"Spark" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hair, the eyes gleaming with despair and fiery 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 ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... noble thing, worth living and dying for, Though all the devils on earth and in Hell spit at me their disdain. It is stern work, it is perilous work, to thrust your hand in the sun And pull out a spark of immortal flame to warm the hearts of men: But Prometheus, torn by the claws and beaks whose task is never done, Would be tortured another eternity to ...
— Main Street and Other Poems • Alfred Joyce Kilmer
... "He roused us. Harrington's theory is that uncle set himself on fire with a spark from his cigar—a charred cigar butt was found ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... you, but I want you to keep your mouth closed as far as I am concerned. If you try to circulate any more lies about me, I shall forget that you are a whining cur, without a spark of courage in your whole body, and I shall give ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... tyranny of artificial distinctions; and the poorer classes, still smarting under the exactions of the late reign, were by the impositions of the new tax wound up to a pitch of madness. Thus the materials had been prepared; it required but a spark to set the whole ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... The Divine spark. Consciousness the essence of everything. Axioms of universal Occultism. The great central light. The teachings of Oriental seers regarding the ultimate goal. Different stages of mankind. Births in consciousness. Physical consciousness: its limitations. Mental ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... at last he was saying good-bye on the night before polling day, he could not flatter himself that he had really struck any spark from her. Certainly she gave him no chance, at that final interview, but stood amongst the other women, calm and smiling, as if determined that he should not again mock her ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... which fell from my shoulders at these words! I was to hear, then, what had intervened between me and my purpose. The wearing night I had anticipated was to be lightened with some small spark of knowledge. I had confidence enough in the kind-hearted inspector to be sure of that. I caught at my uncle's arm and squeezed it delightedly, quite oblivious of the curious glances I must have ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... hunters that blow the horn. All is fish that comes to the net. All is not gold that glitters. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. A pitcher goes often to the well, but is broken at last. A rolling stone gathers no moss. A small spark makes a great fire. A stitch in time saves nine. As you make your bed, so you must lie on it. As you sow, so you shall reap. A tree is known by its fruit. A willful man will have his way. A willing mind makes a light foot. A word before is worth two behind. A ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... unintelligible syllables. Curious, is'nt it, that these shy denizens of field and forest are so bold, in term as well as vacation time, where these colored lads and lasses congregate, for people of a low, brutal nature, incapable of any spark of generosity or ambition, are no friends to innocent nature. The papers that characterize the Negro as such, a creature unfit to live in a white man's country, cannot ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889 • Various
... to wish you to remark, With favour and compassion, how a spark Of your great beauty hath inflamed my heart With deep affection, and that, for my part, I only ask that you with me would dance The brangle gay in feats of dalliance, For this ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... found an elm root that was very dry. He dug a hole in it and put a stick in and rubbed it. Then smoke came. He smelled it. Then the people smelled it and came near. Others helped him to rub. At last a spark came. They blew this into a flame. Thus fire came to warm the people and ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... little interruption, throughout the full season. The immense mass of vegetation with which the fertile soil loads itself during the summer is suddenly withered, and the whole earth is covered with combustible materials. A single spark of fire falling anywhere upon these plains at such a time, instantly kindles a blaze that spreads on every side, and continues its destructive course as long as it finds fuel, these fires sweeping on with a rapidity which renders it hazardous ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Charles was himself strongly, and not unreasonably suspected of being secretly one also. His alliance with Louis XIV" was justifiably regarded with the utmost suspicion and dislike by all his Protestant subjects. It only wanted a spark to set this mass of smouldering irritation and ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... in the United States has served notice on the American people that from it they can hope for nothing in the way of preservation of their liberties. Their liberties are dead. Well may those Americans who still have in their souls a spark of the old fire, turn back 143 years and read these words from the Declaration ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing
... logic of discovery,[74] the demonstration of the advance of knowledge and the development of ideas, which as the earthly wants and passions of men remain almost unchanged, are the charter of progress, and the vital spark in history. And they often give us invaluable counsel when they attend to their own subjects and address their own people. Remember Darwin, taking note only of those passages that raised difficulties ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... any reasonable Man whether this Lad, in the Simplicity of his native Innocence, full of Shame, and capable of any Impression from that Grace of Soul, was not fitter for any Purpose in this Life, than after that Spark of Virtue is extinguished in him, tho' he is able to write twenty Verses ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and the look of triumph he saw there roused every spark of energy within him, and it was in a tone of well-assumed composure that he replied to the inspector, "My licence is in my pocket, and my coat is below there;" and without a moment's hesitation sprang ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... a prodigy of learning because you can read the Bible, and she has not the faintest idea how such skill can be acquired. She gives you her whole heart, full of the blind confidence of a first love. The divine spark, which kindles aspirations for freedom in the human soul, has been glowing more and more brightly since you have emerged from boyhood, and now her glances kindle it into a flame. For her dear sake, you long to be a free man, with power to protect her from the degrading ...
— The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts • Lydia Maria Child
... snow had drifted at the mouth and sifted in upon the floor of this earth-cavern, yet was the air much warmer than without; and when Lawless had struck a spark, and the dry furze bushes had begun to blaze and crackle on the hearth, the place assumed, even to the eye, an air of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from the heart of India, a mortal so far favored as never to have worn the abominable European costume—those hideous habits, and frightful hats, which render the men so ridiculous, so ugly, that in truth there is not a single good quality to be discovered in them, nor one spark of what can either captivate or attract! There comes to me at last a handsome young prince from the East, where the men are clothed in silk and cashmere. Most assuredly I'll not miss this rare and unique opportunity of exposing myself to a very serious ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... were always writing about. If you say you love him, I know I shall do something desperate;" and he looked as if he would keep his word, as he clenched his hands with a wrathful spark ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... by speaking of what he would do on the morrow; desired his sisters to send round to all their friends, that he might stretch his limbs once more in the merry dance; and continued to talk of the future with much confidence, that even Sir Maurice caught a spark of hope from the fiery ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... A good ideal though not a new one! And, providentially, here was the latent spark of religious dissent, ready to respond to the foulest breath ever blown from the lips of Greed. In 1785 the spark was first fanned into flame, with the best results; then, the satisfactory working of the experiment being assured, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... force, but made no attempt to scale the rock; while she, instantly perceiving his manoeuvre, sprang down to his side and freed herself with imperious decision. Then she turned upon him, her head held high, a spark of genuine scorn in her eyes; and he realised that he was dealing with no mere coquette, whose elusiveness might be taken as an inverted form of encouragement, but with a woman of character ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... her reverie, the tapestry at the door was again pushed back, cautiously this time, then eagerly. There entered the prettiest spark that ever graced a kingdom or trod ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... say how easily the spark of jealousy, once kindled, is blown into a flame, and how naturally, in a coarse and ungoverned nature, it explodes in acts of violence ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... leaped not only because of her own boldness, but because he seemed to stir. It was as if this kiss, so light, so imperceptible, had sent a galvanic throbbing through his frame. She herself felt it, as now and then in winter she had felt an electric spark. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... ten years of aloneness. Yet he was beginning to comprehend that there was something very pleasant and companionable in the nearness of Muskwa. With the coming of man a new emotion had entered into his being—perhaps only the spark of an emotion. Until one has enemies, and faces dangers, one cannot fully appreciate friendship—and it may be that Thor, who now confronted real enemies and a real danger for the first time, was beginning to understand what ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... pang the nerves can feel, Hence, with the rack and reeking wheel. Faith lifts the soul above this little ball! While gleams of glory open round, And circling choirs of angels call, Can'st thou, with all thy terrors crown'd, Hope to obscure that latent spark, Destin'd to shine when suns are dark? Thy triumphs cease! thro' every land, Hark! Truth proclaims, thy triumphs cease: Her heavenly form, with glowing hand, Benignly points to piety and peace. Flush'd with youth her looks impart Each fine feeling as it ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... payment of the tobacco tax. Possibly, however, no open rebellion would have occurred, had not Miller proceeded to high-handed and arbitrary deeds, making himself so obnoxious to the people that finally they were wrought up to such an inflammable state of mind that only a spark was needed to light the flames ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... good for me, too orthodox, too strait-laced," exclaimed the Russian one day in his quiet, jeering way. "Or it may be that I am not good enough for them. Any way, we do not coalesce. Rather are we like flint and steel, and eliminate a spark whenever we come in contact. They look upon me as a pagan, and hold me in horror. I look upon three-fourths of them as Pharisees, and hold them in contempt. Good people there are among them no doubt; people whom it would be a pleasure to know, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... collected (a valuable hint this for the Syncretic Society, that desperate association for producing un-actable dramas)—the very air is exhausted in a theatrical sense; for "life in the clouds" has been long voted "law;" whilst the play-writing craft have already robbed the regions below of every spark of poetic fire; devils are decidedly out of date. In short, and not to mince the matter, as hyenas are said to stave off starvation by eating their own haunches, so the drama must be on its last legs, when actors turn king's evidence, and exhibit to the public how they flirt and quarrel, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... well who had written it. She held it to the taper, and then flinging it on the hearth, silently watched spark by spark die out. Long did she stand there, her head against the mantel-piece, her eyes fixed upon ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... spark plugs, knowing that if one was broken the result would be what had just taken place, but all were intact. He had turned the switch, stopping the motor, and next inspected the valve caps where a fracture or loosening would have caused ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... ram destruction upon his foes, when, wonder of wonders, not a man would obey his order. Angered beyond measure by such an unwonted experience, he seized with his own hand the electric apparatus arranged to give the fatal spark, but with such violence and indiscretion that, instead of sending the current on its appointed mission, it turned from its course and destroyed the ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... room warm, Harry," said Mrs. Castleton, "you had better go in the dancing-room—there is not a spark of fire there." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... spoke that odd spark of ferocity dilated in his eyes, and seizing the largest of his modeling tools, he obliterated at one swoop the whole exquisite face. Poor Gertrude turned ashy white, and a convulsion ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... plaintee fuss about hees daughter Emmeline, Dat's mebby nice girl, too, but den, Mon Dieu, she's not de queen! An' w'en de young man's come aroun' for spark it on de door, An' hear de ole man swear "Bapteme!" he's ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... encourage the daughter to open war with the father, knowing that nothing could incense him so much as Constance's thinking of a poor physician instead of accepting of an earl's son; Mrs. Panton wished then to fan to a flame the spark which she was confident existed in his daughter's heart. Erasmus, who was not apt to fancy that ladies liked him, endeavoured to relieve Constance from the agonizing apprehension which he saw she felt of his ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... the thief, hearing a heavy tread and crossing the room to the big ornamental fireplace which had never known a spark or speck of soot. There was a mammoth opening in the chimney and Wilson vanished up it as Kearney ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... Brown's peculiar monomania made him to be "dreaded by the Missourians as a supernatural being." Sure enough, a hero in the midst of us cowards is always so dreaded. He is just that thing. He shows himself superior to nature. He has a spark of divinity ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... France; Everywhere men bang and blunder, Sweat and swear and worship Chance, Creep and blink through cannon thunder. Rifles crack and bullets flick, Sing and hum like hornet-swarms. Bones are smashed and buried quick. Yet, through stunning battle storms, All the while I watch the spark Lit to guide me; for I know Dreams will triumph, though the dark Scowls above me where I go. You can hear me; you can mingle Radiant folly with my jingle. War's a joke for me and you While we know such dreams ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... virtue, which your masters canonize, that led their model hero constantly to exhaust the stores of his powerful rhetoric in the expression of universal benevolence; whilst his heart was incapable of harbouring one spark of common parental affection. Benevolence to the whole species, and want of feeling for every individual with whom the professors come in contact, form the character of the new philosophy. Setting up for an unsocial independence, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... A last spark of valor flickered into flame within her. She stood up, lifting her head high, and summoning with a loudly beating heart every scattered energy. She was alive; her fight could not be over while she ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... spirits that carry with them, irresistibly, tamer companions. He had been a leader in intermittent raids into forbidden spheres; a leader also in certain more decorous pursuits—if athletics may be so accounted; yet he had capable of long periods of self-control, for a cause. Through it all a spark had miraculously been kept alive. . ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... when the poor man had determined to seek an asylum in England; and is, therefore, justly and generously condemned by D'Alembert. This considered, Hume failed both in honour and friendship not to show his dislike; which neglect seems to have kindled the first spark of combustion in this madman's brain. However, the contestation is very amusing, and I shall be very sorry if it stops, now it is in so good a train. I should be well pleased, particularly, to see so seraphic a madman attack so insufferable a coxcomb ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Eboli remained open to him at all times. The Princess liked him, was kindly disposed towards him, and encouraged his visits. We met there more than once. One day we left together, and that day the fool set spark to a train that led straight to the mine on which, ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... spark, Antonio, The wittiest woman's toy in Portugal: Lord, what a loss of treats and serenades! The whole she-nation will ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... shaft of light, radiating from a point just below the horizon, like the spokes of a wheel. Suddenly a little layer of horizontal clouds, a few degrees above the mangrove tops, became visible, rose-red and gold-edged; and an instant later a spark of molten, palpitating gold flashed and blazed through the ebony-black mangrove branches, dazzling the eye and tipping the ripples with a long line of scintillating gold which stretched clear from the shore to the boat, flooding her ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... not least, came blind-man's-buff. This exhausted the last spark of physical energy left even in the strongest. But the mental and spiritual powers were still vigorous, so that when they all sat down in quiescence round the room, and Toc took down the family Bible from its ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... to walking. So was it on the sandy soil; and after this was passed, there remained no marks at all. But an old man saw him driving them on the road to Pylos. There he shut up the cattle at his leisure, and, going to his mother's cave, lay down in his cradle like a spark in a mass of cinders, which an eagle could scarcely spy out. When I taxed him with the theft he boldly denied it, and told me that he had not seen the cows or heard naught of them, and could not get the reward if one were offered for ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... be likened to the first day of love. All your learning, your travel, and deeds and dreams—all has been nothing but dry firewood that you have dragged and heaped together. And now has come a spark, and the whole heap blazes up, casting its red glow over earth and heaven, and you stretch out your cold hands, and warm them, and shiver with joy that a new bliss ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... satisfaction. In it he had sketched off the lofty obsequiousness of the flunkey who had ministered to his needs. "He seemed to take a smug satisfaction in his own degradation," said he. "Surely the last spark of manhood must have gone from the man who has so entirely lost his own individuality. He revelled in humility. He was ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to the commercial intercourse of nations? Where the feeling that all mankind constitute one vast family is stronger than that of their political and religious diversity; where the sense of right and the love of peace have extinguished every dangerous spark of ambition for empire and all warlike jealousy; where, especially, their economic interests are rightly understood on both sides, a real conflict between the interests of two nations must always be a phenomenon ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... lot to mark A proud, conceited, talking spark, With eyes that hardly served at most To guard their master 'gainst a post; Yet round the world the blade has been, To see whatever could be seen. Returning from his finished tour, Grown ten times perter than before; Whatever word you chance to drop, The travelled fool your mouth will stop: ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... of the world are just emerging from the strain and agony of the most terrible and disastrous war in the history of mankind. From a tiny spark of hatred a great conflagration of passion spread over the world, well-nigh destroying the entire fabric of civilization. How near we have come to that catastrophe, as a result of the war and its evil progeny, they best know who have recently ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... can make him. For I can threaten to send him back to Chiltistan. Then talk to him of Mecca, talk to him of the city, and the shrine, and the pilgrims. Perhaps something of their devotion may strike a spark in him, perhaps he may have some remnant of faith still dormant in him. Make Mecca a symbol to him, make it live for him as a place of pilgrimage. You could, perhaps, because you have seen with your ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... known to the public. A phantom harem! Yet the houris have an effect on their sultan. Surrounded both by plain women of flesh and blood and by beauteous women on pasteboard, the undergraduate is the easiest victim of living loveliness—is as a fire ever well and truly laid, amenable to a spark. And if the spark be such a flaring torch as Zuleika?—marvel ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... prisoner?" said the priest, turning directly on me. Of all the masks called faces, never had I set eyes on such a deathly one, nor on such pale eyes, all silvery surface without depth enough for a spark of light to make ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... spray-bead gem be won, The stain of thy wing is washed away, But another errand must be done Ere thy crime be lost for aye; Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark, Thou must re-illume its spark. Mount thy steed and spur him high To the heaven's blue canopy; And when thou seest a shooting star, Follow it fast, and follow it far The last feint spark of its burning train Shall light ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... true, the door stood open. Madame put down the screw-driver and drew herself erect. Her eyes were a flame of excitement. This question of a door-spring that made the door fly open when it should make it close roused a vivid spark in her soul. It was she who was wrestling with the ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... savages had consumed the cask of spirits they had fallen on the barrel of gunpowder, probably hoping that it might contain more of their favourite fire-water. They were very likely smoking at the time, and perhaps all bending round the cask in their eagerness to get some of its contents. A spark from one of their pipes must in an instant have finished their business. I cannot say that I indulged in any sentimental grief at what had occurred. It was vexatious to lose so many things which might have been of use, but the most serious loss was that of the ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... marvellous aptitudes, by external organs which he finds in nature subjected to his power. Man was created in the image of God, say the Scriptures, and these words contain a deep meaning. He alone, of all terrestrial beings, possesses a spark of divine intelligence. He alone has been called to pursue the magnificent work of creation, by giving a new face to a world to which he cannot add so much as ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... not much afraid of Ellie alone, but Ellie and Nelson together formed an incalculable menace. No one could tell what spark of truth might dash from their collision. Susy felt that she could deal with the two dangers separately and successively, ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... Italy, which had been part of the same kingdom, compelled the sovereign to grant a constitution. Other Italian States followed the example of rebellion. All Europe apparently had been but waiting for the spark. In France, dissatisfaction with the "tradesman-King," Louis Philippe, had long been bitter. In February, 1848, there was an open rebellion, Louis abdicated, and a provisional government was formed, which proclaimed the land a republic. [Footnote: ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... both in study and in practice, is very useful when learning to fly. It will protect a man from many errors, and render his progress sure, though it may be slow. But something more than deliberation is required in the aviator of distinction. There must be the vital spark of enterprise, the temperamental quality which is known as "dash," the quick action of the mind, in difficulty or peril, that will carry certain men to safety through many dangers. This imaginative power is possessed as a rule, though in ways that differ considerably, ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... rise. If John had been less noble than he was, and his friendship for Jesus less loyal, such words from his followers would have embittered him. There are people who do irreparable hurt by such flattering sympathy. A spark of envy is often fanned into a disastrous flame by friends who come with such appeals to the evil that is ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... was, in effect, "Serve God right, for creating the Germans!" The incident would have been impossible in a country where the Church was as powerful as the Church of England, had it had at the same time a spark of catholic as distinguished from tribal religion in it. As it is, the thing occurred; and as far as I have observed, the only people who gasped were the Freethinkers. Thus we see that even among men ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... Heaven reveals— The tears of sympathy—the glow that steals O'er the young heart, or prompts soft pity's sigh— The prayer to snatch from harsh captivity The virtuous doom'd—teach but to praise—admire— Forbid to catch one spark of generous fire? The godlike wish of genius, man to bless, With rank and wealth still leaguing to oppress! Oh! when shall glory wreathe bright virtue's claim, And both to honour give a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... Derry apprentices of an 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
... Rhodian Spark I told ye of, was with me at a Feast, where I happen'd to have a small Girl: This Stripling began to be sweet upon her, and waggish upon me too. How now, you impudent Saucebox, said I; you're Man's meat your self, and yet have a mind to ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... the greyhound lay down under a big tree, and the cat and the cock got up into the branches, the cock flying right up to the topmost twig, where he thought he would be safe from all danger. Before he went to sleep he looked round the four points of the compass, and saw a little spark burning in the distance. He called out to his companions that he was sure there must be a house not far off, for he could see ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... old bellows, And try me instead—I will not disappoint! Old Flame? He's a very fuliginous "Flame," Ma'am; I wonder, I'm sure, how you've stood him so long; He has choked you for years—'tis a thundering shame, Ma'am! High time the Young Spark put a term to his wrong. Just look at me! Am I not trim, smart, and sparkling, As clean as a pin, and as bright as a star? Compare me with him, who stands scowling and darkling! So gazed the old ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... cherry, cherry was her cheek, And gowden was her hair; But clay-cold were her rosy lips— Nae spark o' life was there. ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... towards the Kremlin; for the wind, drawn towards this vast conflagration, increased every moment in strength. The flower of the army and the emperor himself would have been destroyed, if but one of the brands that flew over our heads had alighted on one of the powder-wagons. Thus upon a single spark out of the multitudes that were for several hours floating in the air, depended the fate ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... were lots of books—not the sawdusty, dry kind that Miss Sandal had in her house, but jolly good books, the kind you can't put down till you've finished. But just now we hardly looked at them. For who with a spark of manly spirit would think twice about a book with a new free-wheel champing the oil like a charger ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... battery, and, consequently, all the letters attracted, and of indicating each letter by removing its wire from the battery, and consequently making it fall. He even proposed to substitute bells of different sounds for the balls, and to produce electric sparks upon them. The sound produced by the spark would vary according to the bell, and the letters ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... them? And that, perhaps, they will by and by succeed in rousing the "stubborn enthusiasm of the people" against themselves? Where has there been called one single spontaneous public meeting of any importance, and where exhibited a spark of enthusiasm, for the total repeal of the Corn-laws? Surely the topic is capable of being handled in a sufficiently exciting manner! But no; wherever a "meeting," or "demonstration," is heard of—there, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... become in recognising one's self as a minister of the Almighty to faithfully carry out our part of His great plan according to our strength and ability?) 0 believe we cannot live one moment for ourselves, one moment of selfish repining, and not be failing him at that moment, hiding the God-spark in us, letting the flesh conquer the spirit, the evil ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... it purposely, so that the sculpture should not be seen, and said: "I am so old that death often pulls me by the coat to come to him, and some day I shall fall down like this lantern, and my last spark of life ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... advance the business in hand. Towards the end of the fourth act, however, we approach the climax, and matters begin to move. Alexis' marriage being now imminent, Silvia thinks she can venture at least to give her lover some spark of hope by narrating her story under fictitious names. This she does, making use of the transparent anagrams Isulia and Sirthis[256]. As Silvia ends her tale Montanus rushes in, determined to be revenged for the favour shown by his mistress to the supposed youth. He stabs ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... dying to see you—so pack up and come down with Dr. Gregory if the least spark of regard for me is slumbering in your breast—Mamma and Florence are writing to beg you,—but though an insignificant member of the family, considering that instead of being 'next to head' only little Edith prevents my being at the less dignified ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... speak. She trembled from head to foot; but not a word escaped her. So intense was her anguish, that it awoke a spark of better feeling in the young man; for confronting Rust, he said in a bold voice: 'If you have any questions to ask respecting me, address them to ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... so he seized a large detonator and with a red hot poker tried to see how it would work. Finding the fuse, as he thought, too wet, he threw the rocket on the floor and left the room. Directly after, Paul heard a hissing noise and realized that the landlord had succeeded in leaving a live spark in the fuse. He simply drew the bedclothes around himself and let the rocket sizz. It went off with a terrible report, shaking the whole house and frightening his companions out of their wits. The landlord rushed into the room with ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... through the friendly hands of Miss Ord to the most cordial ones of Mrs. Garrick,(252) who frankly embraced me, saying, "Do I see you, once more, before I die, my tear little spark? for your father is my flame, all my life, and you are a little spark of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... country, fighting for their rights, will, in their own, submit to give them up in a mild season? The thought was too absurd, and the expectation too extravagant, to be harboured by a man possessed of a spark of rationality. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... sands and grey, Stretch leagues and leagues away, Down to the border line of sky and foam, A spark of sunset burns, The grey tide-water turns, Back, like a ghost from ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... we must find the stairs." But Mrs. Fisher held her with firmer fingers than ever, and they turned into a narrower hall, up toward a blinking red light that sent a small bright spark out through the thick smoke, and in a minute, or very much less, they were out on the fire-escape, and looking down to hear—for they couldn't see—Jasper's voice calling from below, "We are all here, Polly," ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... Blenham had been right and Steve had had ample time to admit the fact utterly and completely; now there was a ringing note in his voice, the effect of which, falling upon his grandfather's ears, might be likened with no great stretch of imagination to that of a spark ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... shots, and most of us, besides our rifles, had a brace of pistols in our belts; but what were seventy-five rifles, and five or six score of pistols against a thousand muskets and bayonets, two hundred and fifty dragoons, and a field-piece loaded with canister? If the Mexicans had a spark of courage or soldiership about them, our fate was sealed. But it was exactly this courage and soldiership, which we made sure ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... fellow-passengers were a number of persons of intelligence and cultivation, one of whom had but recently witnessed in Paris some highly interesting experiments with the electro-magnet, the object of which was to prove how readily the electric spark could be obtained from the magnet, and the rapidity with which it could be disseminated. To most of the passengers this relation was deeply interesting, but to all save one it was merely the recital of a curious experiment. That one exception was Mr. Morse. To him the development of this newly-discovered ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... interval of waking her caged cricket had given out its plaintive cry. All at once it seemed to Ume-ko an unbearable thing for any spark of life to be so prisoned. She longed to set him free, but even though she opened wide her shoji, the outer night-doors, the amado stretched, a relentless opaque wall, along the four sides of ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... the handful of children who stood watching the red mines in the fire and the swarms of spark-serpents darting upward. They had heeded none of the priest's words, and did not notice now that he approached them, so eager were they to see which fiery snake would go highest among the oak branches. Foremost among ...
— The First Christmas Tree - A Story of the Forest • Henry Van Dyke
... another for the carpenter close to the beach, before which a coral reef made a secure harbour for the boats. A third hut was built near the camp for the cook—not that any skilled one belonged to the party. The magazine was wisely placed at a distance, in case a spark from the kitchen or a tobacco-pipe might chance to find its way to the gunpowder. Everyone was in high spirits and supremely happy. As soon as the work of the day was over, the men took to playing leap-frog, diversified by bowls and quoits, which had been brought on shore. The officers ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... long drawn-out and exquisite tortures, Tiberius used to order his executioners to fling their victims before his eyes into the water, where boats full of mariners, stationed below, were waiting in readiness to beat the bruised bodies with oars, in case any spark of life might yet be left in them." The terrible legend fits in aptly with the appearance of this forbidding dizzy precipice, especially on a dark stormy afternoon, when the dull roar of the waves dashing against the cliffs below, mounts ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... build railroads; you have to do a livery trade, and be on the market for a thousand little things. Between the one dollar you pay for stumpage and the twenty dollars you get for lumber lies all these things. Along comes your hardware man and says, Here, why don't you put in my new kind of spark arrestor; think how little it costs; what's fifty dollars to a half-million-dollar business? The spark arrester's a good thing all right, so you put it in. And then there's maybe a chance to use a little paint and make the shanties ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... roses! Where had he heard of attar of roses combined with—with what? And again the two wires would not touch—but they were throwing a spark across ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... paper, in the presence of experts, architects, and others, embracing the most severe tests, and it was fully proved that the tar paper roof is as fireproof as any other. These experiments were made in two different ways; first, the readiness of ignition of the tar paper roof by a spark or flame from the outside was considered, and, second, it was tested in how far it would resist a fire in the interior of the building. In the former case, it was ascertained that a bright, intense fire ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... you were destitute of one little spark of spirit you'd have crawled back to the house to take your broken food on a cold plate like a dog. But what is the matter now? ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... downward 'neath its stern controul; When springing from the earth like the sweet lark That wings its flight in music to the sky, Amid the spheres it wanders, where the eye Trembles to blindness, and the last faint spark Of Earth's far gleaming flickers and expires; Thine is the charm, dear Poesy, which sets The caged spirit on its heavenward flight, And fills its being with those pure desires, And holy aspirations, which like light Shower on the world in ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... conduct!" said Sir Lucius. "Hawker has given me the papers, and I have found poor Mary's son—the friend you betrayed. But there is no time for reproaches, nor could anything I might say add to your punishment. If you have a spark of conscience or shame left, spare me the further disgrace of reading of your arrest in the ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... dark pupils dilated and darkened until his eyes looked like black, storm-swept pools. His already white face grew livid. He drew back as if he had been struck and fixed upon his foster-father a gaze in which every spark of affection was, for the moment, dead. He had been humiliated by the threat of a flogging, but the prospect of the hardest stroke his body might receive was as nothing to him now. His sensitive soul had been smitten a blow the smart of which he would carry ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... phenomenal. Man is of all the most wonderful. A tiny spark of spirit encased in matter, by the irresistible law of progress evolving powers of brain, thought, consciousness, reason, intuition; unfolding, expanding; realizing finally his at-one-ment with his source, the cause of him—God—man immortal, illimitable. ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... low to note if any spark of life remained, and as he did so the lids raised and dull, suffering eyes looked ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... denominates as "common clays": "Yet we are all common clays! There are long clays and short clays, coarse clays and refined clays, and the latter are pretty scarce, that's a fact. To follow out the simile, life is the tobacco with which we are loaded, and when the vital spark is applied we live; when that tobacco is exhausted we die, the essence of our life ascending from the lukewarm clay when the last fibre burns out, as a curl of smoke from the ashes in the bowl of the pipe, and mingling with the perfumed breeze ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... peoples cried out for a deliverer. Morgan heard them, and resolved that Olger must go to fight for them. She lifted the crown from his brow, and his memory came back. She bade him guard well his ring, and gave him a torch: if that torch were lighted his life would burn out with the last spark. He returned to France, fought the Paynim and conquered, freeing France and Christendom. The widowed queen of France then intrigued to marry him; but as she was on the point of attaining her purpose Morgan appeared and caught ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... launching in curves, glinting deftly from side to side in sudden zigzags, and swirling in giddy loops and spirals around the trunks, now on his haunches, now on his head, yet ever graceful and performing all his feats of strength and skill without apparent effort. One never tires of this bright spark of life, the brave little voice crying in the wilderness. His varied, piney gossip is as savory to the air as balsam to the palate. Some of his notes are almost flutelike in softness, while others prick and tingle like ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... manner of leaving the ground, in hopes, if it were possible, to awaken the least spark of honor in the breasts of his persecutors, to prevent the bloodshed which must ensue between his friends and them, should they attempt to seize him. Edwin and Bothwell immediately followed him; but ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... great a current downward as upward, giving the column of liquid a rapid circular motion, which continues until the electricity from the conductor is nearly all discharged silently, or until it is discharged by a spark descending into the liquid. The same phenomena take place with oil or water. Using the latter liquid, the ball must be brought much nearer, or a much greater quantity of electricity is ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... pond, And the crows air cawin' in the pines uv the pasture lot beyond; Where folks complain uv bein' poor, because their money's lent Out West on farms 'nd railroads at the rate uv ten per cent; Where we ust to spark the Baker girls a-comin' home from choir, Or a-settin' namin' apples round the roarin' kitchen fire: Where we had to go to meetin' at least three times a week, And our mothers learnt us good religious Dr. Watts to speak, And where ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... The Luck moved across the velvet night. The steady beat of flame from her tubes was a tiny spark of man-made vengeance on the ...
— Turnover Point • Alfred Coppel
... before eleven o'clock to go home to tell Alice all about it. Chris played the song, on his own piano, and Norma modestly and charmingly went through it again, to the invalid's great satisfaction. Alice, when Norma and her mother were gone, tried to strike a spark of enthusiasm from her husband as to the girl's beauty and talent, but ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... reach round. Beauty eat it up one day; I saw her. Then the wood was used up. I clawed out chips with my nails from the old rotten logs the shanty was made of, and kept up a little blaze. By and by I couldn't pull any more. Then there were only some coals,—then a little spark. I blew at that spark a long while,—I hadn't much breath. One night it went out, and the wind blew in. One day I opened my eyes, and Bess had fallen down in the corner, dead and stiff. Beauty had pushed out of the door somehow and gone. I shut up my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... every nerve in her body was tingling in the sweeping flame of that passion which his parting caress had stirred to vague but troublesome restlessness. And she, too, forgot the crowd, and shyly, proudly gave as well as received; so there began to vibrate between them the spark that clears brains and hearts of the fogs and vapors and keeps them clear. And it was not a problem in psychology that was revealed to those admiring and envying spectators in the brilliant September sunshine, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... the room. Its tone of envy and passion convinced Margaret that even in the worst human beings there is the divine spark. It actually hurt her that her own joy should mean this agony ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... me this story of Fanny Kemble's reading without a spark of ill-nature, but with many a gleam of humor. He told me at the same time of the wonderful effect that Adelaide Kemble (Mrs. Sartoris) used to make when she recited ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... way? he wondered. Which direction ought he to take? He was still hesitating when some twenty paces away he suddenly saw a bright spark, the gleam of a lucifer. Guillaume was lighting a candle. Pierre recognised his broad shoulders, and from that moment he simply had to follow the flickering light along a walled and vaulted subterranean gallery. It seemed to be interminable ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... to exterminate all the heretics in Christendom, to place himself on the thrones of France and of England, and to extinguish the last spark of rebellion in the Netherlands, was his secret thought, and yet it was very difficult to get fifty thousand dollars from him from month to month. Procrastinating and indolent himself, he was for ever rebuking the torpid movements of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... caused by an uncontrollable look of disappointment. But it was not the proposal: no; but the change of manner that struck her. The quiet indifferent voice was like water quenching a struggling spark, but in a moment she recovered her powers. 'Beneath him! Oh, no. I told you we were humbled. I always longed for his independence, and I am glad that he ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... any more than whether the thunderstorm is practical. The thing that will inevitably impress itself on the thinking and feeling man and woman is that the sight of brutal clubbing of innocent victims in a so-called free Republic, and the degrading, soul-destroying economic struggle, furnish the spark that kindles the dynamic force in the overwrought, outraged souls of men like Czolgosz or Averbuch. No amount of persecution, of hounding, of repression, can ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... could be persuaded to go and cut some wood from the wreckage three miles away. Then she thought how fortunate it was that men smoked. La Touche had a Swedish match box nearly full of matches and Bompard had a tinder box, one of the sort that makes a spark by the striking of a wheel against ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... easy for a man of any dignity—with any sense of right—when the affair happens to be in his own family," said Sir James, still in his white indignation. "It is perfectly scandalous. If Ladislaw had had a spark of honor he would have gone out of the country at once, and never shown his face in it again. However, I am not surprised. The day after Casaubon's funeral I said what ought to be done. But I was not ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... cried. "The spark once transmitted may smoulder for generations under ashes, but the appointed time will come, and it will flare up to warm the world. God never allows waste. And we fools rub our eyes and wonder, ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... that comes here who has such a grip on the students as he has. One of the best things you have to look forward to is the treat you will have every year of hearing him. There isn't a spark of 'cant' or 'gush' about him, but what he says goes straight home. I don't think I'll ever forget some of the things he has said to us while I've been ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... pretty nearly worn out. Now when a civilization or a civilized custom falls into senile dementia, there is commonly a judgment ripe for it, and it comes as plagues come, from a breath,—as fires come, from a spark. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... 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 banks ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... old boy; head a bit thick?" was that youthful spark's airy greeting, as he coolly settled himself in ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... connected up the 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
... say, speaking somewhat roughly, that a stimulus applied to the nervous system, like a spark to dynamite, is able to take advantage of the stored energy in unstable equilibrium, and thus to produce movements out of proportion to the proximate cause. Movements produced in this way are vital movements, while mechanical ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... at 200—hot as h-ll! I have seen four thousand men at a time cooking for the whole army as much as twenty or thirty thousand pounds of steaks at a time, all hissing and frying at a time—just about noon, of course, you know—not a spark of fire! Some of the soldiers who had been brought up as glass-blowers at Leith swore they never saw such heat. I used to go to leeward of them for a whiff, and think of old England! Ay! that's the country, after all, where a man may think and say what he pleases! But that sort of work ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... a heartless woman, and I suppose I am, or how account for it? But when I saw my young master go to his father's coffin like that, and begin to serve his own interest and his own curiosity, every spark of love I had ever had for the boy died out, and I cared no more for him than if he had been ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... half-savage Greek could share our feelings thus far, it is irrational to doubt that he went further, to find, as we do, that upon that brief gladness there follows a certain sorrow,—the little light of awakened human intelligence shines so mere a spark amidst the abyss of the unknown and unknowable; seems so insufficient to do more than illuminate the imperfections that cannot be remedied, the aspirations that cannot be realized, of man's own nature. ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... scenes that charmed me when a child; Rocks, gray rocks, with their caverns dark, Leaping rills, like the diamond spark; Torrent voices thundering by, When the pride of the vernal floods swelled high, And a quiet roof, like the hanging-nest, 'Mid cliffs, by ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... drilled a hole about four feet deep and put in an awful blast of powder, and was standing over it ramming it down with an iron crowbar about nine foot long, when the cussed thing struck a spark and fired the powder, and scat! away John Godfrey whizzed like a skyrocket, him and his crowbar! Well, sir, he kept on going up in the air higher and higher, till he didn't look any bigger than a boy—and he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the same desolate emotion, had Heinrich's words breathed into Otto's soul; therefore he sank like the traveller to the earth: but as the traveller's whole soul rivets itself by the eye upon the first spark which glimmers, to kindle again the torch which is to lead him forth from this grave, so did Otto attach himself to the first awakening thought of help. "Wilhelm? his soul is noble and good, him will I initiate into ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... for proper food and drink—especially the latter—was becoming too much for him, and that his nerves were beginning to suffer. Was Joseph Chestermarke never coming? Had he gone off somewhere?—possibly leaving a dead man behind, whose body was only a few yards away. There was no spark of comfort visible save one. Old Rob Walford would be home late that night from Wymington—sooner or later he would hear of Neale's disappearance and he would sharpen his naturally acute wits and come ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher |
