"Matchwood" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... people who say "Nix on the War,"' said Selwyn, breaking the sign in his hands as if it were made of matchwood. 'And this ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... were most severe, in both men and material. The Germans made incredible efforts to cross the Marne. The French having destroyed all the bridges, the Germans tried to construct three bridges of boats. Sixteen times the bridges were on the point of completion, but each time they were reduced to matchwood by the French artillery. ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... There was a big three-master did go on the rocks just about here three years ago, and the next morning there was nothing but matchwood and timber torn into rags. Sea's wonderful strong when she's ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... flare like matchwood! It's touch and go this time, Petrie! To drop to the sloping roof underneath would mean almost ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... shook her head he took the wooden trifle from her, closed his hand gently, and, crushing it to matchwood, dropped it soundlessly on to ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... and her green lights, and it was seen that she was coming dead on for the pier. Presently she struck hard, within thirty yards of the stone-work. There was wild excitement amongst the brigade men, for they saw that she must be smashed into matchwood in five minutes. The rockets were got ready; but before a shot could be fired the ill-fated vessel gave way totally. A great sea rushed along the side of the pier, and the pilot saw something black amongst the travelling water. "There's a man!" he ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... of the flood tide she was beaten through the Gat into Yarmouth roads, where the anchor was dropped, a good scope of chain run out, sails furled and ship pumped dry. Then the forecastle hands cast lots who should keep the first anchor watch. The hand who picked the shortest piece of matchwood had to accept the position of having to take the first two hours; then all the ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... perilously on in the gathering dark, spurning hamlets behind us, I suddenly called out, "Why, what asses we are! Why, it's She that is brave—she and the donkey. We are safe enough; we are artillery and plate-armour: and she stands up to us with matchwood and a snail! If you had grown old in a quiet valley, and people began firing cannon-balls as big as cabs at you in your seventieth year, wouldn't you jump—and she never moved an eyelid. Oh! we go very fast and very far, ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... not have wrought more destruction. Something lay glittering in the moonlight close to him. He picked it up. It was his shaving-glass, the most fragile thing in all their belongings, yet unbroken. Tent-poles had been smashed to matchwood, cooking utensils trodden flat, guns broken to pieces; yet this thing, useless and fragile, had been carefully preserved, watched over by ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... these phenomena when another crash shook the whole building, and we found that an infernal machine had been exploded in the House of Commons, tearing the doors off their hinges, wrecking the galleries, and smashing the Treasury Bench into matchwood. The French Ambassador, M. Waddington, entered the House with me, and for a while stood silent and amazed. At length he said, "There's no other country in the world where this could happen." Certainly it must be admitted that at that moment our ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... to the poop there was nothing left except the hatches and deck-house. The boats were all stove to matchwood except one that was lashed on the forward house. The bulwarks were smashed for many feet along both sides, but this was no real damage, as it allowed the sea to run off easier, relieving the deck of the heavy load. The whole main deck, fore and aft, was as clean stripped as ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... little town pressed so closely upon it, that by sheer weight they seemed likely to crush its frail houses into matchwood. On one side mountains, some bare and rugged, some clothed with forest, rose behind the foot-hills, and behind them more mountains, which seemed to rise like the great green billows of an angry sea. ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace |
