"Spark" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Whoever is doing it doesn't want to hurt Mr. Jardin here, because the damage is always to something that will keep the plane from rising. For instance, yesterday the spark plugs had mud in 'em. Before that, the exhaust wouldn't work; one time the priming pin was clean gone; once the dust cap was half off; then the drum control, warping the wings got on the blink. I tell you, it is enough to drive anybody ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... 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 visited the countries ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... dullard without a spark of imagination could have witnessed the scene presented at that moment without experiencing a thrill which he would have found it difficult to describe. The sunshine, sending a beam through the stained ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... indifference of the Dutch republic, which had from the beginning refused its colony any promise of protection, and the sordid despotism of the Company, and the arrogant contempt of popular rights manifested by its governors, seem to have left no spark of patriotic loyalty alive in the population. With inert indifference, if not even with satisfaction, the colony transferred its allegiance to the British crown, henceforth sovereign from Maine to the Carolinas. The rights of person and property, religious ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... up; baptism take, From the hope that on high does break, Arches of light o'er us throwing, And in each life-spark glowing."[1] ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... you, if it be your will, To grant the Prince his pardon after all: Fulfil it ere an odious deed be done. You know that every army loves its hero. Let not this spark which kindles in it now Spread out and wax a wild consuming fire. Nor Kottwitz nor the crowd he has convened Are yet aware my faithful word has warned you. Ere he appears, send back the Prince's sword, Send it, as, after all, he has deserved. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... scruple in the satiating of her hatred, she still hesitated to employ that mode of vengeance, so much atrocious cruelty was there in causing a daughter to spy upon her mother. It was Alba herself who kindled the last spark of humanity with which that dark conscience was lighted up, and that by the most innocent of conversations. It was the very evening of the afternoon on which she had exchanged that sad adieu with Fanny Hafner. She was more unnerved than ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... her lines subdued themselves to that meagreness which ever dwells afar from beauty. The deep marks of hard experience had been graven on her forehead, and her dark eyes burned inwardly; the tense, concentrated spark of pain and the glowing of happy fervor seemed as foreign to them as she herself to all the lighter joys and hopes. Her only possibility of beauty lay in an abundance of soft dark hair; but even that had been restricted and coiled into a compact, utilitarian compass. She had laid one ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... dependent, ignorant and poor, and to throw ourselves upon God for all, recognizing our own worthlessness, and that we have no right to anything. It is in this nothingness that we recover something of life—the divine spark is there at the bottom of it. Resignation comes to us, and, in believing love, we reconquer the ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The spark of the old love still smoldered within him, and would she succeed again in fanning it into flame? He had not forgotten, however, that he had suffered, and her presence acted like some wonderful balm to his wounded soul. It was his turn now and he could afford to humor ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... admit, that haven't the divine spark of love to hallow them, but after all there aren't so many of that sort. Love one another is the spirit of Christmas — and it prevails, whatever the skeptics say to the contrary. And though it's a pity there has to be a MATERIAL side to Christmas at all, it's so comforting, so ennobling ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... took possession of the roof of the rail-coach, that I might enjoy the prospect. I had not travelled three miles before I perceived a strong smell of burning; at last the pocket of my coat, which was of cotton, burst out into flames, a spark having found its way into it: fortunately (not being insured) there was ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... which on this occasion flashed forth from the coarse and unlettered Henry, as the spark-of fire from the flint, continued to distinguished him both as a Member of the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg, and afterwards as a member of Congress. He took from the first a bold and active part against ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... days he had been one of Eboli's secretaries? On that account the house of 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, all ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... ghosts beckoning to him, stretching out their arms to him! But they were far-off and shadowy, and the gulf between them was black and bottomless; they would fade away into the mists of the past once more. Their voices would die, and never again would he hear them—and so the last faint spark of manhood in ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... infinitesimal atom of inert something that had quickened to life under the blazing magic of the sun. Soon her spirit would abandon her body and go on, while her flesh and bone returned to dust. This frame of hers, that carried the divine spark, belonged to the earth. She had only been ignorant, mindless, feelingless, absorbed in the seeking of gain, blind to the truth. She had to give. She had been created a woman; she belonged to nature; she was nothing save a mother of the ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... History was published. Since he wrote, singularly few of those who could throw light on obscure points of the battle have broken silence. Lord George Paget's Journal furnished little fresh information, since Mr. Kinglake had previously used it extensively. There is but a spark or two of new light in Sir Edward Hamley's more recent compendium. As the years roll on the number of survivors diminishes in an increasing ratio, nor does one hear of anything valuable left behind ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... and Mickey are in their saddles still. I don't want to have my fences burned as soon as they're put up. It's a ticklish thing to think that a spark of fire any where about the place might ruin me, and to know at the same time that every man about the run and every swagsman that passes along have matches in their pocket. There isn't a pipe lighted on Gangoil this time of the year ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... Gospel's peaceful page explore, Only to fight against its precepts more. Near to these seats behold yon slender frames, All closely fill'd and mark'd with modern names; Where no fair science ever shows her face, Few sparks of genius, and no spark of grace; There sceptics rest, a still-increasing throng, And stretch their widening wings ten thousand strong; Some in close fight their dubious claims maintain; Some skirmish lightly, fly, and fight again; Coldly profane, and impiously ...
— The Library • George Crabbe
... only in the cloister; society can derive no sort of benefit from it; it enervates the mind; it benefits nobody but priests, who, under the pretext of rendering men humble, seek, in reality, only to degrade them, to stifle in their souls every spark of science and of courage, that they may the more easily impose the yoke of faith, that is to say, their own yoke. Conclude, then, with me, that the Christian virtues are chimerical, always useless, and sometimes pernicious to men, and attended ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... himself that he was dull, stupid, lethargic, and miserably undemonstrative. But the truth was that there was nothing for him to demonstrate. He had come there to do a stroke of business, and he could not throw into this business a spark of that fire which would have been kindled by such sympathy had it existed. There are men who can raise such sparks, the pretence of fire, where there is no heat at all;—false, fraudulent men; but he was not such an one. Nevertheless he went on ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... process and synthesize steam, which can be done by passing an electric spark through a mixture of H and O in a eudiometer over mercury; we should need to take twice as much H as O. Now when 2 cc. of H combine thus with 1 cc. of O, only 2 cc.of steam are produced. Three volumes are condensed into two volumes, and of course three molecular ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... grew faint and hoarser,—his grasp was childish weak,— His eyes put on a dying look,—he sighed and ceased to speak: His comrade bent to lift him, ... but the spark of life had fled! The soldier of the Legion, in a foreign land was dead! And the soft moon rose up slowly, and calmly she looked down On the red sand of the battle-field, with bloody corpses strown; Yea, calmly on that dreadful ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... very great pleasure that I can inform you of the satisfactory condition of things in this section of Missouri. There is more security for men and property in northwestern Missouri than there has been since the rebellion began. There is not a spark of rebellious feeling left here, and all citizens seem to be, and I believe are, ready to discharge all the duties ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... verge, The wish'd Sun shall emerge; Lest once again the Flower of Sharon bloom After a way the Stalk call heresy. Strange splendour and strange gloom Alike confuse the path Of customary faith; And when the dim-seen mountains turn to flame And every roadside atom is a spark, The dazzled sense, that used was to the dark, May well doubt, 'Is't the safe way and the same By which we came From Egypt, and to Canaan mean to go?' But know, The clearness then so marvellously increas'd, The light'ning shining Westward from the East, Is the great promised sign Of His victorious ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... into philosophy as one of its cardinal doctrines the theory of a spiritual being, constituting the true self of the individual, and separable from the body. The difference recognized in Plato and Aristotle between the divine spark and the appetitive and perceptual parts of human nature was now emphasized. The former (frequently called the "spirit," to distinguish it from the lower soul) was defined as a substance having the attributes of thought and will. The fundamental argument for its existence was ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... lights and roar of cities, Drifting down like a spark in Spoon River, Burnt out with the fire of drink, and broken, The paramour of a woman I took in self-contempt, But to hide a wounded pride as well. To be judged and loathed by a village of little minds — I, gifted with tongues ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... killed every spark of affection, she assured herself repeatedly; and then turned and tossed upon her pillows as vivid recollection painted each happy hour ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... we reflect on what the rebels had done and what they were doing when this resolution was passed, it seems incredible that sane men, having a spark of patriotism, could for one moment have tolerated its sentiments. The rebels had already deprived the United States of its jurisdiction and property in about one-fourth of its inhabited territory, and were rapidly extending their insurrection so ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... joy and revelry; but there was anguish in the heart of M'Clise, who, now that he had gained his object, felt that it had cost him much too dear, for his peace of mind was gone for ever. But Katerina cared not; every spark of feeling was absorbed in her passion, and the very guilt of M'Clise but rendered him more dear; for was it not for her that he had done all this? M'Clise received her portion, and hasted to sail away; for the bodies were still ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... encounter with Berkley, outraged pride had aided to buoy her above the grief over the deep wound he had dealt her. She never doubted that his insolence and deliberate brutality had killed in her the last lingering spark of compassion for the memory of the man who had held her in his arms that night so long—so ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... ae spark o' Nature's fire, That's a' the learning I desire; Then tho' I drudge thro' dub an' mire At pleugh or cart, My Muse, though hamely in attire, May touch ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... efficacy. Monro, our gallant Colonel, went back to the French camp to protest and petition; but while he was gone the spark kindled. ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... 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
... the knowledge and skill of men, if for a single instant the life principle has left the kernel, which may easily result by changing its temperature a few degrees above or below the usual range. The spark of life returns to God who gave it, and man is as helpless to restore it as when he first ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... trappings of a prince of the church. Most of those present were edified by his firmness; but one bishop, calling to mind the life, the arrogance, and the crimes of the minister, observed, that "the confidence of the dying Richelieu filled him with terror." The crime of having trodden out the last spark of his country's liberties, and of having converted its monarchic government into pure despotism, is that for which Richelieu is most generally condemned. But the state of anarchy which he removed was license, not liberty. The task of reconciling private ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... get knowledge and express it" ... "This Being—using its eyes, listening, trying to comprehend it. Every good thing in man is that—looking and making pictures, listening and making songs, making philosophies and sciences, trying new powers, bridge and engine, spark and gun. At the bottom of my soul, that." He sees man without "eyes for those greater things, but we've got the promise—the ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... to Nature, and with our milk we drink order, justice, beauty, and benignity. We cannot take the husks on which our bodies are fed, without expressing these juices also, which circulate as sap and blood through the sphere. We cannot touch any object but some spark of vital electricity is shot through us. Every creature is a battery, charged not with mere vegetable or animal, but with moral life. Our metaphysical being is fed from something hidden in rocks and woods, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... now the hour, if it was an hour, was simply a background for Delia More. For it was not only Calliope and I who responded to Abel's light-hearted talk, but, little by little, it was Delia too. Perhaps it was that faint spark in her—fanned to life on the night of her coming home, so that she "took stock"—which we now divined faintly quickening to Abel's humour, his wisdom, even his fancies. Save in her bitterness, on that first night, I had not heard her laugh; and it was as if something were set free. ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... Martin's troubled thoughts during the moment of his leisure. They were black bodings, and they almost killed the cheerful spark that had been born in his heart during the tilt of wits in the cabin. The menacing peace of the deck occupied all his mind. He barely noticed the mountain looming blackly beyond the ship's ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... of his heart; all other sins had so cooled down and hardened in his nature, that with most men they might have passed for virtues, the evil was so buried in elegant conventionalisms; but one active vice he still possessed, always gleaming up from the white ashes of his burnt out sins, with a spark of vivid fire. ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... for the first time Regan, a towering figure of a man, turns so that Tim can see his face. The bell of the special rings faintly as the sweep of his glance takes in Mr. Craney and the vagabond boy; then he steps on board and in a moment the glittering brass spark of the car amid the flying dust cloud flings Regan's last signal to the G. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he had paid to Queen Caroline's maids of honor at Hampton Court, the Bellenden and Lepel of his minor verses. He dilates upon their monotonous life of hunting, etiquette, and Westphalia ham, and then, not (as Carruthers suggests) without oblique intention of lighting a spark of jealousy in the fair Martha's bosom, records how he walked for three or four mortal hours by moonlight with Mrs. Lepel, meeting never a creature of quality but his Majesty King George I., giving audience to his Vice Chamberlain ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... stage for woman, the next logical step is the consideration of woman, herself, as an important factor in the decorative scheme of any setting,—the vital spark to animate all interior decoration, private or public. The book in hand is intended as a brief guide for the woman who would understand her own type,—make the most of it, and know how simple a matter it is to be decorative if she will but master the few rules underlying all successful dressing. ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... alive! He had left the spark of life in him, and the woman who loved him had fanned it back into ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... There was not a spark of real malice in Teddy's composition. He was a wholesome, good-natured, fun-loving boy, and a general favorite with those who knew him. His chief fault was the impulsiveness that made him do things on the spur of the moment that he often regretted later ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... nature, and make you a far greater and fairer man or woman than you ever otherwise could be. Like some little bit of black carbon put into an electric current, my poor nature will flame into beauty and radiance when that spark touches it. So love Him and be at peace; give yourselves to Him and He will give you back yourselves, ennobled and transfigured by the surrender. Lay yourselves on His altar, and that altar will sanctify ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... a very real and individual woman, with a nature in which the wild spark of passion might some day be roused with disastrous results. It is unsafe to play with the emotions of a person who is simply labelled, often mistakenly and insufficiently, in your mind as belonging to a class, and possessing the characteristics ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Swinging in a palanquin;— Where among the desert sands Some deserted city stands, All its children, sweep and prince, Grown to manhood ages since, Not a foot in street or house, Nor a stir of child or mouse, And when kindly falls the night, In all the town no spark of light. There I'll come when I'm a man With a camel caravan; Light a fire in the gloom Of some dusty dining-room; See the pictures on the walls, Heroes, fights, and festivals; And in a corner find the toys Of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... intermingled with the problems of human rights. His experiments in science were subordinate to the experiments of human society. His great contribution to science was the identification of lightning and the spark from a Leyden jar. For the identification and control of lightning he received a medal from the Royal Society. The discussion of liberty and the part he took in the independence of the colonies of America represent his greatest contribution ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... Indians who had been thrown out of ships and left in the sea. 30. When they are afterwards disembarked at the island where they are taken to be sold, it is enough to break the heart of whomsoever has some spark of compassion to see naked, starving children, old people, men, and women falling, faint from hunger. 31. They then divide them like so many lambs, the fathers separated from the children, and the wives from the husbands, making droves of ten or twenty persons ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... The spark in question was called Ruggieri da Jeroli, a man of noble birth, but of lewd life and blameworthy carriage, insomuch that he had left himself neither friend nor kinsman who wished him well or cared ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires. Nor public flame nor private dares to shine; Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine! Lo! thy dread empire Chaos is restor'd, Light dies before thy uncreating word; Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... hardly treated when they are called lineal successors of Tony Fire-the-faggot: {263} but, degenerate though they be, such is their ancestry. Let every allowance be made for them: but their unholy fire must be trodden out; so long as a spark is left, nothing but fuel is wanted to make a blaze. If this cannot be done, let the flame be confined to theology, though even there it burns with diminished vigor: and let charity, candor, sense, and ridicule, be ready to play upon it whenever there is any chance of its extending ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... understanding so far as possible how, in a world in which difficulty and disaster are frequent, the most wavering and flickering of all fine flames has escaped extinction. We go back, we help ourselves to hang about the attestation of the first spark of the flame, and like to indulge in a fond notation of such facts as that of the air in which it was kindled and insisted on proceeding, or yet perhaps failed to proceed, to a larger combustion, and the draughts, ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... spark that had nearly flickered out, to nourish the little life and vitality that remained in her, was Venters's problem. But he had little resource other than the meat of the rabbits and quail; and from these he made broths and soups as ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... produced in a vacuum by means of Ruehmkorff's apparatus, which threw an artificial brightness into the depths of the Columbiad. There the cartridges were arranged with the utmost regularity, fastened together by a wire destined to communicate the electric spark to ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... to me," said she. "I daresay I'm quite wrong. I only judged from what I thought I noticed in poor Georgie. I daresay it's only what he should have done ten years ago, but I fancy there's a spark alive still. Let us talk about something else, though we won't go in quite yet, shall we?" She felt quite safe in her apparent reluctance to tell him; the Riseholme gluttony for news made it imperative for him ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... in the doorway. Mr. Roumann grasped a lever. He threw it over. There was a spark as the ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... of gaunt and barren rock, a shot was fired at her, and flew within a hair's breadth of her brain; she never even looked around to see whence it had come; she knew it was from some Arab prowler of the plains. Her single spark of light through the half-veiled lantern passed as swiftly as a shooting-star across the plateau. And as she felt the hours steal on—so fast, so hideously fast—with that horrible relentlessness which tarries for no despair, as it hastens for no desire, her lips grew dry as dust, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... was as a spark that fired a train. Instantly the hardy hillmen of Urbino were in arms to reconquer Guidobaldo's duchy for him. Stronghold after stronghold fell into their hands, until they were in Urbino itself. They made short work of the capital's scanty defenders, flung Cesare's governor into prison, ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... Edgeworth bade her stand still, turned round, went back alone to the loft where the tallow candle stood guttering and flaring planted in the middle of the gunpowder, resolutely put an untrembling hand beneath it, took it out so steadily that no spark fell, carried it down, and when she came to the bottom of the stairs dropped on her knees, and broke forth in a thanksgiving aloud for the safety of the household in this frightful peril. This high-spirited lady lived to be ninety years old, and left a numerous family. One ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... intelligent countenance glowed with the delicate hectic flush which so often marks the progress of consumption—and the healthy, but not robust frame of its victim, became emaciated and feeble. The fall of the year 179-, brought the chilling blasts of November to quench the flickering spark of life in ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... fallen, fallen—fallen from her high estate;" an apathy, not unlike the stillness of death, brooded over her; literature was silent, art extinct; hope of recovery can scarcely have lingered in many bosoms. As events proved, the vital spark was not actually fled; but the keenest observer would scarcely have ventured to predict, at any time between B.C. 750 and B.C. 650, such a revival as marked the period between B.C. 650 and ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... a series of scenes and discourses which do not materially 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 ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... is what often makes the difference between the ordinary and the supreme achievement. It is the liquid explosive that shatters the final, and most stubborn, barrier between man and the Infinite. It is what Walt Whitman called "that last spark, that sharp flash of power, that something or other more which gives life to all ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... assigned cause of deafness may not be the only cause involved, or indeed the true cause at all. It may be the cause simply in the same sense that the pulling of a trigger is the cause of the expulsion of a bullet from a rifle, or a spark the cause of the explosion of a gunpowder magazine; hereditary ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... to London, and the first tiny spark of discontent had visited Effie's heart. She would be so lonely without her brother. It was so fine for him to go out into life, her own horizon seemed so narrow. Then Dorothy came, and they had made friends, and Dorothy told her what some women did ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... then beat it between two stones, by which means the juice of the fruit is expressed and absorbed by the rag, which is dyed by it of a dirty blue; the rag is then dried in the sun, and ignites with the slightest spark of fire. The Arabs nearest to Egypt use the coloquint in venereal complaints; they fill the fruit ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... well. But that was in the abandoned days of Charles II. Pepys could not control his delight at the appearance of Nell Gwynne, especially "when she comes like a young gallant, and hath the motions and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have. It makes me, I confess, admire her." The acting of Shakespeare himself is only a faint tradition. He played the ghost in "Hamlet," and Adam in "As You Like It." William Oldys ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... mind, and was resolved not to let himself give way. If his beacon of hope had been so suddenly, frightfully quenched, he still was kept from utter darkness by straining his eyes and forcing his steps to follow the tiny, flickering spark that remained. ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this when homage, however unwilling and reluctant, has been paid. But we have our duties to ourselves and to our submitted subjects to consider, and it is not meet to send firebrands alight into the world, when a spark may raise so fierce a conflagration, and when hundreds of lives have to pay the penalty of one mad act of headstrong youth. It is your youth that shall be your excuse from the charge of graver offence, ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... through the choking dark, Never a lamp nor a light, Never an engine spark, Showing her hurried flight. Over the lonely plain Rushed the great armoured train, Hurrying up ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... trouble your head about being under arrest, boy. The Prince was obliged to have you marched off. It wouldn't do for him to have every young spark drawing and getting up a fight in the Palace. By the way, what was the quarrel about? ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... deep and dark, Waiting for the firefly's spark; If you wish to see him now, Follow ...
— Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble • Howard R. Garis
... lustre of her eyes the tiniest spark flashed out at him—a hint of defiance for somebody, perhaps for Major Belwether who had taken considerable pains to enlighten her as to Siward's condition the night before; perhaps also for Quarrier, who had naturally expected ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... correct notion of the dressing out of the figures of the VIRGIN and CHILD which are meant to grace the altars of the chapels of the Virgin in most of the churches in Normandy. Is it possible that one spark of devotion can be kindled by the contemplation of an object so grotesque and so absurd ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... It was the tiny spark that set Europe on fire. Out of it grew the Thirty Years' War, the most terrible that ever scourged the civilized world. When Catholic League and Evangelical Union first mustered their armies, Bohemia had a prosperous population of four million ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... "the God," the "Sum of All," the "Creator of Himself," and the "Great One." Hymns extolled him, inscriptions on the monuments, which all could read, spoke of him, the one God, who manifested himself to the world, pervaded the universe, and existed throughout creation not alone as the vital spark animates the human organism, but as himself the sum of creation, the world with its perpetual growth, decay, and renewal, obeying the laws he had himself ordained. His spirit, existing in every form of nature, dwelt also in man, and wherever a mortal gazed he could discern ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... little throb in the heart, And in the end one dies Like an ill-treated toy. Love is born in a look or in four words, The little spark that burnt the whole house. Love is at first a look, And then a smile, And then a word, And then a promise, And then a meeting ...
— The Garden of Bright Waters - One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems • Translated by Edward Powys Mathers
... warm and coy pages, whom at the worst he might have supposed to be imprudent or improvident girls, stare at him with the deathly-cold implacability of the commonest street-walkers—those in fact who glory in their shame, and whose very contact is vile to anything with a spark of healthy moral or physical life in it. If, indeed, they had lain off their sickly flesh with their masks, and gone grinning and rattling round the brilliant hall in their skeletons, the transformation could not have chilled your unsuspecting ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... if I err! I will do penance for my evil thoughts. But where may we find now those four life-giving streams by which Christ purposed to keep His body, the Church, nourished and sustained? Prophets there be none, save here and there a spark of the old fire. Those travelling friars are sometimes holy men; but, alas! they are bitter foes of the very Church from which they profess to be sent out, and are oft laid under the papal ban. We have our pastor priests; but ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... call it. But it may be attended with great effects. I shall not, however, absolutely depend upon the success of it, having much more effectual ones in reserve. And yet great engines are often moved by small springs. A little spark falling by accident into a powder-magazine, hath done more execution in a siege, than ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... experience, in the second sense, is a term reserved for what has certain natural conditions, namely, for the spark flying from the contact of stimulus and organ, led Kant to shift his point of view, and to talk half the time about conditions in the sense of natural causes or needful antecedents. Intelligence is not an antecedent of thought ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... inevitably provokes imitation. A man of Assisi, hardly mentioned by the biographers, had attached himself to Francis. He was one of those simple-hearted men who find life beautiful enough so long as they can be with him who has kindled the divine spark[2] in their hearts. His arrival at Portiuncula gave Francis a suggestion; from that time he dreamed of the possibility of bringing together a few companions with whom he could carry on his apostolic ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... slightly, and in several places went out as the spirit became exhausted; but here and there the woollen material of his garments began to burn with a peculiar odour before he had extinguished the last spark. ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... offence and taken personal offence; the two sides seemed reduced to the most hopeless incompatibility; and the affair was at a dead lock. No matter what the subject of debate, Missouri was sure, in some way, to get involved in it; and the mere mention of the name was like a spark upon loose gunpowder. In February, for example, the House had to go through the ceremony of counting the votes for President of the United States,—a mere ceremony, since Mr. Monroe had been re-elected almost ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... continue moving on lines of the independence he had likewise yielded, or rather flung, to her. Unless, as a result, he besieged and wooed his wife, his wife would hold on a course inclining constantly farther from the union he desired. Yet how could he begin to woo her if he saw no spark of womanly tenderness? He asked himself, because the beginning of the wooing might be checked by the call on him for words of repentance only just possible to conceive. Imagine them uttered, and she has ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... out to her the one that happened to be nearest. It was the unwounded one. An angry spark gleamed in her eye. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... said she 'was always talking about clever people; Johnson, Sheridan, &c.' She said, 'Now you don't know the meaning of clever, Sheridan might be clever; yes, Sheridan was clever,—scamps often are; but Johnson hadn't a spark of cleverality in him.' No one appreciated the opinion; they made some trivial remark about 'cleverality,' and she ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... work, to excite thus his vein by the perusal of others, on the same subject or plan, from which the slightest hint caught by his imagination, as he read, was sufficient to kindle there such a train of thought as, but for that spark, had never been awakened, and of which he himself soon forgot the source. In the present instance, the inspiration he sought was of no very elevating nature,—the anti-spiritual doctrines of the Sophist in this Romance[54] being what chiefly, I suspect, attracted his attention ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... submissive, at the holy shrine, His mercy with warm gratitude confest, Which had reveal'd the spark of life divine, That ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... separate piece of the cloth; but you will find people in every town or village who will assure you that their warts were driven away by one of these charms or lingoes. Warts are either better left alone or removed by a physician with the high-frequency spark or ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... pretence it might not next be taken from him. Add to these the long-gathering passion of the dispossessed clans in the north, and that floating element of disaffection always ready to stir, and it will be seen that the materials for a rebellion were ready laid, and needed only a spark to ignite them. ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... lines as if drawn up on parade between towering buildings; but on the other side of the harbour sombre hills arched high their black spines, on which, here and there, the point of a star resembled a spark fallen from the sky. Far off, Byculla way, the electric lamps at the dock gates shone on the end of lofty standards with a glow blinding and frigid like captive ghosts of some evil moons. Scattered all over the dark polish of the roadstead, the ships at anchor floated in perfect ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... "Permit me, sir," to the Governor, he snapped the lid of his snuff-box and started down the steps. The Governor laughed. "We will excuse you, sir," he said graciously. "Dick," to Colonel Verney, as the young gentleman hastened after the ladies, "that fine spark is to ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... and no one found alive except myself. So, although I am to be a hopeless cripple, yet I am not sorry that the skill and untiring patience of the great English surgeon, Dr. Thompson, managed to nurse back the feeble spark of my life through all those weeks that I hung on the borderland; for if he had not, the world never ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... that 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 ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... Masters. I might call it heat-bolts, but it's probably partly electric and partly heat, not entirely either. You see, Masters, heat is energy, just like electricity and light. The energy these spheres shoot out is a mixture of energies. We can imagine a spark of electricity shooting out and striking a man like a bolt of lightning, but it's hard to visualize ...
— The Whispering Spheres • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... and what other language could any man with but a single spark of honesty and respect for himself use ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... trace them the vein and the other vein That meet on thy brow and part again, Making our rapid mystic mark; And I bid my people prove and probe Each eye's profound and glorious globe Till they detect the kindred spark In those depths so dear and dark . . . And on that round young cheek of thine I make them recognise the tinge . . . For so I prove thee, to one and all, Fit, when my people ope their breast, To see the sign, and hear the call, And take the vow, and stand the test Which adds one more ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... algae in summer, the place is a wildlife paradise, with forests of mature and stately trees and a Great Marsh of around 1000 acres. Incredibly, bald eagles still roost and even nest there, a fact which provided the initial spark for heavy public opposition to recent proposals for ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... fell like a spark of fire among the inflammable masses of Protestants assembled at Perth. The sentence promulgated was an open act of hostility against the lords, who felt themselves bound by their word which they had given to the preachers and by their vow to each other. ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... next to her that evening, and before the first course was over a decided flirtation was established. The pretty hostess, albeit wife of a doctor and daughter of a dean, had evidently a strong coquettish element in her composition, and a very slight spark was sufficient to ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... this war has brought about some wonders, and it is clear to me this particular station, that was delivered yesterday, is a military outfit. I remember little about wireless telegraphy; only few explanations given to me by Capt. Volkhovsky, and after the very solemn inauguration of the "Spark-Radio" we had a gala-performance. It is but a ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... at the bottom of his heart the faintest spark of feeling for a friend, that spark will break forth when he bids him farewell, like the last flame of life before a man expires! The coldest eye, when for the last time it touches the brow of a friend, will ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... in solicitation; be importunate if necessary, so that the Turkish army cross the sea without delay. Be present yourself at the embarkation of the troops. Be active; run; fly." He himself ran through all his kingdom, striving to resuscitate some little spark of affection and hope. He had no success anywhere; the memory of the king his father was hateful; he was himself young and without influence; his ardor caused fear instead of sympathy. Charles kept advancing along the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... wash-stand, and jars the pitcher. He snatches at it with his hands, but it is too late. The pitcher falls, and as it goes, he sees the white water flow over its lip. It slips between his fingers and crashes to the floor. But it is not water which oozes to the door. The stain is glutinous and dark, a spark from the firelight heads it to red. In and out, between the fine, new soldiers, licking over the carpet, squirms the stream of blood, lapping at the little green platforms, and flapping itself against ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... secretary. Feist might have written the letter to Logotheti and the first article, but Van Torp did not believe him capable of raising a general hue and cry on both sides of the Atlantic. It undoubtedly happened sometimes that when a fire had been smouldering long unseen a single spark sufficed to start the blaze, but Mr. Van Torp was too well informed as to public opinion about him to have been in ignorance of any general feeling against him, if it had existed; and the present attack was of too personal a nature to have been devised by financial ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... units per second; it is based on the fact that though the eye can only see six times per second it can see for the one-millionth part of a second. An example of this is the well-known experiment of seeing a bullet in its flight; the bullet makes electrical connection resulting in a spark which illuminates the bullet when opposite the eye. The electrical spark exists only for the millionth of a second, and as the bullet in that time has no perceptible movement it is seen standing absolutely still with all marks upon it quite visible to the eye. When Sight perception is increased ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... hears;" and then, after prophesying evil to Florence, and confessing to Dante his sin of envy, which used to make him pale when any one looked happy, he added, "This is Rinieri, the glory of that house of Calboli which now inherits not a spark of it. Not a spark of it, did I say, in the house of Calboli? Where is there a spark in all Romagna? Where is the good Lizio?—where Manardi, Traversaro, Carpigna? The Romagnese have all become bastards. A mechanic founds a house ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... centrifugal motion of the political machine down there was violent enough to throw off one lively spark. A man came up the road at a brisk gait, stamped across the yard, and went direct to the Duke, who waited for him at the far end of the porch. He did not glance at ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... said John absently, stamping out a spark among the pine-needles at his feet, now freed from snow by ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... to begin the fight, he felt the blood run quickly in his veins, and his blue eyes flashed again, and the words came flowing easily and surely from his lips. But he wondered at his own eloquence, not seeing yet that the divine spark had kindled his genius into a broad flame, and not half understanding ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... minister appears as another Cato in presence of a juvenile, sprightly French graduate, who bawls for a whole morning together in the divinity schools, and hums a song in chorus with ladies in the evening; but this Cato is a very spark when before a Scotch Presbyterian. The latter affects a serious gait, puts on a sour look, wears a vastly broad-brimmed hat and a long cloak over a very short coat, preaches through the nose, and gives the name of the whore of ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... the remainder of their supper carefully away in the basket and left it in the corner of the cave behind the wood-pile, put out every spark of the fire, and picked their way carefully down the ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Violin is a taste which needs as much cultivation as a taste for poetry or any other art, a due appreciation of which is impossible without such cultivation. Secondly, it needs, equally with these arts, in order to produce proficiency, that spark commonly known as genius, without which, cultivation, strictly speaking, is impossible, there being nothing to cultivate. We find that the most ardent admiration for the Violin regarded as a work of art, has ever been found to emanate from those who possessed tastes ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... to be a spark of ordinary boyish spirits concealed under Claude's superior airs. He sometimes stood and watched the other fellows engaged in playing prisoner's base, or some such rough-and-tumble game, with envy. Once upon a time his mother, chancing to pass along the street in her fine car, was horrified ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... of the eyelids. She had again assumed the air of a languid, indolent, black-robed woman, who modestly shrinks back, well pleased to escape notice. Her brasier-like eyes no longer glowed; it was only at long intervals that they kindled into a spark beneath the veil of indifference, the moire-like shade, which ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... sense—full of sympathy, full of observation and quick understanding of others' needs and thoughts and feelings; absolutely sincere, of a constant and even temper, and a cheerfulness that never failed—the result of her splendid health; without caprice, without a spark of vanity, without selfishness of any kind—generous, open-handed, charitable to a fault; always taking the large and generous view of everything and everybody; a little impulsive perhaps, but not often having to regret her impulses; of unwearied devotion to her husband, and capable ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... that those who were the nearest shifted their position. The warrior who was on his feet stepped forward a single pace, and was still standing in his idle fashion with his hands half folded behind him, when a spark flew outward with a snap, and dropped down the neck of the unsuspicious red man. When he felt the burn, like the thrust of a big needle, he sprang several feet in the air, and began frantically clutching at the tormenting substance. ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... and made several violent pulls at the line, under the impression that something had bitten. Suddenly his rod, stout as it was, bent with the immense muscular force applied to it, and a small goldeye, about three or four inches long, flashed like an electric spark from the water, and fell with bursting force on the rocks behind, at the very feet of a small Indian boy, who sat, nearly in a state of nature, watching our movements from among the bushes. The little captive was of a bright ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... marvellous manner to their respective characters. This went on for three evenings, and then the master, setting out for Paris, left us thoroughly stirred up, enthusiastic, and determined not to suffer the spark which had electrified ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... reflection that none of them fought for his own country. As often as the spirit of liberty awoke in Italy, the servile forces of Germany, of Spain, and of France poured into the country, and extinguished the glowing spark in the blood of the people, lest it should once more illumine the dark night of Europe. Frederic Barbarossa destroyed Milan to its foundations, when it attempted to resist his imperial encroachments by the league of independent cities; and led the plough over the smoking ruins. ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... 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
... Boris? Isn't there somewhere in your heart a spark of manhood?" she sobbed, her spirit melted at ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... I have said, amongst our precautions, was that of keeping as little wool as possible in the shed. Most flock-owners waited until the shearing should be quite over before they carted the wool away; but in that case, a spark from a pipe, a match carelessly dropped in a tussock outside, when a nor'-wester was blowing,—and the slight wooden building would be blazing like a torch, and your year's ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... the unfed fire soon dies, while that which is kept alive even by the smallest spark may at some time become a glowing blaze. But his fears were all for nothing, as in due time the much looked ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... adored by both his master and fellow-workmen. Notwithstanding his extraordinary skill and abilities, he has been working all this time as a common journeyman, contented with a few shillings a week more than the rest; but I believe your uneasy friend has kindled a spark in his breast that he never felt ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... I can see sometimes; but he hasn't a spark of it in him, and he can't understand it, and I know I'm unreasonable, and before I know it I am saying things I don't know what, and some day he won't forgive them! I'm sure some day ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... on the world in poverty and pain. And the title of poet's a 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 go stealing ...
— Main Street and Other Poems • Alfred Joyce Kilmer
... 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
... trustworthy. One day, however, as I was splitting wood, I thought that I would just look in at the window and see if the house was not on fire; it was the only time I remember to have been particularly anxious on this score; so I looked and saw that a spark had caught my bed, and I went in and extinguished it when it had burned a place as big as my hand. But my house occupied so sunny and sheltered a position, and its roof was so low, that I could afford to let the fire go out in the middle ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... of mind you are not timid or anxious, or fearful, or rigid and you will not allow any disturbing thought to influence you. You cast aside all fears, and think of yourself as a spark of the Divine Being, as a manifestation of the "One Universal Principle" that fills all space and time. Think of yourself thus as a child of the infinite, ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... still some sentiment left in us. Most of us dread the thought of a pauper's grave for ourselves or friends, and struggle against such fate as we struggle against death itself. It is a foolish sentiment perhaps, for when the soul leaves the body a mere handful of clod and marl, the spark of divinity forever quenched, it really does not matter what happens to the body, nor where it crumbles into dust. But we cherish the sentiment, nevertheless, and dread having to fill pauper graves. And when ten per cent, of those who die in the richest city of the richest nation on earth are ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... down!" confirmed aunt Ann, in a tone of triumph. "So fur as that goes, you could have a marble-top table." She laid down her knitting, and looked about her, a spark of excited anticipation in her eyes. All the habits of a lifetime urged her on to arrange and rearrange, in pursuit of domestic perfection. People used to say, in her first married days, that Ann Doby wasted more time in planning conveniences about her house than she ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... pale, in a semicircle of hills. There was something dreamlike in that nocturnal landscape—a wan disc belted by a dark crescent. The moon sometimes has a similar appearance. From cape to cape, along the whole coast, not a single spark indicating a hearth with a fire, not a lighted window, not an inhabited house, was to be seen. As in heaven, so on earth—no light. Not a lamp below, not a star above. Here and there came sudden risings in the great expanse of waters in the gulf, as the wind disarranged and wrinkled ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... is a disarrangement of the particles of the two bodies in the neighbourhood of their point of collision; amounting in some cases to a visible condensation. Yet more, this condensation is accompanied by the disengagement of heat. In some cases a spark—that is, light—results, from the incandescence of a portion struck off; and sometimes this incandescence is ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... bright a little spark as ever struck off the steel," added Finden to the priest, with a sidelong, inquisitive look, "but a heart no bigger than a marrowfat pea-selfishness, all self. Keepin' herself for herself when there's manny a good man needin' her. Mother ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
