"Torch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... went in stood in silence waiting for a sign. Then, by the light of a torch, Fleetfoot chiseled a reindeer on the hard rock, and Greybeard, holding a ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... covered the front of the French army, he dismounted and returned to his bivouac, from one watch-fire to another, on foot. On his way he stumbled over the stump of a tree and fell to the ground. Then a grenadier took some straw, rolled it up to something like a torch, and lit it; other soldiers did the same thing; the camp was illuminated, and the face of the great conqueror was plainly to be seen. The next day was December 2, the anniversary of his coronation. "Emperor," shouted an old soldier, "I promise you in the ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... body alone, but that our spirit also might sleep a deep, tranquil sleep, until the great day of awakening. 'Tis a dreary mood—like clouded moonlight on troubled, turbid waters! And we could roast Love with his own torch—and we see every thing through crape spectacles, and have no clarity for the softer, more refined emotions and contemplations; so we plunge our head and ears into a chaos of most musty, dusty metaphysics; and by the time we are nearly choked with them, and have reasoned ourselves, first, out ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... Poker, or Torch Lily).—Requires a rich, sandy soil, and to be protected in a frame from wet and frost in the winter. Increase by division or by suckers from the root. The flower spikes grow 18 to 27 in. long. The crown of the plant ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... truth of her indignant accusations. These devotees, these fanatics, were immolating a beautiful young life on the altar of their own selfish faith. The virgin was already bound to the rock, and the priest, torch in hand, was about to ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... forwarded acquainting the doctor of his approaching visit, wishing it to be perfectly private, but not alluding to its object, and naming a day, a week later than the one on which he arrived. This plan was altered on perceiving the torch of life more rapidly approaching the socket than he had at first supposed. His unexpected appearance and reception are known. Denbigh's death and the departure of his son followed; Francis having been Pendennyss's companion to the tomb of his ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... nor a torch, nor a star-beam in the whole bivouac to guide the feet of Adjutant Wallis in his pilgrimage after whisky. The orders from brigade headquarters had been strict against illuminations, for the Confederates were near at hand in ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... flare of a gasoline torch, he came face to face with Louis Akers. The two men confronted each other, silently, with hostility. Neither moved aside, but it was Akers who ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... them in fetters which no earthly power could undo, and carried them away, helpless as infants in their nurses' arms, to the magic castle. There, in the centre of an iron hall of vast dimensions and sombre hue—the only light emitted from a lurid torch burning at the further end—on iron beds, of which a countless number appeared ranged around, lay writhing the victims which the fell Magician's cruelty had left bound. There, for many years, till the full term of seven ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... The torch was applied to the firewood and tar-barrels heaped around them. As the flame sprang up, the six martyrs clapped their hands: and from the bystanders a ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... contrast, the darkness seemed to have the distinctness of material substances, as if the fire were imbedded in a setting of ebony. This appearance, however, gradually wore off, and the rays from the torch struck out, and enlightened the atmosphere in front of it, leaving the background in a darkness that ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the laird was reading the lines, and persuading himself he understood them. With sudden resolve, the paper held torch-like in front of him, he strode into the next room, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... gas-bracket, but we did not meddle with that. Raffles went armed these nights with a better light than gas; if it were not immoral, I might recommend a dark-lantern which was more or less his patent. It was that handy invention, the electric torch, fitted by Raffles with a dark hood to fulfil the functions of a slide. I had held it through the bars while he undid the screws, and now he held it to the keyhole, in which a key was ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... by the tracks of his disciplined slaves, he clears himself by surrendering the finest parts of Germany (with a handsome cut of his own territories) to the offended majesty of the regicides of France. Can I resist this? Am I responsible for it, if, with a torch in his hand, and a rope about his neck, he makes amende honorable to the sans-culotterie of the Republic one and indivisible? In that humiliating attitude, in spite of my protests, he may supplicate pardon for his menacing proclamations, and, as an expiation to those whom he failed to terrify ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... not wish to dive further into Lorand's secret. He suspected the young fellow was choosing between two girls, and did not imagine that he had already chosen a third:—the one with the down-turned torch.[69] ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... silence existed. Far in the distance a light was seen to shine, either the glitter of a woodman's fire, or the midnight torch kindled by some invalid. This light, fixed like a point in space, was but another evidence of the isolation of man in ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... except in early youth, and out of which arises a chase by the person touched, in order to catch him by whom he has been touched. One evening, when the Court was at Nancy, and just as everybody was going to bed, M. de Longueville spoke a few words in private to two of his torch-bearers, and then touching the Duc de Coislin, said he had given him the last touch, and scampered away, the Duke hotly pursuing him. Once a little in advance, M. de Longueville hid himself in a doorway, allowed M. de Coislin to pass on, and then went quietly home to bed. Meanwhile the Duke, lighted ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... casement was thrown open forty paces or so away, and a hand, bearing a torch, thrust out of it. By its light they saw the pale face of a lady speeding towards them, and ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... beam of the searchlight, though ordinarily used with the shutter like the heliograph, may be used for long-distance signaling, when no shutter is suitable or available, in a similar manner to the flag or torch, the first position being a vertical one. A movement of the beam 90 deg. to the right of the sender indicates a dot, a similar movement to the left indicates a dash; the beam ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... salient either in feature or in form. Their eyes are inexpressive, their lips pale, and every feature denotes a want of energy, weakness, and something like suffering. One might almost say they seemed to be incomplete, and that the torch of their lives had ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... have done more than recall an agent. Had they confined themselves to depriving him of his appointment, James Monroe would have kept silence; but he has been accused of lighting the torch of discord in both Republics. The refutation of this absurd and infamous reproach is the chief object of his correspondence. If he did not immediately complain of these slanders in his letters of the 6th and 8th [July], ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... some who could not pay the full cost he remitted part of the amount. When we got the book we lost no time in reading it. In the fields in summer, under the shade of trees, we sat and read it, where no one could watch us; in our huts, by torch-light in winter, we eagerly studied the book. We knew that we had got the word of God, that we possessed a jewel of rich price; we were afraid that thieves might come and steal it from us. We read and read on; most eagerly we met together ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... discords of this nineteenth century; the brutal rich, the brutalized poor; the stupid good, the pedantic, the foolish,—all, all that made the waking world of his experience! It was like the smoke wreath above the lamping torch of the blast-furnace. It was the screen upon which glowed the rosy colors of the essential fire. The fire,—that was the one great thing,—the fire was ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... height By the fire-god sent, it came; From watch to watch it leaped, that light; As a rider rode the flame! It shot through the startled sky, And the torch of that blazing glory Old Lemnos caught on high On its holy promontory, And sent it on, the jocund sign, To Athos, mount of Jove divine. Wildly the while it rose from the isle, So that the might of the journeying light Skimmed over the back of the gleaming brine! Farther and faster ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... lightning of his soul was bared, Long smouldering till the Mesolonghi torch. [Footnote: ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... the perfect standard of right. But his pleasure in this case was invariably mixed with a slight feeling of self-reproach; and it was this hardly recognised stir of his better nature, this clearing of his mental eyesight under the light of a bright example, that made him call the little torch-bearer his good angel. If this were truth, this purity, uprightness, and singleness of mind, as conscience said it was, where was he? how far wandering from ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... angel, forgive me my next fit of sadness in consideration of this cheerful mood; it has come as a beam of light from the torch of Hope, which has hitherto seemed to me ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... A zealous young preacher, Henry Laget, had before then paid them a few visits, and been warmly welcomed; and when, in his last address, he told them they would see his face no more, "it seemed," said a peasant who related the incident to Neff, "as if a gust of wind had extinguished the torch which was to light us in our passage by night across the precipice." And even Neff's ministry, as we have above seen, only lasted for the short space ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... thou the blame must bear, cursed dallier, If not, forsooth, a party to the deed! But no, thou weepst, and tears no lies can tell. Behold, I also weep, I weep for rage, From hot and unslaked passion for revenge! Come, here's a ring to set your torch within. Go to the town, assemble all the folk, And bid them straight unto this castle come With arms, as chance may put within their reach; And I, when morning comes, with written word, Will bring the people here, at my command— Children of toil and hard endeavor, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... here; that is, opened his Corn-Granaries, on charitable terms, and took all manner of measures, here as in other places, for relief of the scarcity there was. Of the illuminations, never so grand, the reader shall hear nothing. A "Torch-Procession of the Students" turned out a pretty thing:—Students marching with torches, with fine wind-music, regulated enthusiasm, fine succinct address to his Majesty; and all the world escorting, with its "Live Forever!" Friedrich gave the Students "a TRINK-GELAG (Banquet of Liquors)," ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the vinegar of her disposition, to soften the stony heart of old Nimrod: so, however, it is, and it has astonished every one. With all her ladyship's love of match-making, this last fume of Hymen's torch has been too much for her. She has endeavoured to reason with Mrs. Hannah, but all in vain; her mind was made up, and she grew tart on the least contradiction. Lady Lillycraft applied to the Squire for his interference. ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... adjoining towns, and when Mr. Lincoln was made candidate for President, every city, town, and nearly every village in the North, within a brief space, had its organized Wide-Awake club, with their half-military uniform and drill; and these clubs were often, later in the campaign, gathered into imposing torch-light processions, miles in length, on occasions of important party meetings and speech-making. It was the revived spirit of the Harrison campaign of twenty years before; but now, shorn of its fun and frolic, it was strengthened by ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... from a passer-by, and stuck it in his whip-barrel. As they reached the busier thoroughfares he got down from his box, took the torch in one hand and the reins in the other, and walked at his ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... death it seemed to sail this engine of destruction past the outlying reefs into the midst of the Tripolitan gunboats; but every precaution was taken to provide for the escape of the crew. Two rowboats were taken along and in these frail craft, they believed, they could embark, when once the torch had been applied, and in the ensuing ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... was blocked with bales of merchandise: but the dancer bounded over them like a deer; while Philammon, half stunned by his fall, and blinded by his dripping locks, stumbled, fell, and lay, unable to rise. She held on for a few yards towards the torch-lit mob, which was surging and roaring in the main street above, then turned suddenly into a side alley, and vanished; while Philammon lay groaning upon the pavement, without a purpose or a ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... be found here. Of the literary execution of the book we cannot speak highly. The style is of the worst. If a meeting-house is spoken of, it is a "church edifice"; if the Indians set a house on fire, they "apply the torch"; if a man takes to drink, he is seduced by "the intoxicating cup"; even mountains are "located." On page 68, we read that "the pent-up rage that had long heaved the savage bosom, and which had only been smouldering under ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... virgin forge they builded By the city, and kindled it With flame from a shattered palm-tree, Which the lightning's torch had lit,— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... toward the fort; and in the torch-light at the gate encountered Boyd, who said to ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... kept walking up and down the quarter-deck, with a lighted long-nine cigar in his mouth by way of a torch; and spoke but few words to us the whole watch. He must have had a good deal of thinking to attend to, which hi truth is the case with most seamen the first night out of port, especially when they have thrown away their ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... strength, and the white moon only occasionally glared out from the masses of white and gray cloud that rushed like flying armies across the sky, and her fitful light shone dimly, as though she were a spectral torch glimmering through a forest of shadow. Now and again bursts of music, or the blare of discordant trumpets, reached our ears from the more distant thoroughfares where the people were still celebrating the feast of Giovedi Grasso, or the tinkle of passing mandolins chimed ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... such arguments among these credulous people, who saw not the wily traitor behind the rich, eloquent voice, quivering with indignation, was similar to that which would follow were you to fling a flaming torch upon the prairie in midsummer after a month of drought. Then the cunning deceiver went secretly to several of the leading half-breeds in Red River, and whispered certain ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... and was certainly the soul and the oracle of the small socialistic clubs in the neighborhood. People looked aghast when he began to talk of the reforms which he thought necessary; and they trembled when he proclaimed his convictions, that "the sword and the torch ought to search the ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... and bar were indispensable to the security of a dwelling. The summons was answered by a bond-servant, a coarse-clad and dull-featured piece of humanity, who, after ascertaining that his master was the applicant, undid the door and held a flaring pine-knot torch to light him in. Farther back in the passageway the red blaze discovered a matronly woman, but no little crowd of children came bounding forth to ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... very dark night, about nine o'clock, and deserted seeming. He was struck by the strange, deserted feeling of the city's atmosphere. Yet he noticed before him, at the foot of the statue, three men, one with a torch: a long torch with naked flames. The men were stooping over something dark, the man with the torch bending forward too. It was a dark, weird little group, like Mediaeval Florence. Aaron lingered on his doorstep, watching. ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... of the torch, lighting up the interior of the block-house, showed me the worst of my apprehensions realised. The pirates were in possession of the house and stores: there was the cask of cognac, there were the pork and bread, as before; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... marvellous framework of citizenship, manners, and laws, that laid assured foundations for a still higher civilisation that was to come after. He will learn how when the Roman Empire declined, then at Damascus and Bagdad and Seville the Mahometan conquerors took up the torch of science and learning, and handed it on to western Europe when the new generations were ready. He will learn how in the meantime, during ages which we both wrongly and ungratefully call dark, from Rome again, that other great organisation, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 1: On Popular Culture • John Morley
... were no shutters or blinds to the upstairs windows, and we dared not have any light—even a candle—there, as it would have brought down the German fire on us at once. So those poor men had to lie up there in the pitch dark, and one of us went round from time to time with a little electric torch. Downstairs we managed to darken the windows, but the dressings and operations had all to be done ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... of the besiegers were directed against the gates, which they endeavored to break open with axes, or to set on fire by an application of the torch. From this latter circumstance we may gather that the gates were ordinarily of wood, not, like those of Babylon and Veii, of brass. In the hot climate of Southern Asia wood becomes so dry by exposure to the sun that the most solid doors may readily ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... captive, and motioned the men to bring a burning stick from the fire. Several at once hastened to obey, tumbling over one another in their eagerness. One, more active than the rest, extricated himself, seized a flaming torch, and rushed toward the prisoner. He had almost reached him, and Reynolds felt that the moment of doom had arrived. But just at this critical instant a peculiar noise fell upon his ears, and he listened intently. Then his heart bounded ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... a zigzag course, as if a man were running among boulders with an unusual sort of torch; and as there was no answer King drew his pistol, took about thirty seconds' aim and fired. He fired straight ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... ingenious expedients. The "Florida" (built at Liverpool in 1861-1862) crossed the Atlantic, refitted at Mobile, escaped the blockaders, and fulfilled the instructions which, as her captain said, "left much to the discretion but more to the torch." She was captured by the U.S.S. "Wachusett" in the neutral harbour of Bahia (October 7, 1862). The most successful of the foreign-built cruisers was the famous "Alabama," commanded by Sommes and built at Liverpool. In the course of her career she burned or brought into ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... ordained to be "the clasp" of two covenants. In him Judaism reached its highest embodiment, and the Old Testament found its noblest exponent. It is significant, therefore, that through his lips the law and the prophets should announce their transitional purpose, and that he who caught up the torch of Hebrew prophecy with a grasp and spirit unrivalled by any before him, should have it in his power and in his heart to say: "The object of all prophecy, the purpose of the Mosaic law, the end of all sacrifices, the ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... with the Commandant during the next two hours I do not know. He may have prayed,—he is a praying man,—and there was need of prayer, for the torch was ready to burn millions of property, the knife whetted to take thousands of lives. At the end of the two hours, a stranger was ushered into the apartment where the Commandant was still pacing the floor. From the lips and pen of this stranger I have what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... torch be laid To my unshrinking limbs by some true hand, Athwart the orange-fragrant laughing land, Bring many a ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... they were pouring forth toward the horse tents, while the engineers were making their way along the torch-lit path to the ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... must know that, in the evening, I sometimes collect a few together, and try to get them to tell their stories. Little comes of it in general but interruptions. But, one night, a melancholy Bagman responded in good set terms, and all in a moment; one would have thought I had put a torch to a barrel of powder, he went off so ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... and left me at last all the unearned increment or fine psychological gain! I have hovered about two or three of your distinguished persons a bit longingly (in the past); but you open up the abysses, or such like, that I really missed, and the torch you play over them is often luridly illuminating. I find my experience, therefore, the experience of simply reading you (you having had all t'other) veritably romantic. But I want so to go on that I deplore your ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... said Juliet lightly. "But enough to realize that the torch of genius burns best in dark places. Perhaps Strange is right after all—from his own point of view at least. That ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... turned on his pocket electric torch, approached an immense pile of illustrated magazines stacked in a corner. He struck three blows on it, saying ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... all our joy, a sweet-faced child was born, More tender than the childhood of the morn. CHORUS:—Pan pipe to him, and bleats of lambs and sheep Let lullaby the pretty prince asleep! MIRT. And that his birth should be more singular, At noon of day was seen a silver star, Bright as the wise men's torch, which guided them To God's sweet babe, when born at Bethlehem; While golden angels, some have told to me, Sung out his birth with heav'nly minstrelsy. AMIN. O rare! But is't a trespass, if we three Should wend along his baby-ship to see? MIRT. Not so, not so. CHOR. But if it chance to prove At ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... Savoy, Piedmont, Italy, and other places; and every one said he had never seen any sight more captivating than this lovely lady moving with grace of motion and majestic mien, all agreeing that she had no need of the flaming torch which she held in her hand; for the flashing light from her brilliant eyes was sufficient to illuminate the set, and to pierce the dark ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Caletor son of Clytius in the chest with a spear as he was bringing fire towards the ship. He fell heavily to the ground and the torch dropped from his hand. When Hector saw his cousin fallen in front of the ship he shouted to the Trojans and Lycians saying, "Trojans, Lycians, and Dardanians good in close fight, bate not a jot, but rescue the son of Clytius lest the Achaeans strip ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... passionate France was fighting all Europe unaided and victorious. The spectacle had amazed the world. In no other spot had sympathy been more fiercely kindled than along that Western border where life was always tense with martial passion. It had passed from station to station, like a torch blazing in the darkness and with a two-forked fire—gratitude to France, hatred of England—hatred rankling in a people who had come out of the very heart of the English stock as you would hew the heart out of a tree. So that when, two years before this, Citizen Genet, the ambassador of ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... increasing torch of light The tireless hand of science holds abroad. And may its growing blaze shine on all hidden ways Till man beholds ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... some see in Darwinism the flambeau which now lights mankind to entirely new paths of truth, and also to spiritual and moral perfection, others see in it only an unproved hypothesis, threatening to become the torch which might change the noblest and greatest acquirements of the culture of past centuries into a heap of ashes; while some date from it a new period of culture, others see in it a deep descent of the present from the scientific, ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... from its mother's breast to the age of reason, the present type of education would be quite suitable, but its natural growth calls for quite a different training. The mind should be left undisturbed till its faculties have developed; for while it is blind it cannot see the torch you offer it, nor can it follow through the vast expanse of ideas a path so faintly traced by reason that the best eyes can scarcely ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... his father added. "For him, for his people, for all these who walk in darkness Abraham Lincoln died. The gleam of his torch shone far down their lands. His message brought them here. They have known him even as I, who walked with him in life, did not know him until to-day. And they are paying him. That dead boy is their offering to him, their message that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he let the fire take well hold upon the spear-tip before he withdrew it. Then he held it upright, burning like a torch. As he gazed at it raptly a scream from the girl aroused him. She had sprung to her feet and stood staring behind her, not knowing which way to run because of her fear of the fire. And there, not twenty paces from her, their ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... found their pleasure, for there, in the last line of Pixley's pirates, the very tail of the procession, danced Pietro Tobigli, waving his pink torch at her, proud, happy, triumphant, a true Republican, believing all company equal in the republic, and the rear rank as ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... is not in agitation; we fabricate them with such expedition, that we could employ a parliament of our own to pass them. But, to the honor of our ladies, not one of these acts is directed against them. Neither is there an instance upon record, that the torch of Hymen was ever extinguished by the breath of ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... the edges covered with high reeds, which extend for several hundred yards from the shore. This lake swarms with varieties of water-fowl, which can only be shot by wading and waiting concealed in the high cover of rushes and tamarisk, as they are exceedingly wary. Commander Hammond, of H.M.S. Torch, bagged thirty-five ducks to his own gun upon one occasion, by thus challenging the fever and remaining hip-deep in the muddy water for some hours. I did not feel disposed to risk the chances of ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... all except the helmet which he carried with him, and then, with his assistant, went out through the panel in the wall. Through the underground passage the two groped their way, lighted by an electric torch, until at last they came to the entrance hidden in the underbrush, near ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... the Frenchmen were as busy as bees. We could hear the crackle and snap of wood as they seemed to be tearing it out of the counting-house; and then it was evident what they had been doing, for a torch danced here and there, and stopped in one place and seemed to double in size, to quadruple, and at last there was a leaping flame running up and a pile ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... required for the batteries, under a non-commissioned officer also, and the whole under the direction of a superior officer of that arm, who now walked to and fro, conversing in a low voice with Major Blackwater. One gunner at each of these divisions of the artillery held in his hand a blazing torch, reflecting with picturesque yet gloomy effect the bright bayonets and equipment of the soldiers, and the anxious countenances of the women and invalids, who, bending eagerly through the windows of the surrounding barracks, appeared to await the issue of these preparations ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... offered a boundless field for the realization of such dreams, and the spice of adventure could be had for the seeking. Here was the forest primeval in its original grandeur. Here the Indian roamed undisputed master; not the tutored Huron of Voltaire's tale, but the savage of torch and tomahawk. The continent was as yet unexplored. In uncertainty as to motives for man's action the French magistrate always searches for the woman,—"cherchez la femme!" One single allusion in a letter written to Badollet, in 1783, shows that there was a woman in Gallatin's horoscope. Who she was, ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... took my condition as an evidence of guilt, and seizing a torch which hung in a metal torchere, rushed upon the terrace waving it to and fro like a fury. Though I lacked not the wit to perceive that this was a signal of some sort, yet remembering the Duke's orders by all means to secure the casket, I did not immediately address myself to flight, ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... holding the torch over her head. The beam showed her face, troubled and sympathetic, and at the sight all George's resentment left him. There were mysteries here beyond his unravelling, but of one thing he was certain: this girl was not to ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the top of the bank when something gave way, and the poor old Mail went back into the ditch again. I shall never forget the scene; there were about a dozen men from the powder-mills trying to render assistance, and, with their black faces, each bearing a torch in his hand, they presented a curious spectacle. This happened about thirty years ago. Posts and rails were erected at the spot after the accident. I passed the place last summer; they are still there, as well as the ...
— Hints on Driving • C. S. Ward
... generous, unselfish love, her passionate desire of elevating the soul of Sardanapalus, so as to justify her devotion to him, the earnest yet sweet severity that reigned over her gentlest qualities, showing her faithful and fearless, capable of sustaining with, a firm hand the torch that was to consume on the sacred pile (according to her religion) both Assyrian and Greek; all these combinations are the result of the purest sentiments, the noblest art. The last words of Myrrha on the funereal pyre are in good ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... "Alors, qui, m'appelle? Qu'est-ce qu'on a foutu ici." And the Black Holster, revolver in hand, flashed his torch into the inky stillness of the chamber. Behind him stood two plantons white with fear; their trembling hands clutching revolvers, the barrels of ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... usually found on plantations the Colonel used one of the slaves to act as foreman of the field hands. He was known to the other slaves as the "Nigger Driver" and it was he who awakened all every morning. It was so dark until torch lights had to be used to see by. Those women who had babies took them along to the field in a basket which they placed on their heads. All of the hands were given a certain amount of work to perform each day and if the work was not completed a whipping ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... great—no wonder if these things impressed him, and if gradually, as his way fell clearer before him, and the inner light began to shine more steadily, he came to believe that he had a special mission to carry the torch of the faith across the Sea of Darkness, and be himself the bearer of a truth that was to go through all the earth, and of words that were to travel to the ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... a young man and livin down in Louisiana below Farmerville ah went with a bunch of white fellows to dig fer buried gold. They didn't begin diggin until after dark. Six men were on guard. We dug by a light made by a big pine torch. Dug and dug and dug. Finally we struck hit. Got hit all uncovered and sure nuff there hit was. Jest then the torch blew out and we heard the quarest noises and ever' body run to camp. Hit jest poured down ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... from the front—on, on, on, in a strong struggling current of angry faces, with here and there a glaring torch to lighten them up, and show them out in all their wrath and passion. The houses on the opposite side of the ditch had been entered by the mob; sashes were thrown up, or torn bodily out; there were tiers and tiers ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... was witnessed the last transformation of the material, visible man called James Otis, the courageous herald who ran swinging a torch in the early dawn of ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... in giving, a gainer. When the old man came thus to pour out his wealth to the child, lady Margaret then first became aware what a depth both of religious knowledge and feeling there was in her father-in-law. Neither sir Toby Mathews, nor Dr. Bayly, who also visited her at times, ever, with the torch of their talk, lighted the lamps behind those great eyes, whose glass was growing dull with the vapours from the grave; but her grandfather's voice, the moment he began to speak to her of the good Jesu, brought her ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... miserable, whilst the nobles are extremely opulent and delight in luxury. They are wont to be carried on their silver beds, preceded by some twenty chargers caparisoned in gold, and followed by three hundred men on horseback and five hundred on foot, and by horn-men, ten torch-bearers, and ten musicians. ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... words, sometimes in an appendix, or a casual note. But history was ever written thus. Great victories are elaborately described; and all the pomp and circumstance of war is set down for our pleasure and instruction. But it is due to the grand solemn muse of history, who carries the torch of truth, that the other side, the horrors of war, should be as faithfully delineated. Wars will not cease until the lessons of their cruelty, their barbarity, and the dark trail of suffering they leave behind them are deeply impressed upon the mind. It is our painful task to ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... Like cause of doubt, distrust, and grief, Will bind to us each Western Chief When the loud pipes my bridal tell, The Links of Forth shall hear the knell, The guards shall start in Stirling's porch; And when I light the nuptial torch, A thousand villages in flames Shall scare the slumbers of King James!— Nay, Ellen, blench not thus away, And, mother, cease these signs, I pray; I meant not all my heat might say.— Small need of inroad or of fight, When the sage Douglas may unite Each ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... visitor, "all the various ramifications of busted-up connubiality. You are a surgeon, we might saw, who extracts Cupid's darts when he shoots 'em into the wrong parties. You furnish patent, incandescent lights for premises where the torch of Hymen has burned so low you can't light a cigar at it. ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... the Kami** of the underworld, and she conjures him, while she is seeking that permission, not to attempt to look on her face. He, however, weary of waiting, breaks off one of the large teeth of the comb that holds his hair*** and, lighting it, uses it as a torch. He finds Izanami's body in a state of putrefaction, and amid the decaying remains eight Kami of thunder have been born and are dwelling. Izanagi, horrified, turns and flees, but Izanami, enraged that she has been "put to shame," sends the "hideous ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... Simon by such inventions got what interpretation he pleased, not only out of the writings of Moses, but also out of those of the (pagan) poets, by falsifying them. For he gives an allegorical interpretation of the wooden horse, and Helen with the torch, and a number of other things, which he metamorphoses and weaves into fictions ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... shuffle and scuffle of feet carrying a heavy load. Nearer and nearer they came, and one-eyed Hans stood aside. Six men came struggling through the doorway, carrying a litter, and on the litter lay the great Baron Conrad. The flaming torch thrust into the iron bracket against the wall flashed up with the draught of air from the open door, and the light fell upon the white face and the closed eyes, and showed upon his body armor a great red stain that was not ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... Should he, the head of the noblest house of the noble Sergian gens, should he abase himself and submit to scornful words even from a daughter of Torquatus? or, yet, should he, as a man, desire to bear the torch before an unwilling bride? These were simple questions, and there was but one word that could answer them; so Sergius struggled to put Marcia from his heart, until he flattered himself that the difficult task had ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... the King confiscated. Soon afterwards the King sent eight or ten of his principal gentlemen to sup at the sign of the Castle in the Rue de la Juiverie, and thither, under the false pretence of making him play the said farce, was summoned Messire Cruche, who came in the evening, by torch-light, and was constrained to play the farce by the said gentlemen. But thereupon, at the very beginning, he was stripped to his shirt, and wonderfully well whipped with straps until he was in a ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... find one that would open it; but all in vain. There was no bar across the shutter, and yet it was firmly closed. Then I looked around the room. There was a small statue carved in wood of a boy, with an extinguished torch in one hand, stretching out the other as if he were groping in the darkness. There was another carving in wood of a child lying asleep, and an angel bending over it binding a wreath of roses on its head. I looked at this angel, with her softly-folded wings and loving face, for ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... and shook our heads, for it was evident that nothing was to be made of Peterkin in the water. But we could not rest satisfied till we had seen more of this cave; so, after further consultation, Jack and I determined to try if we could take down a torch with us, and set fire to it in the cavern. This we found to be an undertaking of no small difficulty, but we accomplished it at last by the following means: First, we made a torch of a very inflammable nature out of the bark of a certain tree, which we cut into strips, ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... Mancha, otherwise called the Knight of the Rueful Countenance. When the adventure was over, Don Quixote questioned his squire on this name, and Sancho replied, "I have been staring upon you this pretty while by the light of that unlucky priest's torch, and may I never stir if ever I set eyes on a more dismal countenance ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... button, and a narrow ray of bright light was cast upon the floor. Dr Porhoet and Susie went in. Arthur carefully closed the door, and flashed the light of his torch all round them. They stood in a large hall, the floor of which was scattered with the skins of lions that Haddo on his celebrated expedition had killed in Africa. There were perhaps a dozen, and their number gave a wild, ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... world of mystery— His arrows, quiver, torch, and infancy: 'Tis not a trifling work to sound A sea of science so profound: And, hence, t' explain it all to-day Is not my aim; but, in my simple way, To show how that blind archer lad (And he a god!) came by ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... witching rhymes, And evil spirits; of the death-bed call Of him who robbed the widow, and devour'd The orphan's portion; of the unquiet souls Ris'n from the grave to ease the heavy guilt Of deeds in life concealed; of shapes that walk At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave The torch of hell around the murd'rer's bed. At every solemn pause the crowd recoil, Gazing each other speechless, and congeal'd With shiv'ring sighs; till, eager for th' event, Around the beldam all erect they hang, Each trembling ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... he spoke there was a tramp of feet and a flare of light in a side alley, and Peyrolles came towards them followed by half a dozen men, each of whom carried a torch in his left hand and a naked sword in his right. Peyrolles came towards ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... looks not upward, For the fierceness of the storm-winds Would destroy his sense of vision." Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel, Touched again his harp of joyance, Sang again his songs enchanting, To the pleasure of the evening, To the joy of morn arising. Spake the singer of Wainola: "Light for me a torch of pine-wood, For the darkness is appearing, That my playing may be joyous And my wisdom-songs find welcome." Then the ancient sage and singer, Wise and worthy Wainamoinen, Sweetly sang and played, and chanted, Through the long and dreary evening, Ending thus his incantation: ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... to our own day: from Peter to Gregory, from Gregory to Leo, and from Leo to Pius X., now gloriously reigning. We refer to the mystical (and one might almost say the miraculous) path trodden by the Popes, each Pontiff carrying in turn, and then handing on to his successor, the glorious torch of divine truth. Though clouds may gather and thunders may roll, and tempests may rage, and though the surrounding darkness may grow deeper and deeper, that supernatural light has never failed, nor grown dim, nor refused to shed its beams and to illuminate ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... Yet a Tiger came in the Night, and carried Deer and Hide and all away. But we missing it, concluded it was a Thief. We called up the People that lay by us, and told them what had happened. Who informed us that it was a Tiger, and with a Torch they went to see which way he had gone, and presently found some of it, which he let drop by the way. When it was day we went further, and pickt up more which was scattered, till we came to the Hide it ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... of January, the birthday of the King of the Two Sicilies, another insurrection broke out in Sicily; this time it was serious indeed. The City of the Vespers lit the torch which ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... The more torch-light one flings into the immense cavern which we are now trying to illuminate, the more profound it appears. It is a bottomless abyss. It appears to us that our task will be accomplished more ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... spake aged Latimer: I tarry by the stake, Not trusting in my own weak heart, But for the Saviour's sake. Why speak of life or death to me, Whose days are but a span? Our crown is yonder,—Ridley, see! Be strong and play the man! God helping, such a torch this day We'll light on English land, That Rome, with all her cardinals, Shall ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... which a woman replenished a cleft stick that was stuck into the fire-hole. I never saw such a strangely picturesque sight as that group of magnificent savages with the fitful firelight on their faces, and for adjuncts the flare of the torch, the strong lights, the blackness of the recesses of the room and of the roof, at one end of which the stars looked in, and the row of savage women in the background—eastern savagery and western civilisation met in this hut, savagery giving and civilisation receiving, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... Scottish nation, forgetful of their sacred vows, tamely submitted to the tyranny of the royal brothers, and Presbyterian ministers remained silent under an infamous indulgence, it devolved upon a few despised and persecuted covenanters,—the Society people,—to lift up and hold aloft the torch of freedom; and by their faithful testimonies and declarations uttered in fields and on scaffolds, and more still, by their blood freely shed to confirm their righteous cause, to sow broadcast the principles of genuine liberty. ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston
... worse perhaps for that; for it is remarkable how often the most exhaustive psychological analysis misses the real mystery of human character. Victor Hugo goes to work by illuminating flashes. He carries a flaring torch in his hand; and every now and then he plunges it into the caverns of the human heart, and one is conscious of vast stupendous Shadows, moving from ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... bending over a parchment; the best disciple of the philosopher was busy inscribing the deeds, words, and teachings that marked the end of the sage's life. A thought is never lost, and the truth discovered by a great intellect illumines the way for future generations like a torch in the dark. ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... memorable battle for the constitution of this country and the liberties of British subjects, of which modern times afford a record. What followed was mainly the consequence of his indefatigable constancy. He lighted the torch which kindled other minds, and it was handed on ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... appointed hour a few cannon balls were fired through the stone walls. This mode of destruction being slow and undramatic, and an attempt to blow it up with gunpowder having proved equally unsatisfactory, the torch was applied, and the structure given to the flames. [Footnote: Memorial, Senate Executive Document, 3d Session 34th Congress. Volume II, pp. 73-85.] Other squads had during the same time been sent to the several ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... be no need to guard oneself against such people. But unfortunately the Albanian is so constituted that if, in a hamlet of ten houses, five of them are amicably disposed towards you, there is a strong tendency among the others to be hostile. When these torch-bearers of an ancient tradition come under the rule of an organized State, then they gradually feel inclined to discard some of their customs which the State frowns upon. This can be seen in the changes among the people of Kossovo since ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... the object of this volume. I wish it had been in my power to write a more extended and complete exposition of the problem, but limitations of strength, due to advancing age, have made that hope impracticable. But as one man drops the torch, another hand will grasp it; and where now is darkness and secrecy, there will one ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... the northward far She followed the torch of Waziya's star; For leagues away o'er the prairies green, On the billowy vast, may a man be seen, When the sun is high and the stars are low; And the sable breast of the strutting crow Looms up like the form of the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... torch-filled courtyard rolled the Lady Barbara's coach. There was little need for the lady to tell her own story. Mistress Benton's shrieks were filling the air. The maids were squealing and praying Heaven to save them. Drennins and the shamed coach boys ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... going for a light," he said, and stepping hastily from the door he ran to the burning embers of the house, caught the end of a piece of pine scantling of which the other was in full blaze, and in a moment more entered the door of the shed, his novel torch throwing an odd, ghastly light upon all the objects within the little building. Then and not till then did the intruders become aware that they stood face to face with one who was dying, in the old man on the pallet,—and ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... that high-raised cross of Thine; wherefore then must my innocence be made to pay the debts of whom I do not even know? Nevertheless, Thy will be done." Meanwhile the men were carrying me away with a great lighted torch; and I thought that they were about to throw me down the oubliette of Sammabo. This was the name given to a fearful place which had swallowed many men alive; for when they are cast into it, the ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... shoulder-buckle of gold or silver or bronze, an armlet, a woman's earring, a purse, perhaps, with something in it. And the fitful night-breeze blew now and then and made them shade their lights with their dark hands. By the 'door of the dead' a torch was burning down in its socket, its glare falling upon a heap of armour, mostly somewhat battered, and all of it blood-stained; a score of black-browed smiths were picking it over and distributing ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... could hold, There were wolves in the woods Yet lambs in the fold, Nests in the top of the almond tree . . . The evergreen tree . . . and the mulberry tree . . . Life and hurry and joy forgotten, Years on years I but half-remember . . . Man is a torch, then ashes soon, May and June, then dead December, Dead December, then again June. Who shall end my dream's confusion? Life is a loom, weaving illusion . . . I remember, I remember There were ghostly veils ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... settlers. Very common in all the shallow bays in the summer time, where it may be taken by the seine. The natives detect it when its body is buried in the sand, by the glistening of its eyes, and spear it. When fishing with the torch, in the night time, the natives feel for this fish with their naked feet. Specimen caught by seine, August, 1841. This fish is ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... from shewing itself so freely. He felt the atmosphere of the little society, and acknowledged that it was "taming the savage beast." As for his intellect it took to blazing, as if, he said, without false modesty, a torch had been placed ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... frequently crossed, its territory was invaded, and its towns and villages were destroyed by the ruthless hand of a foe who entered the province not only with the sword of the soldier but even with the torch of the incendiary. The plan of operations at the outset of the campaign was to invade the province across the Niagara and Detroit Rivers, neither of which offered any real obstacles to the passage of ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... a notion of its strict ceremony and its wide dominion,—to show that even in the heart of Arraghael we were not beasts in that year when the red flash of the sword came on us and the persecution of the torch. The MacNicoll's Night in the Hie Street of MacCailein Mot's town was an adventure uncommon enough to be spoken of for years after, and otherwise (except for the little feuds between the Glens-men and the burghers without tartan), our country-side was as safe as the heart of France—safer even. ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... beautiful! But theirs was Love in which the Mind delights To lose itself, when the old world grows dull, And we are sick of its hack sounds and sights, Intrigues, adventures of the common school, Its petty passions, marriages, and flights, Where Hymen's torch but brands one strumpet more, Whose husband only knows ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron |
