of new fruits was ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... probability arranged beforehand by the Spanish and German envoys, produced on the whole army the effect of a spark applied to a train of gunpowder. Commines and the Venetian 'proveditori' each tried in vain to arrest the combat an either side. Light troops, eager for a skirmish, and, in the usual fashion of those days, prompted ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... luminous atoms dissolved in the caldron might as little be fraught with a vital elixir as are the splendors of naphtha or phosphor. As it was, the weird rite had no magic result. The magician was not rent limb from limb by the fiends. By causes as natural as ever extinguished life's spark in the frail lamp of clay, he had died out of sight—under the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... Seringapatam, where he mentions such well-known names as Baillie, Baird, Campbell, and M'Donald, two-thirds the names of my countrymen, and he calls them "English!" which makes me think of Neil Munro's skipper of "The Vital Spark" and his remark about his Mate, "He wass a perfect shentleman, he would neffer hurt your feelings unless he was trying." Writers in the days of the Mutiny wrote of the feats of the "British troops," their gallantry, and all the rest of it; ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... of death which he had passed upon himself had been carried into effect. He had felt himself falling, and then there had been sudden darkness. Like a dim taper flickering in the night, the spark of life began to kindle again. At first he was conscious of but one truth-that he was not dead. Where he now was, in this world or some other, what he now was, he did not know; but the essential ego, Alford Graham, had not ceased to exist. The fact filled him with a dull, wondering awe. Memory ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... the inevitable happened. Perhaps it was too much gas, perhaps too much lubricant, perhaps a spark plug was carrying too much carbon. At any rate, the engine of the Sea Rover chose that time to chug and cease ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... mirthful incidents. Soldiers, above all people, have an eye for the ridiculous, and are ever ready to make merry and laugh over the most trivial matter. Even the horrors of battle are unable to quench the spark of gaiety ever present in the make-up of a "Yankee ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... twenty yards long, which the Germans had piled along the north aisle. We tried to catch the sparks in our hands as they fell, and such of the German wounded as were able to walk helped us. But the first spark that fell on the pile set it blazing. There was time to think of nothing but getting ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... find there were one hundred ninety women and one hundred children in Newgate. There was no bedding. No clothing was supplied, and those who had no friends outside to supply them clothing were naked or nearly so, and would have been entirely were it not for that spark of divinity which causes the most depraved of women to minister to one another. Women hate only their successful rivals. The lowest of women will assist one another when there is a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... so lately been invoked in vain, hope of revenge was now turning every man, woman, and child into either an open or a secret foe to the despoilers of their homes. One little breath only was wanting to fan the revolt to a flame; one little spark to fire the train. All eyes, therefore, were instinctively turned to the ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... to herald a change. Wharton makes light of them, but I think and hope he is mistaken. And in that hope I rest content; believing that soon I shall hear the curfew chime steal out of the evening mist to tell me that the day is over and that my little spark may ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... I questioned this young spark on the matter of settlements,' continued he; 'and he seemed disposed to be generous enough ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... body into ghastly but imposing ruins,—such was the world of that brain as it had been three years ago. And still continuing to gaze thereon, I observed three separate emanations of light,—the one of a pale red hue, the second of a pale azure, the third a silvery spark. ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a community must value all its communities. For the past five years, we have worked to bring the spark of private enterprise to inner city and poor rural areas with community development banks, more commercial loans into poor neighborhoods, cleanup of polluted ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... in its birth requires nursing like a young baby, or it will leave you in the lurch. A single spark will perhaps burn your haystacks, but when you want a fire it seldom will burn, out of sheer obstinacy; therefore, take a wisp of dry grass, into which push the burning linen and give it a rapid, circular motion through the air, which ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... was living at the time in Minnesota, hundreds of miles from the scene of the disasters, and he can never forget the condition of things. There was a parched, combustible, inflammable, furnace-like feeling in the air, that was really alarming. It felt as if there were needed but a match, a spark, to cause a world-wide explosion. It was weird and unnatural. I have never seen nor felt anything like it before or since. Those who experienced it will bear me out ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... out again and won another. The drought still lay over Birralong, the rain which had caused such fortunate unpleasantness to Tony and his mates having apparently only fallen on the heights of the range. For many miles around the township the grass was brown and withered, only waiting for a stray spark to set it ablaze and sweep the country with a greater desolation than even the drought could effect. The stock on the selections was thin and poor, the horses were weedy and weak, and the selectors, hearing that Tony and his mates ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... of Rochester, who had been elected year after year without opposition, was defeated. No one had openly opposed him, but a canvass of the returns disclosed a silent vote which was quickly charged to the Masons. This discovery, says Thurlow Weed, "was like a spark of fire dropped into combustible materials." Immediately, Rochester became the centre of anti-Masonry. In September, an anti-masonic convention nominated a legislative ticket, which, to the amazement and confusion of the old parties, swept Monroe ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... English fireside; when the whole world rang with English steel, and the wide sea foamed with English keels, and the air was full of the blaze of the living and the ghosts of the mighty dead. And down in Nick's plucky young English heart there came a spark like that which burns in the soul of a mariner when for the first time an unknown ocean ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... she knowed by the look in Jonathan's eye when they met, that he loved her still, and that his silly, proud heart was hungering after her yet, though he'd rather have been drawn under a harrow than show a spark of what ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... it courts. But in an artist this is strangely balanced by his love for his work. When he has ceased to wish for life or heed it for himself he still feels instinctive revolt against extinguishing that diviner spark than life itself, his genius, lent him from ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... prolonged preservation of peace. What repulsion, what grievances will be found in all relations, in all questions! And from a grievance to war, from war to negro insurrections, what will be the distance, I ask? The South will be then an immense powder magazine, to which the first spark will set fire. And the South will not lose its habits of arrogance, it will be quarrelsome as always. Has it not already announced in its journals that, on the first encouragement given to its fugitive slaves, it will draw the sword? Now, ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... arms in Rumania have hardly affected this opinion. In view of the great hopes, placed by our enemies and the newspapers in their service, on Rumania's entry into the war, these successes are recognized on all sides readily or grudgingly and without any spark of sympathy for the defeated country, and in some cases are even hailed as brilliant military achievements of the first rank. The preponderating opinion of the Press, however, passes over the fact that the conquest of Rumania, although opening up to Germany important ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... put his feet down very carefully or he would have fallen through sheer weakness, but he caught hold of Vaughan and clung to him. This forced the delirious lad to look at his companion, but there was no spark of intelligence in his eyes; he did not recognize who it was; he only felt something holding him back from what he had determined to do. With extraordinary strength, considering his condition, he shook himself free, and started to walk away. Sax fell, but ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... Fear seized upon the shepherd-boy: the Duke was Jove himself to the rural population, whom to offend was starvation, homelessness, and death, and whom to look at was to be mentally scathed and dumbfoundered. He closed the stove, so that not a spark of light appeared, and hastily buried himself in the straw ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... character was but soft wax in his hands; and guilt, or virtue, only the forms into which he should see fit to mould it. The religious sentiment was a flame which he could blow up with his breath, or a spark that he could utterly extinguish. It is unutterable, the horror and disgust with which I listened, and saw that, if these things were to be believed, the individual soul was virtually annihilated, and all that is sweet and pure in our present life debased, and that the idea of man's ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... grain of wheat, perfect in all its constituent elements except the mysterious spark of life, without which the wheat grain ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... when I speak to you and press your hand, He worries not. With good economy, He fills his garish day with business, And posts his ledger, satisfied, at ev'n. Out on you! You are all alike—you, too. O were my sister here! She's wise—than I Far cleverer! Yet, too, when in her breast The spark of will and resolution falls, She flashes out in flames, like unto mine. Were she a man, she'd be a hero. Ye Before her courage and her gaze should flinch. Now let me sleep until she comes, for I Myself am but ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... set up, to remind us that such and such were occasions for thankfulness; but should not the memorials be restricted wholly and expressly for this purpose? For the fumes of praise are rapidly and fearfully intoxicating; it comes like a spark to the tow if once we give it, as it were, admission ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... watery splendors as Mr. Baruch, with the wide astrakhan collar of his overcoat turned up about his ears, walked easily homeward in the brisk evening chill. There were lights along the wharves, and the broad waters of the port, along which his road lay, were freckled with the spark-like lanterns on the ships, each with its little shimmer of radiance reflected from the stream. Commonly, as he strolled, he saw it all with gladness; the world and the fullness thereof were ministers of his pleasure; but ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... genius as this be chiefly comic, its work cannot but awaken in one a deep sense of the pathetic. To stand before the poor little picture that has been so much to its painter, and yet holds no spark of vitality or touch of distinction; to take up the poor little book into which all the toil of so many wasted days could breathe no breath of life, formless, uninspired, unnecessary. Think of the pathos of the illusion that has waved 'its purple wings' around ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... wreckage just like my car, both terminus stations wrecked utterly, and no one found alive except myself. So, although I am to be a hopeless cripple, yet I am not sorry that the skill and untiring patience of the great English surgeon, Dr. Thompson, managed to nurse back the feeble spark of my life through all those weeks that I hung on the borderland; for if he had not, the world never ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... flicked up the horse so that it plunged sharply forward. The vast blue-black sky was like an inverted gold-pan and the stars were flake colours adhering to it. The cold snapped at me till my cheeks tingled, and my eyes felt as if they could spark. Oh, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... There was, however, one spark of consolation. It came from the fact that Rodney Bayham, of Bayham, followed her always with his eyes. It had been three years since she had tried her abortive love-affair with him. Yet still, on the winter mornings he would ride up to her shafts and ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... little sister had lived," he said, crouching nearer the fire, and watching a spark catch in the soot and spread over the chimney-back like a little marching regiment, that wheeled and maneuvered, and then suddenly vanished, "it would have been different. She would have made things brighter. ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... wonderful what a change this mere spark of hope wrought in us. In a moment we were all three groping about on our hands and knees, feeling for the slightest indication of a draught. Presently my ardour received a check. I put my hand on something cold. ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... make you feel that you have received a favor. She kept reminding me that it was my business to wait on her: if these things were paid for in cash, I should want high wages, for the duties are far from light. But I can stand it: within the bosom of Robert T. glows a spark of warm and pure philanthropy. When I see my fellow-creatures in need, and this good right arm refuses to extend its friendly aid, may my hand cleave to the roof of my mouth—O well, you know what I mean. I used to retire to my meagre and philosophic cot-bedstead with aching ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... and benignity. We cannot take the husks on which our bodies are fed, without expressing these juices also, which circulate as sap and blood through the sphere. We cannot touch any object but some spark of vital electricity is shot through us. Every creature is a battery, charged not with mere vegetable or animal, but with moral life. Our metaphysical being is fed from something hidden in rocks and woods, in streams and skies, in fire, water, earth, and air. While we dig ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... up, the memory of this long pageant survived; there fell upon him the desire to see some of the places; such a desire, if it is not gratified, dies away into a feeble spark—but it can always be blown again into a flame. This year the chance came to the boy, now a graybeard, to see these places; and the spark flared up again, into ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... the wood closely as far as the great trees; the place was abandoned. Numerous footmarks were there and several half-burned caps were lying smoking on the ground. The Major, like a prudent man, extinguished these carefully, for a spark would be enough to kindle a tremendous conflagration in this forest of ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... on the manners and intonations that became the part he was playing. The Prince himself was disturbed, and looked over at his confidant with a shade of doubt. As for the young man, the flush came back darkly into his cheek, and his eyes threw out a spark of light. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "that such a man should lie so to the great Spook Doctor. In wrath he tears down the altar—hisses forth his disapproval in clouds of tiny spark-thoughts. Willis, you are next. Now, do not rile the mighty Master." "Well," said Willis, "my dream was not so strange. I just dreamed over and over the thoughts I took to bed with me. I saw cabins and mines and tunnels and miners of all descriptions, ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... for moral beauty which suffers him to fear no ugliness. This power allies him with keen sympathy to every living thing. He sees kinship and the immortal spark in each breathing being. The soul of love goes out and paints the dark or the suffering or the repellant faithfully, bringing it in to the light where God's sunshine may fall upon it, and men and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... smoking?" he asked, carelessly. "We've been having the deuce of a time at the club, and my nerves have all gone to pieces. I tell you, Edith," he went on, a sudden spark of excitement showing in his eyes, "I've had a tremendous row, but I've beaten. I made them pass a vote of censure on the Executive Committee, and then Herman got them to instruct the Secretary to send out a printed notice taking back that vote of theirs; and then I offered my resignation, ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... appeals of her admirer, we must admit, with satisfaction; and though his addresses were not distasteful, she felt a pang in her heart that plainly told her it was already possessed by another. It required but this spark to kindle the flame that had long been smoldering in her breast; and at the moment when, had she not known John Ferguson, she would have been pleased and flattered with the protestations of her suitor, she felt disappointed and distressed that those proposals had not emanated from another ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... Self-preservation was his only concern. Not selfishness, but mere self-preservation. Selfishness presupposes consciousness, choice, the presence of other men; but his instinct acted as though he were the last of mankind nursing that law like the only spark of a sacred fire. I don't mean to say that living naked in a cavern would have satisfied him. Obviously he was the creature of the conditions to which he was born. No doubt self-preservation meant also the preservation of these conditions. But essentially it ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... of the sun, there are the moon and stars; instead of the wood-thrush, there is the whippoorwill; instead of butterflies in the meadows, fire-flies, winged sparks of fire!—who would have believed it? What kind of cool, deliberate life dwells in those dewy abodes associated with a spark of fire? So man has fire in his eyes, or blood, or brain. Instead of singing-birds, the half-throttled note of a cuckoo flying over, the croaking of frogs, and the intenser dream of crickets,—but above all, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... handfuls of each, in tepid water. It should be allowed to remain several minutes in soak, being dipped and turned occasionally, after which it should be spread out to dry. This treatment not only renders the cloth impervious to rain, but the alum tends to make it fire-proof also. A spark from the fire falling upon a tent thus prepared, will often rest upon the cloth until it goes out, ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... rubbed his eyes; and for an hour after that, as he plodded onward, he mumbled things which neither Kazan nor any other living thing could have understood. But whatever delirium found its way into his voice, the fighting spark in his brain remained sane. The igloo and the starving woman whom Blake had abandoned formed the one living picture which he did not for a moment forget. He must find the igloo, and the igloo was close to the sea. He could not miss it— if he lived long ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... the hose, boys, and start the engine. There is a spark or two of something smouldering down below, but we'll soon ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... to Horringford and there was a royal row. The upshot of it was that Alex rang me up on the 'phone this morning to tell me that Horringford was behaving like a bear, that he was so wrapped up in his musty mummies that he hadn't a spark of philanthropy in him, and that she was coming over to lunch tomorrow to tell me all about it—she's delighted to hear that the house is open again, and will come on to you for tea, when you will doubtless get a second edition of ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... long and the dark tardy when he marched up the street. It was a gantlet of eyes and whispers. He felt inane to an imbecility. The whole village was eying the boss on his way to spark a stenog. His little love-affair was as clandestine as ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... Carlo Borromeo, whose thirst for the blood of heretics gained for him the title of Saint. A great bronze statue at Arona now proclaims his zeal for the Church. Miss Cassandra, who has an optimistic faith in a spark of the divine in the most world-hardened saint or sinner, reminds me of Carlo Borromeo's heroic devotion to the sufferers from famine and the plague at Milan in 1570 and 1576. So, with a somewhat gentler feeling in our hearts toward "the ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... body, the good ship most considerately avoided. As for the small ones, which had no names on them, if she struck one, it glanced off of her like a red-gold spark. ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... his expression was one of mingled concern and sympathy. A young man whom he liked was about to fall into serious difficulties and he would save him from them if he could. Yet they understood each other perfectly. A single glance, a spark from steel like that which had passed between Prescott and the Secretary, passed now between these two. The Secretary was opening another mine in the arduous siege that he had undertaken; if he could not win by treaty he would by arms, and now he ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... fire! Watch till the last faint spark expire; Then strew its ashes on the wind, Nor leave one atom ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... gazed on her with all the anxiety of returning affection. Theodora was in his arms, but, alas! her beautiful eyes were closed, her cheek was colourless, and a cold suffusion bathed her stiffened limbs. The vital spark had apparently deserted its frail tenement, for no sign of conscious life was there. Don Lope's angry feelings had given way to his fears for her safety, and as he wiped the cold dew from her face, he perceived blood trickling slowly down her marble brow. ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... commodity around fire," said Mr. Giddings. "I understand that when the big English dirigible R-34 came across the Atlantic last summer she was filled with hydrogen, and that her commander and crew all wore felt-soled shoes, so that they would not by any chance cause a spark when they walked over her metal floors and ladders just beneath her ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... became Secretary of State under Polk's administration, and consented to give away about half of the Territory of Oregon to the British government, after he had proven that they had not a spark of title to it. ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... in a heart-to-heart talk with Miss Barton that she had lost all in the storm and had not where to lay her head, nor food for the morrow; even the clothes she wore were not her own. Nobody living could put this lady on the pauper list, and none with a spark of human feeling could wish to wound her pride. Our honored President, who reads hearts as others do open books, clasped this unfortunate sister's hand—and left in it a bank-note—I do not know of what denomination, ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... the first step in conjugal life will, according to the circumstances accompanying it, give birth to captivating sympathies or invincible repulsion. But to give birth to these sympathies, to strike the spark that is to set light to this explosion of infinite gratitude and joyful love—what art, what tact, what delicacy, and at the same time what presence of mind ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Fanny was not so fond; and at the dinner-table there came a spark of liveliness into her eye when George patronizingly asked her what was the news in her own "particular line ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... who I am. I want a pint of the best spirits you have, and a chance to warm myself for a ten minutes, if you've a spark of fire within." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... to dash the first spark of hope I had seen in her from the beginning of this more than painful interview. To avoid it, I temporized a trifle and answered with ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... importance of a special messenger, and it is to be hoped that Rodney did not envy him, now that conditions seemed reversed. To young Allison's credit be it said that, if in his heart lay a smouldering spark of envy, it did not ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... not proved how feebly words essay To fix one spark of Beauty's heavenly ray? Who doth not feel, until his failing sight Faints into dimness with its own delight— His changing cheek—his sinking heart confess The ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... with morning thoughts, was the first object which met the eyes of the incoming Suzanne. The grisette, who belonged to a class which certainly has the instinct of misery and the sufferings of the heart, suddenly felt that electric spark, darting from Heaven knows where, which can never be explained, which some strong minds deny, but the sympathetic stroke of which has been felt by many men and many women. It is at once a light which lightens the darkness of the future, ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... History of England, admitted the invaluable services of the Puritans, 'By whom the precious spark of liberty was kindled and preserved, and to whom the English owe all the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... did not understand when they happened. I was afraid of her when I was a little girl, but I think if I had grown up sooner, I should have enjoyed her heartily. It never used to occur to me that she had a spark of tenderness or of sentiment, until just before she was ill, but I have been growing more fond of her ever since. I might have given her a great deal more pleasure. It was not long after I was through school that she became so feeble, and ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... escape he seeks his mother's room to ponder on his wrongs. Hidden behind a pillar he overhears from Claudius' own lips that Ophelia's father, old Polonius is the King's accomplice. This destroys the last spark of his belief in humanity. Thrusting the weeping Ophelia from him, he advises her to shut herself into convent and to bid farewell to all earthly joys. Left alone with his mother he wildly reproaches her, and at last so ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... a spark of real malice in Teddy's composition. He was a wholesome, good-natured, fun-loving boy, and a general favorite with those who knew him. His chief fault was the impulsiveness that made him do things on the ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... to the War, I had constantly envisaged the probable course of events leading up to the outbreak of this world-war, as well as the manner of the outbreak itself. In imagination I had seen the spark suddenly emitted in some obscure corner of Europe, followed by the blowing-up of one huge magazine, such as the declaration of war between Russia and Austria would prove to be, then the conflagration spreading with lightning speed, and I had seemed to have a foretaste amid it all of the anxious ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... and famine would be in the land, although the farms and butchers' shops were still well stocked. The general community would be like an automobile when the magneto fails. Everything would be there and in order, except for the spark of credit which ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... possession of the roof of the rail-coach, that I might enjoy the prospect. I had not travelled three miles before I perceived a strong smell of burning; at last the pocket of my coat, which was of cotton, burst out into flames, a spark having found its way into it: fortunately (not being insured) there was no ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... wires, tried out his key, after replacing the parts that had been taken away, and in a moment got a powerful spark. ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... note if any spark of life remained, and as he did so the lids raised and dull, suffering ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... emergencies of this kind. But there are times when every player must either attempt the shot that most frequently baffles his superiors, or forthwith give up the hole, and it is not in human nature to cave in while the faintest spark of hope remains. In thus attempting the impossible, or the only dimly possible, we are sometimes led even to take the brassy in a bunker. In a case of this sort, of course, everything depends on the lie of the ball and its distance from the face of the bunker. When it is a ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... a quick glance at the girl Lodusky. She leaned against the wall just as she had done before; she was as cool as ever, though the spark which hinted at exultation still shone ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... or later, far out in the night, The stars shall over me wing their flight; Sooner or later my darkling dews Catch the white spark ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... ability, such as ability in drawing, painting, singing, playing musical instruments, mechanical invention, etc. Some provision should be made for the proper development and training of these unusual abilities. Society cannot afford to lose any spark of genius wherever found. Moreover, the individual will be happier if developed and trained along the ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... clearly that, in the present temper of men's minds, the faintest spark could light fires of riot and murder that might leave but a heap of ashes and corpses for the Carthaginian to gain. Taking advantage of the momentary lull, he said in ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... have been so sure if she could have looked into his mind. The day that Becky had ridden away, hidden by the flaps of the old surrey, the spark of his somewhat fickle interest had been lighted, and the glimpse that he had had of her this morning had fanned the spark into ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... usually extend to a line of posterity. Their palaces were contracted to a "three score and ten" size; for each of them, no matter how wide his capability of enjoyment, knew that it was personal and ended when his little spark of life should be extinguished. I gladly record, however, that in these later days some of them have made the American world their heirs, and are building and enriching museums and colleges, making them palaces of growth and enlightenment, ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... the sun. She had been an infinitesimal atom of inert something that had quickened to life under the blazing magic of the sun. Soon her spirit would abandon her body and go on, while her flesh and bone returned to dust. This frame of hers, that carried the divine spark, belonged to the earth. She had only been ignorant, mindless, feelingless, absorbed in the seeking of gain, blind to the truth. She had to give. She had been created a woman; she belonged to nature; she was nothing save a mother of the future. She had loved neither Glenn ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... to draw from his cold storage of hate much sooner than he had anticipated. Being a convinced anti-imperialist, and having not a spark of antagonism to Germany, the early days of August, 1914, shocked no one in the world more than him. But after the first maze of bewilderment and horror, he drew his pen against the Kaiser in holy wrath. Most of his war poems have been collected in the little volume The Man Who Saw, ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... absolutely contented life, smoked infamous tobacco out of clay-pipes, and was in high repute amongst his intimates as a singer of jovial songs, and a teller of brisk theatrical anecdotes. There was not a spark of envy in his nature. He honoured the great actors, and was always ready to do all he could to smooth the path of any nervous youngster with excellent advice and cheerful help. He is still acting. Anybody who ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... him with a look and a quick clasp of his hand, and together they hurried into the street and down to the station, where a locomotive coupled to a single coach stood panting like a fierce animal, a cloud of spark-lit smoke rolling from its low stack. The coach was merely a short caboose; but the girl stepped into it without a moment's hesitation, and the engine took the track like a spirited horse. As the fireman got up speed the car began to rock and roll violently, and Johnson remarked to the girl: "I ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... as most of our readers will remember, that the great gold mines of California first received their kindling spark, the discovery of that precious metal having been made there. While some men were digging a mill-race the alluring deposit first appeared. This event has made ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... Nome." The sight of his partner's rage had set Mort to shaking with a furious desire to fly at his throat, but fortunately, he retained a spark of sanity. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... drought the heat of the sun dries up all vegetation. The least spark of fire then suffices to create a mighty blaze, especially if accompanied by the pampero wind, which blows with irresistible force in its sweep over hundreds of miles of level ground. The fire, gathering strength as it goes, drives all before it, or wraps everything in its devouring flames. Casting ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... bag. From the aerials depended the wires that were attached to the receiving and sending apparatus. These wires were on a reel, and would he uncoiled as the balloon arose. The earth-end would be attached to the telephone receivers and to the apparatus, consisting of a spark-gap wheel and other instruments designed to send into space the electrical impulses that could be broken up into dots, dashes and spaces, spelling out words according to the Morse or Continental ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... "Reynard," immediately got up steam, thirty men and officers from our ship were transferred to the little American steamer "Spark," and both ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... singular mixture of familiarity and impressiveness, provoked more than one smile among the auditory. He noticed it, and a spark of defiance flashed up at the bottom of his heart. From time to time he loudly asked if "those people there" were not abusing ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... well the lover's voice supplies; Speaks all his heart must feel, his tongue would say: Yet ah! not all his heart must sadly feel! How oft the flow'ret's silken leaves conceal The drug that steals the vital spark away! And who that gazes on that angel-smile, Would fear its charm, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... wild carnival-season set in. Nothing could surpass the excesses of this mad time. All classes seemed bitten by the tarantula of mirth, every gondola hid an intrigue, the patrician's tabarro concealed a noble lady, the feminine hood and cloak a young spark bent on mystification, the friar's habit a man of pleasure and the nun's veil a lady of the town. The Piazza swarmed with merry-makers of all degrees. The square itself was taken up by the booths of hucksters, ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... proof, Pinabel of Sorence, Tierri he strikes, on 's helmet of Provence, Leaps such a spark, the grass is kindled thence; Of his steel brand the point he then presents, On Tierri's brow the helmet has he wrenched So down his face its broken halves descend; And his right cheek in flowing blood is drenched; And his ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... already placed one of his poisoned arrows, and compressing the trumpet-shaped embouchure against his lips, he gave a puff that sent the shaft on its deadly way with such velocity, that even in clear daylight its exit could only have been detected like a spark ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... substance of the enthusiast, which is poured from the twin lights—that is, from the eyes—in copious tears that flow to the sea; he sends forth from his breast into the wide air sighs in a great multitude, and the lightnings from his heart, not like a little spark or a weak flame, which, cooling itself in the air, smokes, and transmigrates into other beings; but, potent and vigorous—rather acquiring from others than losing of its own—it joins its ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... were not quite so sick, but even less disposed to get up, talk, or do anything, save to lie flat on our backs. We heard the sailors laughing at and abusing Palmleaf, who was dreadfully sick, and couldn't cook for them. Yet we felt not the least spark of sympathy for him: I do not think we should have interfered had they thrown him overboard. Wade called the poor wretch in, and ordered him, so sick he could scarcely stand, to make a bowl of gruel; and, when he undertook to explain how bad he felt, ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... understanding so far as possible how, in a world in which difficulty and disaster are frequent, the most wavering and flickering of all fine flames has escaped extinction. We go back, we help ourselves to hang about the attestation of the first spark of the flame, and like to indulge in a fond notation of such facts as that of the air in which it was kindled and insisted on proceeding, or yet perhaps failed to proceed, to a larger combustion, and the draughts, blowing about the ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... this battery of malevolence stung to life within me a spark of nobleness, and I said aloud, "Well, if he is a better man, ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... When the night dropped down upon us—as it did suddenly, and a starless sky o'er-head—I wondered how Pedro could smell his way through. I heard Tugg roaring something in Spanish about "the beacon" and then a spark of fire flared out in the darkness far ahead. It looked like a stationary lamp and burned brightly. The captain came ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... wish more than this? Thy furnace is severe; but look at this assurance of Him who lighted it. Love is the fuel that feeds its flames! Its every spark is love! Kindled by a Father's hand, and designed as a special pledge of a Father's love. How many of his dear children has He so rebuked and chastened; and all, all for one reason, "I love them!" The myriads in glory have passed through these furnace-fires,—there ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff
... information I obtain upon the spot, that the impressions that then distressed me, for I was proud of America, were but too well founded. She was turning her back on her own glory, and making hasty strides in the retrograde path of oblivion. But a spark from the altar of Seventy-six, unextinguished and unextinguishable through the long night of error, is again lighting up, in every part of the Union, the genuine name ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... "Fire, the vital spark, is the essential element of all these chaps," said he, "and if you can turn the nozzle of your extinguisher on that spook your ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... vie in popular fame with the Glow-worm, that curious little animal which, to celebrate the little joys of life, kindles a beacon at its tail-end. Who does not know it, at least by name? Who has not seen it roam amid the grass, like a spark fallen from the moon at its full? The Greeks of old called it [Greek: lampouris], meaning, the bright-tailed. Science employs the same term: it calls the lantern-bearer, Lampyris noctiluca, LIN. In this case, the common name is inferior to the scientific phrase, which, when translated, becomes ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... lines from the anxiety of the past week; his mind absorbed in the story that St. George had brought from the Seymour house. As in all ardent temperaments, these differences with Kate, which had started as a spark, had now developed into a conflagration which was burning out his heart. His love for Kate was not a part of his life—it was ALL of his life. He was ready now for any sacrifice, no matter how humiliating. ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the top of his bent. Perhaps he and Kate would laugh over it together before the day was done. Rose clenched her hands, and her eyes flashed at the thought. Back came the colour to her cheeks, back the light to her eyes; anger for the moment quenched every spark of love. Some of the old Danton pluck was in her, after all. No despair now, no lying on sofa cushions any ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... figure move, and he knew that they were asleep. He knew that he too would soon be sleeping and he was willing. But he was resolved not to do so until the darkness was complete, that is, not until the fire had gone entirely out. He watched it until it seemed only a single spark in the night. Then it winked and was gone. At the same time the darkness blotted out the ring of ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... can there be against it?" the boy said, with the same spark of fire coming into his blue eyes which had often been seen in Elinor's hazel ones. He was like the Comptons, a refined image of his father, with the blue eyes and very dark hair which had once made Phil Compton irresistible. Pippo had the habit, I am sorry to say, of being ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... they know to be—as the soul of the musician controls and exceeds not merely each note of the flowing melody, but also the whole of that symphony in which these cadences must play their part. That invulnerable spark of vivid life, that "inward light" which these men find at their own centres when they seek for it, is for them an earnest of the Uncreated Light, the ineffable splendour of God, dwelling at, and energising within the heart ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... yes! Well, dear lady, this boy of yours will be a great violinist if he is willing to work, and work, and work. He has what you in America call the spark. To make it a flame he must work, always work. You must send him to ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... may have been, there was at any rate no possibility that he should divide with a Tigellinus the direction of his still youthful master. He was by no means deceived as to the position in which he stood, and the few among Nero's followers in whom any spark of honour was left informed him of the incessant calumnies which were used to undermine his influence. Tigellinus and his friends dwelt on his enormous wealth and his magnificent villas and gardens, which could only have been acquired with ulterior objects, and ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... Lover" form a vividly pathetic glimpse into low life. The poetic form is quite satisfactory. As a whole, Merry Minutes constitutes a rather remarkable enterprise, sustaining through troubled times the spark of activity which will kindle anew the fires of British amateur journalism after the victorious close of the war. May America, in her new crisis, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... the legal want of punctuation and unintelligible phraseology. It had been copied verbatim by the old Squire, and was no doubt a properly binding and effective will. Never before had he dwelt over it so tediously. He had feared lest a finger-mark, a blot, or a spark might betray his acquaintance with the deed. But now he was about to give it up and let all the world know that it had been in his hands. He felt, therefore, that he was entitled to read it, and that there was no longer ground to fear any accident. Though the women in the house should see ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... Nelson, after slightly mentioning the reception with which he had thus been honoured, particularly by their Sicilian majesties, he makes use of these modest and pious expressions—"You will not, my lord, I trust, think that one spark of vanity induces me to mention the most distinguished reception that ever, I believe, fell to the lot of a human being; but, that it is a measure of justice due to his Sicilian majesty and the nation. God knows, my heart is amongst the most ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... glowing iron heated by a Bunsen flame (say, at 1200 deg. C. about 2200 deg. F.) shows a few lines and flutings; when iron is heated in an electric arc (say, to 3500 deg. C. about 6300 deg. F.) the spectrum shows some two thousand lines; at the higher temperature produced by the electric spark-discharge, the spectrum shows only a few lines. As a guide to further investigation, we may provisionally infer from these facts that iron is changed at very high temperatures ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... more, I attach these two plates of wire gauze to the terminals of the coil. I set them a distance apart, and I set the coil to work. You may see a small spark pass between the plates. I insert a thick plate of one of the best dielectrics between them, and instead of rendering altogether impossible, as we are used to expect, I aid the passage of the discharge, which, as ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... the electric spark they tell us life is extinguished almost without a quiver of pain. But, however this may be in natural things, we know the Holy Spirit can touch with celestial fire the surrendered thing, and slay it in a moment, after it is really yielded up to the sentence of death. That ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... recognition, lifted hats, the mellow warnings of motor horns, clattering hoofs, the sun flashing on carriage wheels and polished panels, on liveries, harness, on the satin coats of horses—a gem like a spark of fire smothered by the sables at a woman's throat, and the bright indifference of her beauty—all this had long since lost any meaning for him. For him the pageant passed as the west wind passes in Samar over the glimmering valley grasses; and he ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... Sir William Watson fired gunpowder by an electric spark, and, later on, a party from the Royal Society, in conjunction with Watson, conducted a series of experiments to determine the velocity of the electric fluid, ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... thus lost, betray'd, undone, Yet still untir'd, the Restless Cause goes on; And to retrieve a yet auspicious day, A glowing spark even in their Ashes lay, Which thus burst out in flames. In Geshur Land, The utmost Bound of Israels Command, Where Judah's planted Faith but slowly grew, A Brutal Race that Israels God n'er ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... rose, making his way forward about the narrow deck-space outside the cabin. Halvard was seated on a coil of rope beside the windlass and stood erect as Woolfolk approached. The sailor was smoking a short pipe, and the bowl made a crimson spark in his thick, powerful hand. John Woolfolk fingered the wood surface of the windlass bitts and found it rough and ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer |
