"Spark" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... praise; or coming suddenly upon them as a "rushing mighty wind," without sound or sign, save in the bending of heads, the breaking of hearts, the streaming tears, and the adoring responses of the people. Then, believers have caught the spark of sanctifying fire from God Himself, and declared it; then, men have been endued with the gift of tongues, and spoken with apostolic power; then, sinners, drawn into the place by the peculiar attractions of the occasion, have felt their souls shaken by Divine energy, like forest ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... field the whole day long Hope's spark refuses to expire; A wily lob's successful job At once renews the slackening fire. Be Spartan, then! Crave not to flirt With Tennis and her female ball! 'Tis better to have tossed, And lost, Than never to ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... Crys, one's for you my Love, and one for me, The third dispose as you shall best adjudge, Shew where you're pleas'd, and where you owe a Grudge: Madam elate, thinks she'll be kind to Betty, To hide the Slips she made with Spark i'th' City: But Stallion Tom, who well knew how to scold, And by his Mistress's Favour grown too bold, Swears if he has it not, he will reveal, And to his Master tell a dismal Tale; Madam, reluctant, gives him up the Paper; He at her Folly ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous
... Borism is fast attaining a head it never reached before. Speechifying is the crying and prominent vice of the age. Why will the ganders not recollect that eloquence is the gift of heaven, Thomas? A man may improve it unquestionably, but the Promethean fire, the electrical spark, must be from on high. No mental perseverance or education could ever have made a Demosthenes, or a Cicero, in the ages long past; nor an ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... wandered upon the shallows, and the may-flies flickered and rustled round him like water fairies, with their green gauzy wings; the coot clanked musically among the reeds; the frogs hummed their ceaseless vesper-monotone; the kingfisher darted from his hole in the bank like a blue spark of electric light; the swallows' bills snapped as they twined and hawked above the pool; the swift's wings whirred like musket-balls, as they rushed screaming past his head; and ever the river fleeted by, bearing his eyes away down the current, ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... vacantly. The fire of life was sinking low in his veins. He had grown sluggish with the years, and the spark ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... I wasn't listening—forgive me!" he said one day, when, with a spark of real anger, Julia had begged him to make his calls at the settlement house a little less frequent and less conspicuous. "What was it?" And with twinkling eyes he caught up the hand that lay near him on the table ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... was sinking. More pronounced now that masklike aspect of her face. Yes, dying. He spoke the word to himself. "Dying." As of a fire in the grate gone to one dull spark among the greying ashes.—It is out; it cannot burn again. So life here too far retired, too deeply sunk to struggle back and vitalise again that hue, those lips, that ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... at this time a complimentary and witty letter, in which he says of her heroine Glorvina, "I believe you stole a spark from heaven to give animation to your idol." He thought the inferiority of Ida was owing to its author's luxurious surroundings. "I cannot conceive why the brain should not get fat and unwieldy, as well as any other part of the human frame. Some of our best poets have written ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... idiotic as to connect her with it, I can't imagine. Never mind, Patty dear! We know you better than to believe such rubbish. Don't trouble your head about it, for it simply isn't worth worrying over. Everyone with a spark of sense will agree with me, and I'm sure Miss Harper ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... hesitating step forward. He had been standing where his first defiance had left him, a light of comprehension dawning in his face; and also a spark of resentment kindling in ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... 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 thistles. He is the mockingbird of squirrels, barking like a dog, screaming ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... 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 many a good man needin' her. Mother o' Moses, ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... organ, the wires from the other end of the cable are attached to small magnets specially wound so that no spark results when the electric contact at the key is broken. This magnet attracts a thin disc of iron about 1/4 inch in diameter, (held up by a high wind pressure from underneath) and draws it downward through a space of less than 1/100 of ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... point the meeting could not be pronounced a success. Crowds were there, and the people were waiting to be caught on fire; but the right spark had not been struck. It only wanted a little to rouse the whole audience to white heat; the train was laid, the powder was set, but no one seemed able to ignite the match. People looked at one another doubtfully. ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... concentrated in the face of the leader, obviously the inspiration of the organization, the vital spark by which it lived; a fierce face, intent, commanding. It was burned to a brick-red, and had an aquiline nose and a keen gray-green eagle-like eye; on either side auburn hair, thick and slightly curling, hung, ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... of man is a spark of the vital flame, the general vital principle. Like heat, it passes from one to another, and is finally reabsorbed or reunited in the universal principle from which it came. Hence we must not expect annihilation, but reunion; and, as the tired man looks forward to the insensibility of sleep, ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... eyes roved, darting from side to side like a creature hunted. Clasping the cloak to her quivering bosom she approached the candle slowly, stealthily. Her steps faltered. She hesitated. She stooped forward—another glance over her shoulder, and blowing with feeble breath, the spark went out. ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... at home,' he said, 'at least I am as little as possible a pedant out of doors.' In the evening he would occasionally seek the society of ladies, by way of recovering some of that native gaiety of heart which had hitherto kept him alive. 'I blow on this spark,' to use his own words, 'just as an old woman blows among the ashes to get a light for her lamp.' A student and a thinker, De Maistre was also a man of the world, and he may be added to the long list of writers who have shown that to take an active part in public affairs and mix in society give ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... just it. What I want to ask you is—can't you, for her sake, quite apart from your own feelings—give in about it?" So spoke Sir Basil, sitting in the moonlight, the spark of his cigar waning as, in the long pause that followed, he held it, forgotten, in an expectant, arrested hand. Her voice had helped and followed him with such gentleness, such understanding that, though the pause grew, he hardly thought that it needed the added, "I do beg it of you," ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... fire to warm his aching limbs and keep off any prowling beasts while he slept. Scooping a hollow in the sand beyond the reach of the tide, he gathered dry drift wood which he finally lighted by the aid of a spark struck from two stones. He was hungry now and even more anxious for a smoke than for food; at that moment he hated the crew less for making off with the vessel in which he had had a third interest than for casting him on this deserted shore without even the solace of his evening pipe. ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... her pig-tails I'll up and tell right out how I found you snivelling in the ma'sh like a great baby. So now!" and Ben emphasized his threat with a blow of the suspended rail which splashed the water over poor Sam, quenching his last spark of resistance. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... by a distant bell The passing hours were notched On the dark, while her breathing rose and fell; And the spark of life I watched In her face was glowing, or fading,—who could tell?— And the open window of the room, With a flare of yellow light, Was peering out into the gloom, Like an ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... 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
... time itself: slow, regular, perpetual; unwitting of the passions that fret themselves around—of the wear and tear of mortality. The poor tortoise! nothing less than the bursting of volcanoes, the convulsions of the riven world, could have quenched its sluggish spark! The inexorable Death, that spared not pomp or beauty, passed unheedingly by a thing to which death could ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... The one little spark had found its way to a barrel of blasting powder and caused a terrible explosion. Within twenty-four hours of Jean-Marie's execution the whole town was in the throes of the Revolution. What the death of King Louis, the arrest of Marie Antoinette, the ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... though the place was blood-stained by robbers, and his relations and friends warned him of the imminent danger, he despised death, in order to escape death. All wondered at his spirit, wondered at his youth. Save that a certain fire of the bosom and spark of faith glittered in his eyes, his cheeks were smooth, his body delicate and thin, unable to bear any injury, and liable to be overcome by even a ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... friends that no one ever dreamed of any danger to them from love. But as the wagon that goes from the powder-mill in safety innumerable times at last carries the keg which explodes it, so Osgood and Lily at last touched the divine spark which threw them out of their old world into one they ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... the chlorate of potash crystallizes out. It is purified by redissolving and crystallization, and is sold either in the state of crystals or finely ground. During these operations care must be taken lest a spark should produce the inflammation of the chlorate on contact with any organic substance. Large quantities of potassium chlorate exposed to strong heat in contact with the wood of casks or the timber of a roof have ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the spark bravely to the match. The spark—a feeble spark, first principle of conflagration—shone in the darkness like a glow-worm, then was deadened against the match which it set fire to, Porthos enlivening the flame with his breath. The smoke was a little dispersed, and by the light ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... indomitable energy. France felt her heart still palpitating from the efforts she had witnessed and shared on behalf of American freedom; the unreflecting hopes of a blind emulation were already agitating many a mind. "In all states," said Washington, "there are inflammable materials which a single spark may kindle." In 1783, on the morrow of the American war, the inflammable materials everywhere accumulated in France were already providing means for that immense conflagration in the midst of which the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... I will come unto you, and if there be any among you that has a desire for freedom, yea, if there be even a spark of freedom remaining, behold I will stir up insurrections among you, even until those who have desires to usurp power ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... of Miriam. Later, she saw him remark her new blouse, saw that the artist approved, but it won from him not a spark of warmth. She was nervous, could hardly reach the teacups ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... music, as they or their predecessors had done in so many previous contests, and believing that nothing worse could be involved than a possible party defeat and some bad feelings, we, who lived where revolutions were common, thought that we discovered the smouldering spark which would be blown to revolution here. The disruption of the Charleston Convention and through it of the Democracy; the bold language and firm attitude of the Republicans; the well-understood energy of the uncompromising Abolitionists, and the less defined but rabid ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... aboard us with an Air of Authority as if he design'd to visit my Trunks; but one of the Sailors informing me that this was stretching his Commission, for he ought not to search after any Goods unless the Cargo was design'd for that Port, so I ridded my self of this Spark with a Half-Crown Piece; for I had no mind to enter much into a Parley with him lest he might discover my Highland Expedition, for Fear never wants Apprehensions. After two Days stay in this Port, the Wind proving favourable, we were not very long in making a Trip to Roterdam, ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... The spark came swimming across the deck. "Hello! Hello, there—ah—" There was a note of querulous uneasiness there that somehow jarred with my ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... the strength of armored ships is the firing pin's frail spark, More sure than the helm of the mighty fleet are my rudders to their mark, The faint foam fades from the bright screw blades—and I ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... to dash the first spark of hope I had seen in her from the beginning of this more than painful interview. To avoid it, I temporized a trifle and answered ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... house he was struck by the great cold within it; he went up to the stove and found the fire out; the occupations as well as the excitement of the morning had made Johnson forget his customary duty. The doctor tried to rekindle the fire, but there was not even a spark lingering amid ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... 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 ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... his way forward about the narrow deck-space outside the cabin. Halvard was seated on a coil of rope beside the windlass and stood erect as Woolfolk approached. The sailor was smoking a short pipe, and the bowl made a crimson spark in his thick, powerful hand. John Woolfolk fingered the wood surface of the windlass bitts and found it rough and ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... their sorrows the whole Summer long, And the Robin first mixed up his ills with his song: He sung of his griefs—how in love he'd been crossed, And gave up his heart as eternally lost; 'T was burnt to a coal, as sly Cupid let fall A spark that scorched through both the feathers and all. To cure it Time tried, but ne'er found out the way, So the mark on his bosom he wears to this day: And when birds are all silent, and not a leaf seen On the trees, but the ivy and holly so green, ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... season, how many interesting facts of natural history would be revealed!—the crickets, ants, bees, reptiles, animals, and, for aught I know, the spiders and flies asleep or getting ready to sleep in their winter dormitories; the fires of life banked up, and burning just enough to keep the spark ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... who had set no very high ideals before his eyes, was not, as we have seen, destitute of the quality of sympathy, nor could he entirely obliterate from his memory a time when he himself had been fired by a spark of ambition, and had recognised a longing to accomplish something great. True, the spark had been but a feeble one at best, and the unceasing demands upon his powers to supply the bare necessaries of life, occasioned by an early and imprudent marriage, had done ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... good-night, while she turned, and went down the walk with feeble, lingering steps. She paced to and fro, as I often saw her afterwards, on the flagstones: and some bats flew that way like ragged bits of darkness, holding somehow a spark of life. I watched her for a minute: she was like a ghost, I thought but not ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... methods of flying, all of which, of course, came to nothing, but go to show the fertile imagination of the man, and his tireless energy. He experimented with electricity and made some novel suggestions upon the difference between the electric spark and the glow, although on the whole his contributions in this field are unimportant. He also first pointed out that the motions of the heavenly bodies must be looked upon as a mechanical problem, and was almost within grasping distance of the exact theory of gravitation, himself originating ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... remember my whole lifetime in the same way. And even if it had been less pleasant, if there had been many more and greater calamities in it, still I hold on to that bottom-ground of all thanksgiving, even this, that God has placed in us an immortal spark, which through storm and cloud and darkness may grow brighter, and in the world beyond may shine as the stars forever. I heard Father Taylor last Sunday afternoon. Towards the close he spoke of his health as uncertain ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... over this monotonous work, and in the long rains between the intervals of the shower-bath roarings you can hear the ululations of these folk through the drip of the leaves, and at night the spark-like glimmer of their fires dots the ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... acted like a man who had gained experience in connection with flooded rivers, torrents, and occasional trips in fishing-boats at sea; and according to old notions, supposing his victim not to be already dead, he did the best he could to smother out the tiny spark of life that might ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... hope she will take advantage of it, as I advised her. She took the money and went away, cursing me. I think that if she had ever, in all my life, shown the smallest affection for me—even at the last, when she declared herself my mother, if she had shown a spark of motherly feeling, of tenderness, of anything human, I could have accepted her and tolerated her, half peasant woman as she is, spy as she has been, and cheat and thief. But she stood before me with the most perfect indifference, watching my surprise with those bad eyes of hers. I ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... a grievous doubt on her mind,—a fear, a spark of suspicion, of which she had unintentionally given notice to Thomas Thwaite when she asked him whether he had as yet spoken of the proposed marriage to his son. He had understood what was passing in her mind when she exacted ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... his compelling a strict 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
... to resist her tender violence; and though I could see he nourished not one spark of hope, he consented to desert his whole estate, beyond some hundreds of dollars that he had by him at the moment, and to flee that night, which promised to be dark and cloudy. As soon as the servants were asleep, he was to load two mules with provisions; two others were to carry my mother ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... lady hadn't had the sense to suspect the old Admiral's telegram and come down to watch him. Don't let's talk about the old Admiral. Don't let's talk about anything. It's enough to say that whenever this tower, with its pitch and resin-wood, really caught fire, the spark on the horizon always looked like the twin light to ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... thought that when I got them together each would see what a nice man the other was, for I was again in the mood when everything seems to be easy. But I cannot say that my efforts were successful; their politeness knocked every spark of cheeriness out of the game, and we played in dreadful silence, which may be all right for very good players, but it does not suit me in ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... and a spark o' fire, that does,' said the farmer. 'Girls like Ruby don't want no time to be wooed by one such as that, though they'll fall-lall with a man like ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... was clear, and he looked away toward the point where he knew "The Alcove" lay. A good moon was now shining, and stars by the score were springing out. Suddenly at a point on that far shore a spark of red light appeared and twinkled. Most persons would have taken it for some low star, but Henry knew better. It was fire put there by human hand for a purpose, doubtless a signal, and as he looked a second spark appeared by the first, then a third, then ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... aerial protegee in all her purity—too delicate, too fragile, too beautiful for this rough world; at least those were my ideas at the time, but little did I think how soon it was to be realised. I soon found, before I had time to introduce the spark, a drooping in the wings, a flagging in all the parts. In less than ten minutes the machine was saturated with wet from a deposit of dew, so that anything like a trial was impossible by night. I did not consider we could get the silk tight and rigid enough. Indeed, the framework altogether was too ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... knowing that all our miserable little human effervescence is only a sort of fermentation round an atom emanated from that sinister ball of fire, and that that fire itself, the wonderful sun, is no more than an ephemeral meteor, a furtive spark, thrown off during one of the innumerable cosmic transformations, in the course of times without ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... sleeping in his boat, I heard, far off from their island. A big bag of the powder they put into their guns lay in the bottom of his canoe, and when by chance a spark from his pipe fell upon it it grew angry and began to spit and burned his flesh till it waked him, and in his agony, he sprang into the river ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... by individuals and by societies. He charged Fox with being the only person who saw no danger in the writings and doctrines so widely promulgated; proclaimed him a friend, if not an advocate, of Paine and his doctrines; and asserted that such conduct could not be reconciled with any spark of patriotism. Fox indignantly rejoined, and disclaimed all sympathy with Paine. At the same time, he avowed that he saw no danger in his writings and doctrines, or of any other writer of his class, because the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of it, unimpaired, within its screen of grass and nettles, lit in his soul a spark of the old fire. Surely his plan should be to move onward through good and ill—to avoid morbid sorrow even though he did see uglinesses in the world? Bene agere et loetari—to do good cheerfully—which he had heard to be the philosophy of one Spinoza, might be his ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... apart on centers, which can be made to engage a worm revolving a pointer in front of a dial graduated to hundredths; by means of this and a filar eyepiece, the distance between the start of the two rows of spark dots on the drum can be measured accurately to 0.01 mm. As the drum is 500 mm. in circumference, and its normal speed is 86 rev. per sec., it is theoretically possible to measure time to one four-millionth of a second, though with a cartridge ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... keeping his word. Nothing, indeed, can equal the stupid obstinacy of some of these half-alive beings, who seem to have been made by Prometheus when the fire he stole from Heaven was so exhausted that he could only spare a spark to give life, not animation, to the ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... The spark of life in the great undertaking flickered in a somewhat feeble and irregular way for many years thereafter, but apparently gained strength by degrees until in 1795, as Mr. C. F. Adams tells us, "what may be denominated the ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... he sets up the throne of His mercy." With words such as these, kindling, or rather re-animating the spark of faith not yet wholly dead in the soul of the wretched man, he relighted the flame of hope, which up to that moment was quite extinguished, and little by little softened and tamed the man's natural temper, rendered savage by despair. He led him on at last to resignation, and persuaded ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... only a trifle. He had put up with fifty worse impositions and never said a word. But when a man is bent on a quarrel any spark ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... how feebly words essay To fix one spark of Beauty's heavenly ray? Who doth not feel, until his failing sight Faints into dimness with its own delight— His changing cheek—his sinking heart confess ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... as beautiful as Georgian's—for a moment he thought more beautiful—she drew him to a seat. She was all fire and purpose now. The spark of intelligence which was not always visible in her eye burned brightly. She would have looked lovely even to a stranger, but he was not thinking of her looks, only of the hopelessness of the situation, its difficulties and ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... Were the 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, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... a cigarette, and then a second, to the surprise of Isabel, who saw the red spark on the lawn. She thought her brother must be tired, and perhaps it really was the long day without food that made him so restless in mind and so uneasy. Bernard Clowes had been more than usually cranky that ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... A spark shot out of Madeline's great, black eyes. Then she laughed unpleasantly. "There's something in the ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... down cone-shaped tents, while their half-naked babies sprawled in play upon the ashes of last winter's fires. Van Corlaer's men sauntered through the vanishing town, trying at times to strike some spark of information from ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Royal Highness; for the force of such an example is very animating, and a painful consciousness of having deserted such a commander in such extremity, must at least awaken, where there was any spark of generosity, an earnest desire to avenge his death on those who had sacrificed his blood, and that of so many other excellent persons, to the views of their ambition, rapine ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... a divine spark, and bards without, feel the need at times of an inspiration from without, "the breath of another soul to stir our inner flame," especially when we are in pursuit of a part of that "utmost musical beauty," that we are capable of understanding—when we are breathlessly running to catch ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... black clouds no part of sky is clear, But just so much as lets the sun appear, Heaven then would seem thy image, and reflect Those sable vestments, and that bright aspect. A spark of virtue by the deepest shade Of sad adversity is fairer made; Nor less advantage doth thy beauty get, A Venus rising from a sea of jet! Such was th'appearance of new-formed light, While yet it struggled with eternal night. 10 Then mourn no more, ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... human—defined dogma from the atmosphere of opinion which surrounds it,—and who honour both with the same awful reverence. Great allowances are also due to those who are constantly labouring to nourish the spark of belief in minds perplexed by difficulties, or darkened by ignorance and prejudice. These men have not always the results of research at command; they have no time to keep abreast with the constant progress of historical ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... He lived an absolutely contented life, smoked infamous tobacco out of clay-pipes, and was in high repute amongst his intimates as a singer of jovial songs, and a teller of brisk theatrical anecdotes. There was not a spark of envy in his nature. He honoured the great actors, and was always ready to do all he could to smooth the path of any nervous youngster with excellent advice and cheerful help. He is still acting. Anybody ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... years previous to the War, I had constantly envisaged the probable course of events leading up to the outbreak of this world-war, as well as the manner of the outbreak itself. In imagination I had seen the spark suddenly emitted in some obscure corner of Europe, followed by the blowing-up of one huge magazine, such as the declaration of war between Russia and Austria would prove to be, then the conflagration ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... between political enmity and illiberal prejudice. If there was any great and enlightened nation in Europe, it was France, which was as likely as any country upon the face of the globe to catch a spark from the light of our fire, and to act upon the present subject with warmth and enthusiasm. France had often been improperly stimulated by her ambition; and he had no doubt but that, in the present instance, she would readily follow its ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... slackening his pace, and so compelling her to do the same, until there were several yards between them and the couple in front. 'Captain Burnett seems to me far too good-natured; I should have said there was not a spark of temper about him. I am ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... 18th of June, 1815, not quite seventy years after, there charged side by side upon the elite of a French army, with the men of London, the Highlanders and Irish. A descendant of Cameron of Lochiel fell leading them on. The last spark of Jacobite enthusiasm and Scottish hatred of Englishmen had died out years before. Those who witnessed the entry of the Chevalier into Edinburgh lived to see the whole nation devouring with enthusiasm the novel of "Waverley,"—so entirely had the bitterness of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... God-given quality that has never been explained yet so that we can understand, smashes into sight like a comet. It may be his way of talking to men, it may be his personality—it is more likely a divine spark in him that neither he himself nor other men understand. But every now and again some humble chap like that has changed the history of the world, and I reckon it's pretty easy for such a man to change the ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... he exclaimed. "Haven't you a spark of manhood left? no brains? no bowels? nothing a ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... soul and gives to it its highest sublimity, and which elevates even the senses into soul, while at the same time it is a melancholy elegy on its inherent and imparted frailty; it is at once the apotheosis and the obsequies of love. It appears here a heavenly spark, that, as it descends to the earth, is converted into the lightning flash, which almost in the same moment sets on fire and consumes the mortal being on whom it lights. All that is most intoxicating in the odour of a southern spring,—all that is languishing in the song of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... molested in its work. If they are conscious of any danger, it is that the occupant of this little song-mansion has suddenly stepped out—is no longer present to direct their tasks. The icy hand of decay and death will soon be upon them—these poor bioplastic weavers of tissue—but the vocal spark, the "bright gem instinct with music," is beyond the reach of these dusky messengers. Where it is, not man, but the Giver of all life knows. We only know, when our faith is uplifted ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... to come at any rate to Italy and then do what he pleased. So Gaius resigned at once all the duties of his office and took a coastwise trading vessel to Lycia, where, at Limyra, he breathed his last. Prior to his demise the spark of Lucius's life had also paled. (He, too, was being given practice in many places, sent now here, now there; and he was wont to read personally the letters of Gaius before the senate, so often as he was present.) His death was due to a sudden illness. In connection with both these cases, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... 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
... given him was more than he could tell, and he should keep on trying to find out what his faults were, that he might receive that he wished for most. He wrangled not of religion, but ever kept the divine spark in his own heart alive, if not fanned to flame. Indeed so indifferent was his Lordship to the great questions of the times, he thought not of the ancient monastery in the depths of the vast forest upon his estate, where still resided recluses. 'Twas seldom he thought of these ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death. For Jerome commenting on Gal. 5:9, "A little leaven," says: "Cut off the decayed flesh, expel the mangy sheep from the fold, lest the whole house, the whole paste, the whole body, the whole flock, burn, perish, rot, die. Arius was but one spark in Alexandria, but as that spark was not at once put out, the whole earth was ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... precious commodity, more or less, 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 ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... best to improve the style of official writing. I have written, I should think, some thousands of reports,—many of them necessarily very long; some of them dealing with subjects so absurd as to allow a touch of burlesque; some few in which a spark of indignation or a slight glow of pathos might find an entrance. I have taken infinite pains with these reports, habituating myself always to write them in the form in which they should be sent,—without a copy. It is by writing thus that a man can throw on to his paper the exact ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... pistols, but I delayed doing so. The horn, full of gunpowder, lay upon the table in the alcove all day, and the pistols, out of which I had shaken the old priming. When I went out to walk in the gallery, I left the candle burning; and I suppose during my sleep a spark fell upon the loose gunpowder, set fire to that in the horn, and blew up the alcove. It was built of light wood and cane, and communicated only with a cane-work gallery; otherwise the mischief would have been more serious. As it was, the explosion had alarmed not ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... this. The new religious fervor that had been kindled among the inferior clergy, and among the lower and middle classes of the laity, became stronger; and, though it sometimes degenerated into wild fanaticism, the sacred spark was kept in safe hands by such men as Eckhart (died 1329), Tauler (died 1361), and the author of the German Theology. Men like these are sure to conquer; they are persecuted justly or unjustly; they suffer and die, and all they thought and said and did seems for ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... elements by night, are all sandwiched with numerous mirthful incidents. Soldiers, above all people, have an eye for the ridiculous, and are ever ready to make merry and laugh over the most trivial matter. Even the horrors of battle are unable to quench the spark of gaiety ever present in the make-up of ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... spark of vitality still left within him, looked steadily up and winked at de Spain. McAlpin, outraged, stamped out of the room. Steadying the dipper in both hands, Bull with an effort passed one hand at the final moment preliminarily over his mouth, and, raising the bowl, ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... held a butter pick. The doors leading through pantry into the kitchen were open and all along the floor I could see here and there a little golden ball that had evidently rolled off the plate. I could also see the range—that looked black and cold and without one spark of fire! ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... Newton sprung immediately from those of Kepler, and completed the great chain of truths which constitute the laws of the planetary system. The eccentricity and boldness of Kepler's powers form a striking contrast with the calm intellect and the enduring patience of Newton. The bright spark which the genius of the one elicited, was fostered by the sagacity of the other into a ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... one word "SYMPATHY." The General was speaking of leadership in relation to warfare; and by "Sympathy" he meant swift insight into the minds of others; and, with this insight, the power to arouse and fan into a flame the spark of chivalry and true nobility in each. The career of the Nawab Nizamat Jung has not been set in the world of action,—he is at present a Judge of the High Court in Hyderabad,—but nevertheless this definition of sympathy is not irrelevant, for the Nawab's ...
— Sonnets • Nizam-ud-din-Ahmad, (Nawab Nizamat Jung Bahadur)
... it off. She Yueeh, on inspection, found indeed a hole burnt in it of the size of a finger. "This," she said, "must have been done by some spark from the hand-stove. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... carving—jutting heads of kings and priests leaning forward as if to breathe in the magnetism of that immense living silence generated by forty men at their prayers. At the further end there shone out faintly the glory of the High Altar, almost luminous, it seemed, in the light of the single red spark that hung before it. Frank could discern presently the gilded figures that stood among the candlesticks behind, the throne and crucifix, the mysterious veiling curtains of the Tabernacle.... Finally, in the midst of the ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... the electric spark is not more subtle, nor is it scarcely more brilliant, than was the gleam that shot into the dark eye of the Indian. The organ seemed to emit rays coruscant as the glance of the serpent. His form appeared to swell with the inward strivings of the spirit, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... The spark which kindled the conflagration—but little more than a month after Lincoln's inauguration, April 12, 1861—was the firing on Fort Sumter, and its surrender to the South Carolinians. This aroused both the indignation and the military enthusiasm of the North, which in a single day was, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... coarse rug. Here lay the founder and possessor of the Golden House, too happy if he might hope for the peaceable possession even of this miserable crypt. But that, he knew too well, was impossible. A rival pretender to the empire was like the plague of fire—as dangerous in the shape of a single spark left unextinguished, as in that of a prosperous conflagration. But a few brief sands yet remained to run in the emperor's hour-glass; much variety of degradation or suffering seemed scarcely within the possibilities of his situation, or within the compass ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... a moment think that his words would so touch his uncle. He had spoken from his own stand-point, with thought of himself alone, and would have been amazed indeed could he have known what a steady flame within his uncle's mind his little spark had kindled. ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... torrent of this battery of malevolence stung to life within me a spark of nobleness, and I said aloud, "Well, if he is a better ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... nothing of a smirk into it, nothing the least bit superior.... Was this the explanation of the little girl's odd yearning toward pens and desks? How came she to revere the Bard, where even to hear his name? Was it possible that Mrs. Garland's changeling had a spark in her, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... water, and then formed into balls of the size of hens eggs, and thoroughly dried, might be used with great advantage instead of wood for kindling fires. These kindling balls may be made so inflammable as to take fire in an instant and with the smallest spark, by dipping them in a strong solution of nitre and then drying them again, and they would neither be expensive nor liable to be spoiled by long keeping. Perhaps a quantity of pure charcoal reduced to a very fine powder ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... that struck you was his extreme readiness in conversation. He gave the electric spark whenever you put your knuckle to him. The first time I called on him in his house at Putney, I found him sipping claret. We talked of a certain dull fellow whose wealth made him prominent at that time. "Yes," said Jerrold, drawing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... bells, While muleteers' shrill, angry cries From the dim road before you rise; And such were group'd in circles round Playing at monte on the ground; Each swarthy face that met my eye To thought of honesty gave lie. In each fierce orb there was a spark That few would care to see by dark— And many a sash I saw gleam thro' The keen cuchillo into view. Within; the place was rude enough— The walls of clay—in color buff— A pictur'd saint—a cross or so— A hammock swinging to and fro— A gittern by the window laid Whereon ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... eyes I shall be guilty of breaking some one of the ten commandments—I don't know which—why, then, hands off at once. That's fair, and will prove to you that, although not a parson like yourself, there is still a spark of honor, if not of goodness, ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... not Fate made men mad, would now be ruling a lordly household, even wearing the peacock feather and embroidered jacket that were his by right of the Dragon's blood, that blood now hidden under the sun-browned skin of a river coolie. Kan Wong stuffed fine-cut into his brass-bowled pipe and struck a spark from his tinder box. Through his wide nostrils twin streamers of smoke writhed out, twisting fantastically together and mixing slowly with the rising river mist. His pipe became a wand of dreams summoning the genii of glorious memory. The blood of the Dragon in his veins quickened ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... disk of silver in the western sky. Now a fervid light touched the dead top of the hemlock, and creeping downward bathed the mossy beard of the patriarchal cedar, unstirred in the breathless air; now a fiercer spark beamed from the east; and now, half risen on the sight, a dome of crimson fire, the sun blazed with floods of radiance across ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... 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, ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... on their afflictions. Sidewalk venders cluster about you. And if you are smoking the spark of your cigar inevitably draws a full delegation of those moldy old whiskerados who follow the profession of collecting butts and quids. They hover about you, watchful as chicken hawks; and their bleary eyes envy ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... they planned. The snake took the fire and hid a little spark of it in every buckeye tree. And there the Indians found it when they needed it. For rubbing a piece of cedar and buckeye together, they very quickly make the spark, ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... hate money-grubbers! They haven't a spark of romance in them. Boyd, you'd be like all the rest in a little while. You ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... were an agreeable gentleman, with hazel eyes, named Benvolio, and a gallant young fellow called Romeo, whom Mercutio bantered pitilessly and loved heartily. This Romeo, who belonged to one of the first families, was a very susceptible spark, which the slightest breath of a pretty woman was sufficient to blow into flame. To change the metaphor, he fell from one love affair into another as easily and logically as a ripe pomegranate drops from a bough. ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... in Jim's condition of mind this yielding of her lips and her whispers of love had really been a mistake. Not only had she made the situation perilously sweet for herself, but in Jim's case she had added the spark to the powder. She realized her blunder when it was too late. And the fact that she did not regret it very much, and seemed to have lost herself in a defiant, reckless spell, warned her again that she, too, was answering to the wildness ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... soon. Later—later, perhaps, when I was calmer, when some of the injury had been repaired, when a spark of hope had been rekindled; then, if he asked, but now—The days before me stretched such a bitter, hopeless blank! And how did I know that his act could ever be nullified! It might so turn out that now I never should accomplish ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... tell you what, young gentlemen," he remarked, when, ascending, he showed his honest face again, thrust in a log of wood, and exhibited an armful of shavings, "I'm agreeable to anything but gunpowder, or that there spark as comes cantering out o' your engine with a crack. No, Miss Gladys, ex-cuse me, I don't give up these here shavings till I know ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... 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 ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the great danger that continually threatened us was fire. All the buildings were constructed of extremely inflammable material. There was no fire apparatus, save buckets. The canvas of the tents became so dry in the sun that a spark caused a conflagration. On one occasion an officer's tent caught fire at night. A burst of flames enveloped the canvas in a moment and the occupants, who were asleep, barely escaped. It was impossible to remove the articles inside the tent. ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne |
