"Rocket" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the balloon— 'Tis up like a rocket, and off to the moon! Now fading from our view, Or dimly seen; Now lost in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... once. The old guy is laughing like crazy, an' that half-smart Rubero drills him right through the head. I take one shot at the thing, low so's not to hit Movaine, an' then we're all running, I'm halfway to the hall when Cooms tears past me like a rocket. The Duke an' the others are already piling out through the portal. I get to the hall, and there's this terrific smack of sound in the room. I look back ... an' ... ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... from behind me, which made me turn back my head; and I did see a sudden fire or light running in the sky, as it were towards Cheapside-ward, And vanished very quick; which did make me bethink myself what holyday it was, and took it for some rocket, though it was much brighter: and the world do make much discourse of it, their apprehensione being mighty full of the rest of the City to be burned, and the Papists ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... assurance, but long before the leader of a financial movement has got word to his following, wide-spread over the country, it has taken alarm, the rout has begun, and the field is strewn with corpses. A great financial excitement, like a rocket, should soar triumphantly into the air, leaving behind it a comet-like trail of glory, climaxing in a shower of gold; diverted from its course, it runs a mad, brief, tragic career along the earth, spreading ruin ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... and inventions at his works in Sardis about the year 1946. One of his inventions was an automatic shell. This was an enormous projectile, the peculiarity of which was that its motive power was contained within itself, very much as a rocket contains the explosives which send it upward. The extraordinary piece of mechanism was of [v]cylindrical form, eighteen feet in length and fourteen feet in diameter. The forward end was [v]conical and not solid, being formed of a number ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... away—a full rifle-shot distance straight in the face of the wind; then he swung gracefully, and came back with the wind. And as he came, his wings apparently motionless, he gathered greater and greater speed, and shot like a rocket straight for the lambs. He seemed to have come and gone like a great shadow, and just one plaintive, agonized bleat marked his passing-and two little lambs were left where there ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... relative advantages of this foreign system and the American method of railway transportation. Great Britain contributed a complete train and locomotive, also a model of one of the original Stephenson locomotives—the "Rocket." The Railway Division of France comprised exceedingly interesting French locomotives, a car, and many models. In the Canadian exhibit, a complete transcontinental train compelled admiration. Its cars built of solid mahogany, and lighted by electricity, were constructed and equipped by the Canadian ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... an edge to his voice, "the thing for you to do is to tell them that's your star, and they'll have to speak English from now on, so you can understand them. Why, next thing we know, you'll be getting yourself a rocket or a space-ship and going over to that star to set yourself up as ...
— McIlvaine's Star • August Derleth
... is not unlike that instant when the pole vaulter's feet are farthest off ground. It seemed to Lilly, after a while, that both her starting point and her destination had fallen away. She hung in abeyance. She was the unanchored streak of a rocket through space. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed, at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming; And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... of fusees from his pocket. He struck one, and his companions in the swaying cage now saw that a tremendous rocket was hung to the peak of the other crane. He lighted the fuse.... An instant of deathly suspense!... And then with a terrific and a shattering bang and splutter the rocket shot towards the kingdom of heaven and there burst into a vast dome of red blossoms which, irradiating ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... rocket of the fete of July has just mounted, exploded, made a portentous bang, and emitted a gorgeous show of blue lights, and then (like many reputations) disappeared totally: the hundredth gun on the Invalid terrace has uttered its last roar—and a great comfort it is for eyes and ears that the festival ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... spectrum; emeralds from Peru, of varied forms and shapes; rubies from India, red as drops of blood; sapphires from Ceylon, blue and white; turquoises from Persia; Oriental pearls, some rosy, some lead-colored, others black. Those who have at night seen a great rocket burst in the azure darkness of the sky into thousands of colored lights, so bright that they make the eternal stars look dim, can imagine ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... policy, and his position with his friends did not suffer at all in consequence of his disclosures. Personally, he exulted in his conduct to the end of his life, and took pleasure in watching and recording Deane's disreputable career and miserable end. "As he rose like a rocket, so he fell like the stick," a metaphor which has passed into a proverb, was imagined by Paine to meet Deane's case. [1] The immediate consequence of Paine's resignation was to oblige him to hire himself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... their cabal are as inconsistent on the other hand. They make epigrams, sing vaudevilles,[2] against the mistress, hand about libels against the Chancellor [Maupeou], and have no more effect than a sky-rocket; but in three months will die to go to Court, and to be invited to sup with Madame du Barri. The only real struggle is between the Chancellor [Maupeou] and the Duc d'Aiguillon. The first is false, bold, determined, and not subject to little qualms. The ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... no little watching and waiting for the sticks to come down. We are afraid that many a respectable skeptic has a crick in his neck by this time; for we are of opinion that these are a new kind of rocket, that go without sticks, and stay up against all laws ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... nothing very formidable," he said, taking a long, cigar-shaped roll from his pocket. "It is an ordinary plumber's smoke-rocket, fitted with a cap at either end, to make it self-lighting. Your task is confined to that. When you raise your cry of fire, it will be taken up by quite a number of people. You may then walk to the end of the street, and I will ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... he brought tidings of a very deplorable event. While an artillery company had been preparing, in the arsenal of the town, numerous fireworks to celebrate his Majesty's fete, one of them, in preparing a rocket, accidentally set the fuse on fire, and becoming frightened threw it away from him. It fell on the powder which the shop contained, and eighteen cannoneers were killed by the ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... of some of the star families. There goes a jolly rocket," answered George, and Jane felt as if she almost understood ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... in the apartment beneath us: our landlord's family returning from a pilgrimage to a far-distant temple of the Goddess of Grace. (Although Madame Prune is a Shintoist, she reveres this deity, who, scandal says, watched over her youth.) A moment after, Mdlle. Oyouki bursts into our room like a rocket, bringing, on a charming little tray, sweetmeats which have been blessed and bought at the gates of the temple yonder, on purpose for us, and which we must positively eat at once, before the virtue is gone out of them. Scarcely ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... slowly passed, and still nothing had happened. Then suddenly a blue light flashed for a few moments on the blackness of the sea, answered almost instantaneously by a rocket from another quarter. It was clear that the boats, having signaled that the search had failed, had been recalled by ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... I give the wedding dinner of four in the Library Cart. Pigeon-pie, a leg of pickled pork, a pair of fowls, and suitable garden stuff. The best of drinks. I give them a speech, and the gentleman give us a speech, and all our jokes told, and the whole went off like a sky-rocket. In the course of the entertainment I explained to Sophy that I should keep the Library Cart as my living-cart when not upon the road, and that I should keep all her books for her just as they stood, till she come back to claim them. So she went to China with her young husband, and ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... this extraordinary scene. In a moment the forks remained inactive in every hand, silence reigned, and every eye was turned to the Gars. A frightful anger showed upon his face, which turned waxen in tone. He leaned towards the guest from whom the rocket had started and said, in a voice that seemed muffled in crape, "Death of my soul! count, ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... Ground Forces, Navy, Air Forces; Airborne troops, Strategic Rocket Forces, and Military Space Forces are classified as independent combat arms, not subordinate to any of ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... also had seen the sky-rocket which arose up from the chateau and dropped almost instantly ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... naughty Pocket! "Look, she drops her head." "She deserved it, Rocket, "And she was nearly dead." "To your hammock—off with you!" "And swing alone." "No one will laugh with you." ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... A rocket! They were looking for us then! The pinnace must have been picked up! A cheer—what a cheer!—came brokenly from our lips; and we lashed furiously at the oars, steering to where a glare in the mist had come with the ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... of trial arrived. Three engines entered the lists for the prize,—namely, the Rocket, by George Stephenson; the Sanspareil, by Timothy Hackworth; and the Novelty, by Ericsson. Both sides of the railway, for more than a mile in length, were lined with thousands of spectators. There was no room for jockeying in such a race, for inanimate matter was to be put in motion, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... night's rest, and occasionally firing off their rifles to drive away the lions which were heard prowling about; all of a sudden Omrah cried out, and pointed to the northward; our travelers turned and perceived a rocket ascending the firmament, and at last breaking out into a group of ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... strengthen the idea, now and then above the trees would burst what seemed a rocket of coloured stars. The stars would drift away in a flock on the wind and be lost. They were flights of birds. All-coloured birds peopled the trees below blue, scarlet, dove-coloured, bright of eye, but voiceless. From the reef you could see occasionally the seagulls rising here and there in clouds ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... warmed into the attachment of a brother. He had a great and generous heart; there was no virtue of humanity of which he did not possess a goodly portion. He was always brimful of humor, throwing off his jokes, which sparkled without burning, like the flashes of a rocket. There was no sting in his wit. You felt as full of merriment at one of his witticisms, made at your expense, as when it was played upon another. Yet he was a profound lawyer, and some of his opinions are models of style ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... remain in position, in case of a repulse, to protect the retreating columns. Of these three attacks, one must surely succeed. The first column which gains the ramparts will fire a rocket to let ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... the Maelstrom, but rather more like the wave occasioned by the sudden turning of a man-of-war's boat. Being hooked, and having by this time set his nose peremptorily down the stream, he flashed and whizzed away like a rocket. My situation partook of the nature of a surprise. Being on a rocky shore, and having had a bad start, I lost ground at first considerably; but the reel sang out joyously, and yielded a liberal length of line, that saved me from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... wide open, went out like a rocket, and bowled a man half over in his blind haste to be quit ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... at Fort George about Gunpowder (ante, p. 124). In the Gent. Mag. for 1749, p. 55, there is a paper on the Construction of Fireworks, which I have little doubt is his. The following passage is certainly Johnsonian:—'The excellency of a rocket consists in the largeness of the train of fire it emits, the solemnity of its motion (which should be rather slow at first, but augmenting as it rises), the straightness of its flight, and the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... they might go. One fat officer alone could not keep up on foot with that mad rush, and as Moti came galloping up he flung himself on the ground in abject fear. This was too much for Moti's excited pony, who shied so suddenly that Moti went flying over his head like a sky rocket, and alighted right on the top of his ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... catches fire at a slight spark as fast as a brunstane match," observed the secretary. "I hae kend a minister wad be fair gude-day and fair gude-e'en wi' ilka man in the parochine, and hing just as quiet as a rocket on a stick, till ye mentioned the word abjuration-oath, or patronage, or siclike, and then, whiz, he was off, and up in the air an hundred miles beyond common manners, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... two months as a magnate were a great success. With my heart in my mouth I would tear open the financial editions of the evening papers, to find one day that Jaguars had soared like a rocket to 1-1/16, the next that they had dropped like a stone to 1-1/32. There was one terrible afternoon when for some reason which will never be properly explained we sank to 15/16. I think the European situation had something to do with it, though this naturally ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... with regard to the Marquise de Pompadour, without in the least offending his tempestuous friend. That remarkable young lady, then still known as la petite Etoile, had succeeded in catching the King's eye, and was soaring into the political heavens like a rocket, carrying, among other incongruous objects, the genius of Voltaire in her glittering train. Voltaire must have boasted to his young friend that his fortune was made. Vauvenargues surprisingly expresses in his reply the evil which must be done by great authors ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... arranged to fire a rocket when the launch left the shore, in order that the captain of the yacht might run in closer to pick them up. As he hurried down the beach, he called to his boatswain to give the signal, and the man answered ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... does not receive fresh proof that the world contains foolish people. In the small hours of Sunday morning, when the camp was astir in the darkness, a rifle-shot rang out quite close to me. I could hear the bullet going up like a rocket until the sound was lost. It was the usual thing—some idiot charging his magazine, and forgetting to close the cut-off—with the result that when he snapped his trigger the gun went off. Any good result of our discomfortable regulation ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... happened to my practice," he said. "The blamed thing has gone up like a rocket. It seems to me there must be a great wave of sickness passing ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... imagination and knowledge and resource he was as young as the latest statute. His first prominence had come when he broke the Shardwell will.* His fee for this one act was five hundred thousand dollars. From then on he had risen like a rocket. He was often called the greatest lawyer in the country—corporation lawyer, of course; and no classification of the three greatest lawyers in the United States ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... Congreve rocket, Discharged into the Gallic trenches E'er equalled the tremendous shock it Produced upon the Nursery benches. The Bishops, who of course had votes, By right of age and petticoats, Were first and foremost in the fuss— "What, whip a Lama! suffer birch ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the car up to ten thousand feet. Aiming it in the map direction of Qualpha's Village, he let go with everything he had—hot jets, rocket-booster and all. The forest landscape came hurtling out ...
— Oomphel in the Sky • Henry Beam Piper
... begun to wait, 'n' Hannah waited until if Hannah had waited any longer she 'd have gone off like a rocket, she was that mad again. Gran'ma Mullins said Hannah always got so red she got purple if she only was rememberin' it after. 'N' in the end she could n't stand it no longer 'n' she set off for the pond herself. She always ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... sketch, the perfume of a flower, and he would be off wherever the reminiscence called him. He whistled constantly. That, as Jan pointed out, was always a bad sign with Kenny. It meant that he felt perilously transient and would rocket up in the air when a spark came that pleased him. He had been much the same, Fahr remembered, the summer he embarked for Syria upon a tramp steamer—to the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... said Amrei, "just as if we were two doves flying through the air. Juhu! away into the heavens!" And "Juhu!" cried the lad gleefully, "Juhu!" And the sound shot up heavenward like a fiery rocket. "Juhu!" cried Amrei, rejoicing with him. And on they danced with ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... obstinate; refuses Free Withdrawal; will hold out to the uttermost, though his meal is running low. He pretends there is relief coming; relief just at hand; and once, in midnight time, "lets off a rocket and fires six guns," alarming Prince Leopold as if relief were just in the neighborhood. A tough industrious military man; stiff to his purpose, and not ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... behind the counter standing ready to serve him. He strode over to him and flung down a ten-dollar bill, ordering a drink of whiskey, and a bottle of the spirit to take away with him. He was promptly served, and Silas Rocket, the proprietor, civilly passed the time of day. It elicited no responsive greeting, for Jim gulped down his drink, and helped himself to another. The second glass of the fiery spirit he swallowed greedily, while Rocket looked on in amazement. As he proceeded to pour out another ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... public, the fascinating prima donna, who had rushed up from the horizon like a brilliant rocket, and disappeared as suddenly, was only a nine-days wonder. Though for some time after, when opera-goers heard any other cantatrice much lauded, they would say: "Ah, you should have heard the Campaneo! Such a voice! She rose to the highest ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... picture, write a good play, and, when it comes to oratory, they've got me lashed to a pole; but they're always in debt. They never get anything for what they do. In other words, young man, they are like a sky-rocket without a stick,—plenty of brilliancy, but no direction, and they blow up and ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... traversed. They remained on each successive encampment long enough (if I may so express myself) to sow themselves there. They left behind them at least a remnant of their own population while they went forward, like a rocket thrown up in the sky, which, while it shoots forward, keeps possession of its track by its train of fire. And hence it was that Attila, when he found himself at length in Hungary, and elevated to the headship of his people, became at once the acknowledged king of the vast territories and the ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... was crowded in the Campo waiting for the fireworks. And, as he thought, he heard a dull thud behind him, and turned; and there, far up, a single shaft of flame shot aloft, and stayed, and burst into a fan of lights; and a puff told him it was the first rocket. "Ecco! Madre di Dio, a sign! a sign! So will I go up; and so shall my enemy come down." And Maso crept up the ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... said before, this habit of digression will be the death of me. Like a rocket, I start off splendidly, but explode and fall to pieces in every direction before I get half way on my journey. If the scintillations are varied and gayly colored, to be sure, the powder is not utterly lost; ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... occurred the greatest eruption of the series. A mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke burst four miles upward in air. The spectacle, one of grandeur, was plainly visible even from the Sacramento Valley. "At night," writes Doctor Diller, "flashes of light from the mountain summit, flying rocket-like bodies and cloud-glows over the crater reflecting the light from incandescent lavas below, were seen by many observers from various points of view, and appear to indicate that much of the material erupted was sufficiently ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... the Sherlock, the stony nature of the country telling severely upon our horses' feet, who in other respects were in very tolerable condition. We had not proceeded more than three or four miles when Mr. Brockman's horse, Rocket, gave in, and could not move another step, the hoof being fairly worn through; leaving him close to a pool of water amongst plenty of feed, I hoped he might possibly recover by the time we returned from ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... the North-East. Point Emeriau. Cape Leveque. Point Swan. Tide-races. Search for water. Encountered by Natives. Return to the Ship. The attempt renewed. Conduct of the Natives. Effect of a Congreve Rocket after dark. A successful haul. More Natives. Miago's Heroism. The plague of Flies. Dampier's description of it. Native Habitations. Underweigh. Wind and weather. Tidal Phenomenon. Natural History. Singular Kangaroo. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... and an unmanageable heart sent him headlong to the oasis where he might loiter at the spring of feminine vanity, or truth, or impenitent gaiety, as the case might be. In proportion as his spirits had sunk into sour reflection, they now shot up rocket-high at the sight of a girl's joyous pose of body and the colour and form of the picture she made. In him the shrewdness of a strong intelligence was mingled with wild impulse. In most, rashness would be the outcome of such a marriage of characteristics; but clear-sightedness, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... coming out upon the stoop, and comprehending the trouble at a glance. "Rocket, Rocket," he cried, "easy, my boy," and in an instant Rocket's defiant attitude changed to ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... head as soon as he discovered my intention; but I gave him the rein, and he went off like a rocket. I turned towards Parkville, and after going half a mile, I reined up to ascertain whether I was pursued or not. I could hear nothing; so I turned into a by-road, leading to a grove. I had taken this ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... went on she began to shine like a star, shootin' on through the azure heavens for all the world like a sky-rocket. ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... of that day the British advanced in force to the attack; and the peaceful little creek was ablaze with flags and bright uniforms, and the wooded shores echoed back the strains of martial music. Twenty-one barges, one rocket-boat, and two schooners formed the British column of attack, which moved grandly up the creek, with the bands playing patriotic airs, and the sailors, confident of victory, cheering lustily. Eight hundred men followed the British colors. Against this force Barney advanced with but five ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... difficult and hazardous. All along this perilous coast life-saving apparatus of the newest and best type is stored in the life-boat houses placed at intervals close to the seashore. On stormy nights the watching sentinels summon by telephone the fishermen of the tiny hamlets near. At sound of a rocket the distressful cry, "A wreck, a wreck!" runs over the telephone, and immediately brave hearts and hands are putting off to the rescue, while trembling women anxiously wait their husbands' return with ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... as the canyon depths, bowing the forest before it, bending the meagre, crevice-rooted pines on the walls of the gorge, they knew it for what it was. A wind, strong and warm, a balmy gale, drove past them, flinging a rocket-shower of sparks from the fire. The dogs, aroused, sat on their haunches, bleak noses pointed upward, and raised ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... good soul, as you know; but she's a self-willed little jade, and if I don't do just as she wants me to—if I don't walk her chalk line—presto! she goes off like a rocket. To-night, d'ye see, I came home with the first volume of Prescott's new work on Mexico—a perfect romance of a book, and wanted to read it aloud to Cara. But no, she had something else in her head, and told me, up and down, that she didn't want to hear any of my dull old ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... and got through it with much credit. So far as I can remember—and it is, indeed, no stretch of imagination—the goal got by Mr. M'Callum could not have been saved by any keeper, as it came out of a scrimmage from the Celtic man's foot like a rocket. Mr. Downie is a very neat kicker-out in front, and shows fine judgment with his hands in clearing the ball away from ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... buzzed with aircraft. They went up in readiness to shoot, but after the first sighting reports only a few miles offshore, that order was vehemently canceled—someone in charge must have had a grain of sense. The thing was not a plane, rocket or missile. It ...
— The Good Neighbors • Edgar Pangborn
... rocket went whizzing up. It raced the other, outdistanced it, seemed bound for the furthest heights, never swerving ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... and a green light crept out of the dark to seawards, and a faint throbbing grew into the measured beat of a steamer's screw. Then a low, shadowy hull, outlined by a glimmer of phosphorescence, came on towards the harbor mouth, and a rocket swept up in a fiery curve and burst, dropping colored lights. A harsh rattle of running chain broke out, the screw splashed noisily for a few moments and stopped, and a launch ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... a mass of air a bubble of lighter air; it has already obtained the bubble of air, and keeps it imprisoned; it has now only to find the impulsive force, only to cause a vacuum before the balloon, for instance, only to burn the air before the aerostat, as the rocket does before itself; it has only to solve this problem in some way or other; and it will solve it, and do you know what will happen then? At that instant frontiers will vanish, all barriers will be swept away; everything that constitutes a Chinese wall round thought, round ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... apparently pointing at me. As the setting sun was glaring in my eyes, I could not well discern what they were doing, and, thinking that their shouts to me were only by way of joke, I made a step forward, but hardly had I done so when a noise like a rocket going past was heard, and a bunch of arrows became deeply planted in the earth, at a white circular spot marked on it, only about two yards in front of me. I counted them. They were ten in number. My danger, however, was, after all, practically of no account, for these archers, as ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... speaks, a spark is seen to shoot out from one of the circling cavaliers, which rising rocket-like into the air, comes in ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... above the horizon, a light proceeding from the south, of the breadth of three inches, which went off to the north, always spreading itself as it moved, and made itself heard by a whizzing light like that of the largest sky-rocket. I judged by the eye that this light could not be above our atmosphere, and the whizzing noise which I heard confirmed me in that notion. {38} When it came in like manner to be about 45 degrees to the ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... grown grey hairs, Hope had mourning on, Trenched with tears, carved with cares, Hope was twelve hours gone; And frightful a nightfall folded rueful a day Nor rescue, only rocket and lightship, shone, And lives at last were washing away: To the shrouds they took,—they shook in ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... Some of these ideas didn't seem quite logical; a number of them were complete reversals of present trends, and a lot seemed to depend on arbitrary and unpredictable factors. Mind, this was before the first rocket landed on the Moon, when the whole moon-rocket and lunar-base project was a triple-top secret. But I knew, in the spring of 1970, that the first unmanned rocket would be called the Kilroy, and that ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... opposite course from ourselves; we first saw her cabin lights. It was blowing a gale of wind before which we were going on our own course at the rate of eleven miles an hour. It was, of course, impossible to speak her, but, to let her know that she had company on the wide ocean, we threw up a rocket which for splendor of effect surpassed any that I had ever seen on shore. It was thrown from behind the mizzenmast, over which it shot arching its way over the main and foremasts, illuminating every sail and rope, and then diving into the ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... which was exploded opposite the Oxfords after two false starts with much pomp and ceremony. A green rocket was sent up one mile west of Ploegsteert 'to deceive the enemy,' as the Staff memorandum hopefully remarked. Captain Hadden, of the 1st/4th Oxfords, opposite whose trench the explosion was to occur, was ordered to keep half his company ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... seeing them, and bring up their guns by the road without our being able to interfere with them. Mr. Bathurst, will you take down word to Captain Doolan to put his men on the platforms on that side. Tell him that I am going to throw up a rocket, as I believe they are erecting a battery near Hunter's bungalow, and that his men are to be ready to give them a volley if they can make them out. Tell them not to expose themselves too much; for if they really are at work ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... of this machine," he replied. "Ye see, it runs on the rocket principle by spurtin' out gases. Ef we want to go up off the ground we squirt out under the machine an' that gives us a h'ist. Then, when we get 'way up high, we spread out a pair o' big wings like and start the propeller ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... as ever singing on the wing. It seems to spring from more intense excitement and self-abandonment than the ordinary song delivered from the perch. When its joy reaches the point of rapture, the bird is literally carried off its feet, and up it goes into the air, pouring out its song as a rocket pours out its sparks. The skylark and the bobolink habitually do this, while a few others of our birds do it only on occasions. One summer, up in the Catskills, I added another name to my list of ecstatic singers—that of the ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... lying under Tynemouth), and in that case the south-side men have nothing to do with her. But sometimes the vessel shows all her lights and rushes upon the South Pier. Then the men wait for the last lurch and that wallowing crash that they know so well. The rocket is laid, and flies out over the rigging; the brigadesmen haul on their rope, and the basket comes rocking ashore along the line. It is not child's play to stand in the open and work the rocket apparatus; sometimes a whole row of men are struck by a single sea, and have to hang on wherever ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... except that—whatever else he is, he's a great poet. And I do know something about poetry! But I remember one sentence very well—Life—isn't it Life?—is 'an action which is making itself, across an action of the same kind which is unmaking itself.' And he compares it to a rocket in a fire-works display rushing up in flame through the falling cinders of ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... by Lokken, the little fishing village with the red-tiled roofs—we can see it up here from the window—a ship has come ashore. It has struck, and is fast embedded in the sand; but the rocket apparatus has thrown a rope on board, and formed a bridge from the wreck to the mainland; and all on board are saved, and reach the land, and are wrapped in warm blankets; and to-day they are invited to the farm at the convent of Borglum. In comfortable rooms they encounter ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... tornado and an idiot you must think me! I cannot explain my extraordinary departure. I suppose I was in such a nervous state that I was obsessed in some mysterious manner and went off like a rocket. I can assure you I feel like a stick this morning. You will forgive me, won't you? for you know that although my affections do fluctuate for some people, ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... named being by far the greatest favourite. A few years ago it was said to be very scarce, and in some parts of the country it certainly was so, but when the present taste for the good old flowers became general, it was not only found, but quickly propagated, so that now the double white Sweet Rocket may be had everywhere, and certainly no more beautiful flower can occupy the garden borders, its perfume being strong and deliciously fragrant. The parent plant of these double kinds is widely distributed over Europe; ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... was very large, and was divided into several sections, each of which was equipped with runways and/or other landing facilities to suit one class of craft—propellor jobs, jets, or helicopters. There were even a few structures that looked like rocket pits. ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... in great numbers, and myriad overloaded crafts full of poorer sightseers enter the lagoon by all the small canals. Having seen Venetian pyrotechny, one realizes that all fireworks should be ignited over water. It is the only way. A rocket can climb as fiercely and dazzlingly into any sky, no doubt, but over land the falling stars and sparks have but one existence; over water, like the swan "on St. Mary's lake," they have two. The displays last for nearly ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... showers. But to this simple explanation of the famous November meteors Ardan would not listen. He preferred believing that Mother Earth, feeling that her three daring children were still looking at her, though five thousand miles away, shot off her best rocket-signals to show that she still thought of them and would never let them out ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... shuddering hiss, a rocket from a headland beyond the village leapt up and burst hot gold against the glare, and the sound of the third ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... welcome her, all that is ours! Warble, O bugle, and trumpet, blare! Flags, flutter out upon turrets and towers! Flames, on the windy headland flare! Utter your jubilee, steeple and spire! Clash, ye bells, in the merry March air! Flash, ye cities, in rivers of fire! Rush to the roof, sudden rocket, and higher Melt into stars for the land's desire! Roll and rejoice, jubilant voice, Roll as a ground-swell dash'd on the strand, Roar as the sea when he welcomes the land, And welcome her, welcome the land's desire, The ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... instantaneous, in fact, that Louise Taine's lips were shaped to deliver an expressive "oh" of admiration, even before the portrait was revealed. As though the painter, in drawing back the easel curtain, gave an appointed signal, that "oh" was set off with the suddenness of a sky-rocket's rush, and was accompanied in its flight by a great volume of sizzling, sputtering, glittering, adjectival sparks that—filling the air to no purpose whatever—winked out as they were born; the climax of the pyrotechnical display being reached in the explosive pop of another "oh" which released ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... among the thick forest of trees and gardens, while shells would burst high over the city, illuminating the spires and domes, and bringing into prominence every object around. There was not only the roll of the heavy guns and mortars, but the sharp rattle of musketry, and the hiss of the huge rocket, as it cut through the air with its brilliant light, ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... puzzled the old couple, however, was a rocket frame, and when all the smoke had cleared away—for there is no fire without smoke—not a trace of ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... (internal and border troops); CIS Forces (Ground, Air, Air Defense, Strategic Rocket) Manpower availability: males 15-49, NA; NA fit for military service; NA reach military age (18) annually Defense expenditures: $NA, ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... following days were occupied in making rocket rafts, and in getting ready life-preservers for the men, in case of their falling from the rafts. On the 1st of October the Galvarino, Puyrredon, and Araucano, stood into the bay to reconnoitre, and sustained a heavy fire ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... our aged eyes As when it nursed the blossoms of our spring. Such is true Love, which steals into the heart With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn That kisses smooth the rough brows of the dark, And hath its will through blissful gentleness, Not like a rocket, which, with passionate glare, Whirs suddenly up, then bursts, and leaves the night Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes; A love that gives and takes, that seeth faults, Not with flaw-seeking eyes like needle points, But loving-kindly ever looks them down With the o'ercoming faith that still ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... twin-screw steamer, by the beat. I can't make her out, but she must be standing very close in-shore. Ah!' as the red of a rocket streaked the haze, 'she's standing in to signal before she clears ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... his arms above his head, and shot up like a rocket towards the lofty dome, which split asunder to let him pass. Horace, as he gazed after him, had a momentary glimpse of deep blue sky, with a star or two that seemed to be hurrying through the transparent opal scud, before the roof ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... climbed with Atterbury to the very summit of the tractor, where he discovered that his original guess had been correct and that the car rose from the earth rocket fashion, due to the back pressure of the radiant discharge from a massive cylinder of uranium contained in the tractor. Against this block played a disintegrating ray from a small thermic inductor, the inner construction ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... tell East to come and back me," said Tom to a small School-house boy, who was off like a rocket to Harrowell's, just stopping for a moment to poke his head into the School-house hall, where the lower boys were already at tea, and sing out, "Fight! Tom Brown and ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... beneath our feet, hearing an appalling hiss through the open trap-door, a hiss like the first sound of a rocket! ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... inquiries, but pedaled on till I reached the summit of that long, long hill that leads straight down to my home. Excitement lent a new impulse to my energy, and my heart thumped hard as I recognized familiar cottages still standing. This raised my hopes and sent me rocket-like ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... wanted to see not only Goldilocks but also the Three Bears and they took a remarkable journey through the air to do so. Tommy even rode on a Rocket and met the monstrous Blue Frog. When they arrived at Goldilocks' house they found that the Three Bears had been there before them and mussed everything up, much to Goldilocks' despair. "We must drive those bears out of the country!" said Pa Flyaway. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... arm. He had reached the end of the platform. There he stood, looking up the line which ran dark under a haze of lights. The high red signal-lamps hung aloft in a scarlet swarm; farther off, like spangles shaking downwards from a burst sky-rocket, was a tangle of brilliant red and green signal-lamps settling. A train with the warm flare on its thick column of smoke came thundering upon the lovers. Dazed, they felt the yellow bar of carriage-windows brush in vibration ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... deafening roar of its rocket motors, the great vessel lifted itself laboriously from the ground, squatting on flame, filling Fletcher Monk's mind with the first real sense of fear since he learned the grim facts of his ailment ...
— Heart • Henry Slesar
... part of November, the rains having ceased, and the men again become fit for action, they anticipated with joy a forward movement. At this time re-enforcements were received from Calcutta; and a regiment of cavalry, a troop of horse-artillery, and a rocket corps were ordered to join. Before, however, the British could advance, they had to dispose of the whole military force of wa, This force now consisted of 35,000 musketeers, 700 Cassay cavalry, and other troops, amounting in the whole to 60,000 men. On the 30th of November this ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of the subject, it might be thought that as the comet was dashing along with enormous velocity the tail was merely streaming out behind, just as the shower of sparks from a rocket are strewn along the path which it follows. This would be an entirely erroneous analogy; the comet is moving not through an atmosphere, but through open space, where there is no medium sufficient to sweep the tail into the line of motion. Another very remarkable feature is the gradual growth ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... snapped orders into the intercom and his unit-mates responded by smooth co-ordinated action, the giant rocket cruiser Polaris slowly arched through Earth's atmosphere, first nosing up to lose speed and then settling tailfirst toward its destination—the spaceport at ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... than this? Had the worlds dedicated themselves to the same monotonous pattern? He had caught a glimpse of conventional, rocket-shaped spaceships, plying their courses back and forth among the planets. He saw boats and cars and a few long-nosed airplanes, with the merest trace of vestigial wings far back near the empennage, streaking through the sky in high arcs, leaving curling trails of fog and smoke ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... this he touched a rocket, of which he had several in the boat, with the lighted end of the cigar he had been smoking, and it went hissing up into the air, ascending so high as to be plainly visible from the deck of le Feu-Follet before it exploded. Griffin saw this ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... dear little chap! Very true; but I'm thinking That you're just a little too "dear" for me—yet! Ah, yes! it's no use to stand smiling and winking; I like the bright ways of you, youngster,—you bet! You're white as the moon, and as spry as a rocket; No doubt all you say in self-praise is quite true, But you see, boy, I must keep an eye to my pocket! The Renters and Raters so put on the screw, That a "middle-class income" won't stand much more squeezing, And Forty or Fifty Pounds more in the year. For your bright ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... capsize. In another second the spirited horse turned sharp round, the sleigh turned sharp over, and the occupant was pitched out at full length, while a black object, that might have been mistaken for his hat, rose from his side like a rocket, and, flying over him, landed on the snow several yards beyond. A faint shout was heard to float on the breeze as this catastrophe occurred, and the driver was seen to jump up and readjust himself in the cariole; while the other black object proved itself not to be a hat, by getting hastily ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Rocket Climbers, two well-known varieties of the Firewort family, make a beautiful show this month; the latter especially, which rapidly attains a great height. The Firewort family are all night bloomers, and related ...
— Cupid's Almanac and Guide to Hearticulture for This Year and Next • John Cecil Clay
... could see nothing. "Give way, boys! Give way! Lay out on your oars, and long stroke!'' said the captain; and stretching to the whole length of our arms, bending back again so that our backs touched the thwarts, we sent her through the water like a rocket. A few minutes of such pulling opened the islands, one after another, in range of the point, and gave us a view of the Canal, where was a ship, under top-gallant-sails, standing in, with a light breeze, for the anchorage. Putting the boat's head in the direction of the ship, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... clear and calm. At noon Gissing blew the syren, fired a rocket from the bridge, and swung the engine telegraph to STOP. The ship's orchestra, by his orders, struck up a rollicking air. Quickly and without confusion, amid cries of Women and children first! the passengers filed to their allotted places. The crew and officers ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... later the group gathered about Mrs. Kildare—and incidentally Jemima—were startled by the appearance of a vision in pink at the head of the stairs, who casually straddled the banister and arrived in their midst with the swoop of a rocket. ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... eagerly dispersed under his quick command. Galloping at his heels was a team with the whale-boat, brought from the river, miles away. He was here, there, and everywhere; catching the line thrown by the rocket from the ship, marshaling the men to haul it in, answering the hail from those on board above the tempest, pervading everything and everybody with the fury of the storm; loud, imperious, domineering, self-asserting, ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the use of Tarragon is advised to temper the coldness of other herbs in salads, like as a Rocket doth. "Neither," say the authorities, "do we know what ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie |
